In the 19th century Jews married Christians either for marriage or to protect their family from antisemitism or for economic reasons - to get a "good" job, enter college, etc.
A granduncle born in St. Petersburg c. 1880, married an Irish girl in Chicago around 1902. The family was devastated. But they were consoled by a little bundle of joy arriving about 6 or 7 months after the wedding. (This was found by researchers thru Jewishgen; the generations of my family coming after that date never knew about it.) Another example: *Oscar Venceslas De Lubicz-Milosz*, 1877–1939), French poet, mystical writer, and diplomat. Milosz, who was born in Chereya, Belorussia to a Lithuanian nobleman and the baptized daughter of a Warsaw Hebrew tIeacher....
In the introduction to his poetry in Lithuanian I read that his father a Polish cavalry officer in the Russian service, rode through a village, and his eyes met the eyes of a beautiful Jewish maiden. He swept her off her feet and rode off with her. Let us not forget eros as a motivation for intermarriage!
