Male Quirks and Female Foibles

Marital Culture Shock: When North Meets South

Culture shock. This is something most people associate with moving to a foreign country where you don't know the language and are ignorant of the customs. But culture shock is not reserved for travelers, exchange students and missionaries.

Culture shock can be experienced by wandering into an ethnic neighborhood in a large city, trying to decipher the lyrics to gangster rap – if you're from the forty-plus crowd, or marrying into a family from a different geographical region of the United States.

Wayne and I can attest to that last statement. We've experienced culture shock first hand, although at the time we didn't know that was the appropriate title for our early marital woes.

What could be more natural? A young man and young woman meet at Louisiana College. Both grew up in staunch Southern Baptist families. Both are of strong Southern stock: his parents were from Prarieville, LA, and hers from Baton Rouge and Saline, LA, respectively. Both have something of a non-urban background.

So why any kind of shock? Certainly they have a great deal in common. The problem came because she is essentially a northern girl. That's right, northern, as in raised out of the South. She grew up in Alaska.

When north meets south, culture shock is inevitable. And believe it or not, one major area of difference is in communication patterns.

The first problem surfaced when he told me, "Andi bring me a cup of coffee."

Having been raised in the north, two things offended me: 1. Lack of courtesy; he should have said please, and 2. The expectation that I would be a good little Southern wife, anxious to wait on my husband hand and foot.

He didn't understand when I replied, admittedly rather nastily, "Get it yourself."

It took time and negotiation, but we eventually figured out that our cultures were at war and arrived at some compromises.

He claims southern English is a tonal language.

When I listened to missionaries who came to our church, I had heard about tonal languages and they were always Asian. Evidently a Chinese missionary once prayed "My pants which are out in the field," instead of "our Father which art in Heaven." By changing a few tones, he changed the meaning of several words.

Wayne, however, claimed southerners use tones when communicating. Evidently in places northerners use polite terms like please, southerners use tones to get across the meaning of please. Thus he claimed that when he said, "Andi, get me a cup of coffee," the tones implied please. Therefore, the sentence was a request and not a command.

I suggested he try using words and tones – just so I didn't infer a please when none was intended.

Another communication snafu we discovered is in the area I'll call confrontation, for want of a better term. Wayne says northerners are blunt; I say southerners are hypocrites. This tends to get a southerner's hackles up, so let me explain.

I have been in a relative's home listening to the lady of the house talk on the phone in honeyed tones to someone. I assumed the person on the other end of the line was a good friend.

Then the person hangs up, turns to me and says; "I don't know why that old bag calls me. I can't stand talking to her."

I say, "Then why don't you just tell her you don't want to talk to her?"

Answer, "Well, that would be rude."

To me that sounds like hypocrisy; to Wayne it is simply common courtesy.

When Wayne went to a small, rural, southern church as pastor, members of the congregation would come to Wayne and tell him I had been a bit abrupt in my speech to someone or that I hadn't waved and wanted to know if I was upset.

This really floored me. I couldn't understand why it was abrupt to come straight to the point and say what was on my mind. I also couldn't understand why they would talk to Wayne instead of coming straight to me.

This, Wayne told me, is southern diplomacy and I needed to learn a little. I don't know if I did, but strangely enough when we moved back to the north I was considered to be a "wise diplomat."

A friend once told me that her husband told her she was much too abrupt when bringing up considerations at church business meetings. He told her to watch me because I could bring up the same issue in a way that no one found offensive.

Go figure.

The point here is not that one culture is wrong and one is right. The point is that they are different, and they co-exist in this great land we call America. So, in our mobile society where south meets north, Hispanic meets African American, and evangelical meets atheist, be prepared. If you live very long, you will probably clash with another culture.

Knowing what's happening and seeking a dialogueof understanding can go a long way toward smoothing the confrontation.Provided, of course, you can figure out the rules of communication.