Interfaith Marriage - Views of Zoroastrianism

Views of Zoroastrianism

The majority of traditional Zoroastrians and Parsis in India openly disapprove and discourage interfaith marriages. Adherents who go through an inter-faith marriage are often expelled from the religion. When an adherent marries their partner from another religion, they go through the risk of not being able to enter the Agyaris and Atash Behram's. In the past, their partner and children were totally forbidden from entering the following establishments, which is often still upheld today. A loophole was soon found to avoid such expulsion: offspring, especially born out of wedlock, from a Parsi man and a non-Parsi woman were often legitimatized through "adoption" by the Parsi father, and as such they were tacitly accepted into the religion. Inter-faith marriages may skew Zoroastrian demographics, considering the numbers of adherent are low already and inter-faith marriages may reduce their representation.

According to the Indian law, where most Parsis reside, only the father of the child must be a Zoroastrian for the child or children to be accepted into the faith. There have been great debates over this, as the religion promotes gender equality, which this man-made law violates. Zoroastrians in North America and Europe have denied accepting this rule and defy it. The children and a non-Zoroastrian father are accepted as Zoroastrians.