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Patrick F. Fagan

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Patrick F. Fagan, PhD, is Senior Fellow and Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI), which examines the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America’s social problems, as illustrated in the social science data. A native of Ireland, Dr. Fagan earned his Bachelor of Social Science degree with a double major in sociology and social administration, and a professional graduate degree in psychology (Dip. Psych.) as well as a PhD from University College Dublin.

In 1984, Dr. Fagan moved from the clinical world into the public policy arena, to work on family issues at the Free Congress Foundation. After that, he worked for Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, then was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush, before spending the next 13 years at the Heritage Foundation, where he was a senior fellow.

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The Gift That Christian Marriage is to Western Civilization

Dr. Pat Fagan, the Director of the Marriage And Religion Research Institute, explained how, from a sociological viewpoint, the married intact heterosexual family that worships God weekly has the most positive effect on children and society.

He encouraged the students to live chaste, virtuous, and loving lives. Like the early Christians who lived amongst dark pagan times, the witness of strong loving families will save our culture, he told them.

At the Family Research Council (FRC), Dr. Pat Fagan directs the work of the Marriage And Religion Research Institute (MARRI), a branch of the Council that focuses on studying the effects of the relationship between marriage and religion on society. Fagan has worked for the Free Congress Foundation, assisted Indiana Senator Dan Coats, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under George H. W. Bush, and was a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation for thirteen years before joining the FRC.

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Stand For The Family Conference

The family is the answer, patrick f. fagan, phd.

Patrick F. Fagan, PhD, is Senior Fellow and Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI), which examines the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America’s social problems, as illustrated in the social science data. A native of Ireland, Dr. Fagan earned his Bachelor of Social Science degree with a double major in sociology and social administration, and a professional graduate degree in psychology (Dip. Psych.) as well as a PhD from University College Dublin.

In 1984, Dr. Fagan moved from the clinical world into the public policy arena, to work on family issues at the Free Congress Foundation. After that, he worked for Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, then was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush, before spending the next 13 years at the Heritage Foundation, where he was a senior fellow.

INSTITUTE FELLOWS

Government and Philosophy

Family and Culture

Political Science

J. Budziszewski, Ph.D.  

Senior Fellow in Government and Philosophy

J. Budziszewski (Ph.D. Yale, 1981) is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. His main area of research is the natural moral law, in which he is best known for his work on moral self-deception – on what happens when we tell ourselves that we don't know what we really do know. Among his other research interests are moral character, family and sexuality, religion and public life, toleration and liberty, and the unraveling of our common culture.

Budziszewski tries to compose his scholarly work in such a way that it is accessible to general readers, and his work for general readers in such a way that it offers something to scholars. Representative of his books in the former category are Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law and Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Virtue Ethics (Cambridge), as well as The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction (ISI Books).

Representative of those in the latter category are What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide (Ignatius) and On the Meaning of Sex (ISI Books). Presently he is writing a book about happiness and ultimate purpose.

Pat Fagan, Ph.D.  

Senior Fellow in Family and Culture

Patrick Fagan is Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI) at the Catholic University of America. He has authored many synthesis papers on factors that affect adults and children: divorce, out of wedlock births, pornography, child abuse, religious practice and adoption. He has investigated the effects of levels of religious worship when combined with family structure and researched the demographics of family poverty.  Presently he is working on the father-son relationship in sexual formation of males and the effects of contraception. Dr. Fagan was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the Department of Health and Human Services. He was the first Fellow in Family and Culture Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Fagan received his initial training in clinical psychology in Ireland and then practiced in Canada. Later he earned his Ph.D. in the sociology of social policy from University College Dublin. He lives in Maryland with his wife Theresa. They have eight children and many grandchildren.  

Byron Johnson, Ph.D.  

