Single or Triple Melting-Pot? Intermarriage Trends in New Haven, 1870-1940

In New Haven a "triple-melting-pot" type of assimilation is occuring through intermarriage, with Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism serving as the three fundamental bulwarks. Catholics mostly marry other Catholics; Jews almost always choose Jewish mates; while Protestants prefer non-Catholic Gentiles. Our statistics show a marked adherence to these religious choices. Thus the different nationalities are merging, but within three religious compartments rather than indiscriminately: with Protestant British-Americans, Germans, and Scandinavians intermarrying mutually; Catholic Irish, Italians, and Poles forming a separate intermarrying group; and Jews remaining almost completely endogamous. A triple religious cleavage rather than a multilinear nationality cleavage, therefore, seems likely to characterize American society in the future. When mixed marriage does occur, it would appear that the relative strength of each religion can be gauged by the type of ceremony employed to sanction such unions. In New Haven, Catholics are the most successful in having their marriages to persons of other faiths performed by their own clergymen; Protestants are considerably less insistent on their own type of ceremony in mixed marriages; while Jews show the lowest frequency in this respect.