Senior Fellow in Criminology and Sociology

Byron Johnson is Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University. He is the founding director of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR) as well as director of the Program on Prosocial Behavior, and previously directed research centers at Vanderbilt University and the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a leading authority on the scientific study of religion, the efficacy of faith-based organizations, and criminal justice.  Recent publications have examined the impact of faith-based programs on recidivism reduction and prisoner reentry. Professor Johnson recently completed a series of studies for the Department of Justice on the role of religion in prosocial youth behavior and has served as a member of the Coordinating Council for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Presidential Appointment).  He is currently working on a longitudinal study of court-referred adolescents and 12-Step recovery ( www.helpingotherslivesober.org ).

He has been project director/PI on many grants from private foundations as well as federal agencies including the Department of Justice, Department of Defense, U. S. Institute of Peace, Department of Labor, and the National Institutes of Health. His newest books are The Angola Prison Seminary: Effects of Faith-Based Ministry on Identity Transformation, Desistance, and Rehabilitation (Routledge, 2016) and The Quest for Purpose: The Collegiate Search for a Meaningful Life (SUNY Press, 2017). Johnson was the 2013 Lone Star Big Brother of the year for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Texas.

Robert Koons, Ph.D.  

Senior Fellow in Humanities

Robert Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.  Robert specializes in philosophical logic and in the application of logic to long-standing philosophical problems, including metaphysics, philosophy of mind and intentionality, semantics, political philosophy and metaethics, and philosophy of religion. His book  Paradoxes of Belief and Strategic Rationality  (Cambridge, 1992) received the Aarlt Prize from the Council of Graduate Schools in 1994. He is the author of Realism Regained (OUP, 2000) and the co-editor (with George Bealer) of T he Waning of Materialism (OUP, 2010), two books with Timothy Pickavance,  Metaphysics: The Fundamentals (Wiley-Blackwell 2015) and The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics (Wiley-Blackwell 2017). His forthcoming book is co-edited with William M. R. Simpson and Nicholas J is titled  Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (Routledge 2018).

Catherine Pakaluk, Ph.D. 

Senior Fellow in Economics

Catherine Ruth Pakaluk is a professor of economics in the Busch School of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America, and a faculty research fellow at the Stein Center for Social Research.  Her research is concerned broadly with the study of family, gender, and fertility.  Most recently, she has been working on theoretical frameworks for evaluating the effect of changes in contraceptive technology on sexual behavior and fertility.  She also studies the relationship between churches, schools, and families and is developing new metrics for measuring the value of a "good fit" between students and schools.  Professor Pakaluk received her doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 2010.  She lives in Maryland with her husband, Michael, and eight children.

Joseph Price, Ph.D. 

Joseph Price is an associate professor of economics at Brigham Young University and a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Institute for the Study of Labor, the Sutherland Institute, and the Wheatley Institution. He is the author of over 50 academic articles on topics including marriage, parental time investments in children, gender differences in competitive settings, racial discrimination, and using incentives to encourage positive behaviors in children. His research has been published in the  Quarterly Journal of Economics ,  Demography ,  Management Science , and the  Journal of Human Resources , and has been featured in the  New York Times ,  Washington Post , NPR, CNN, and on the Today Show. Joseph received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University in 2007.

Mark Regnerus, Ph.D. 

Senior Fellow in Sociology

Mark Regnerus is a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and a faculty associate at the university’s Population Research Center. Author of over 30 published articles and book chapters, his research is in the areas of sexual behavior, family, and religion. He's the author of four books:  Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying  (Oxford, 2011), which describes the norms, behaviors, and mating market realities facing young adults, and  Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers  (Oxford, 2007), which tells the story of how religion does—and does not—shape teenagers' sexual decision-making. His third book, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Monogamy, and Marriage (Oxford, 2017), chronicles the digital revolution as it affects sexual behavior.   His fourth book The Future of Christian Marriage  (Oxford) draws on in-depth interviews with nearly two hundred young-adult Christians from the United States, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Russia, Lebanon, and Nigeria, in order to understand the state of matrimony in global Christian circles today. His work has been widely reviewed, including in Slate, the Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The New Yorker, and his research and opinion pieces have been featured in numerous media outlets. His short article on the low price of sex among young adults was the ninth-most read article on Slate in 2011. More recently, he was the author of a 2012 study (and follow-up) appearing in Social Science Research on the comparative outcomes of young adults who grew up in different types of households and with different parental and household experiences.

James Stoner, Jr., Ph.D. 

Senior Fellow in Political Science

Professor James R. Stoner, Jr. is the Hermann Moyse, Jr., Professor and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute in the Department of Political Science at LSU. He is the author of  Common-Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism (Kansas, 2003) and  Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism (Kansas, 1992), as well as a number of articles and essays. In 2009 he was named a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey; he has co-edited three books published by Witherspoon, T he Thriving Society: On the Social Conditions of Human Flourishing (with Harold James, 2015), The Social Costs of Pornography: A Collection of Papers (with Donna M. Hughes, 2010), and R ethinking Business Management: Examining the Foundations of Business Education (with Samuel Gregg, 2008). He was the 2010 recipient of the Honors College Sternberg Professorship at LSU.

Dr. Stoner has taught at LSU since 1988, chaired the Department of Political Science from 2007 to 2013, and served as Acting Dean of the Honors College in fall 2010. He was a member of the National Council on the Humanities from 2002 to 2006. In 2002-03 he was a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, where he returned in the 2013-14 academic year as Garwood Visiting Professor in the fall and Visiting Fellow in the spring. He has teaching and research interests in political theory, English common law, and American constitutionalism.

Ashleen Bagnulo, Ph.D.

Fellow in Political Science

Ashleen Menchaca-Bagnulo (Notre Dame '13) is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Texas State University. She has held positions at Princeton University, the United States Naval Academy's Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership and Furman University. She studies the civic republic tradition and the topics of race, women and religion, and has published in the European Journal of Political Theory, The Journal of Bioethics in Law & Culture Quarterly, and Armed Forces & Society (forthcoming 2018). She has also contributed regularly to Public Discourse and has been featured in popular media forums such as America Magazine, NBC Latino and Sirius XM's America this Week. 

Dr. Menchaca-Bagnulo is the recipient of a 2018 College of Liberal Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching. She teaches courses in political theory and constitutional law and serves as a faculty sponsor Supporting Women in Political Science and St. Paul's Outreach. She is originally from the South Central Texas region and lives with her family in New Braunfels, Texas.

Matthew Breuninger, Psy.D.

Fellow in Psychology

Matthew Breuninger is an assistant professor of psychology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He received his Psy.D. in clinical psychology from Baylor University as well as an M.A. in Theology from Ave Maria University. His research interests lie generally in psychology of religion. In particular he is interested in how churches perceive and address mental illness, God attachment, religious and spiritual struggles, clinical disorders, and implicit and explicit attitudes toward God. His current research includes looking at the relationship between religious/spiritual struggles and well-being in adolescents, the effects of perceived parenting style on religious/spiritual struggles, and comparing the predictive validity of implicit and explicit attitudes toward God on various outcome variables. When not teaching or researching, he enjoys fishing and hiking in the mountains of Pennsylvania with his family. 

Melissa moschella, ph.d., fellow in philosophy, melissa moschella is assistant professor of philosophy at the catholic university of america, where her research and teaching focus on natural law, bioethics and the moral and political status of the family. she graduated magna cum laude from harvard college and received her ph.d. in political philosophy from princeton university. her book,  to whom do children belong parental rights, civic education and children’s autonomy  was published in 2016 by cambridge university press. dr. moschella speaks and writes on a variety of contemporary issues, such as brain death, end-of-life ethics, parental rights, marriage, gender, reproductive technologies, and conscience rights.  her articles have been published in scholarly journals as well as popular media outlets, including  bioethics ,  the journal of medical ethics , the journal of medicine and philosophy , theoretical medicine and bioethics , the american journal of jurisprudence ,  the new york times , usa today , the washington post ,  the new york daily news , and  the public discourse .  .

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Table of Contents

1.1 shaping citizens, 1.2 contributions of married couples, 1.3 retreat from marriage, 2. chastity impacts marriage, 3. religion impacts chastity, 4. marriage, religion, and chastity impact sexual enjoyment, marriage and religious faithfulness.

The well-being of the United States is strongly related to marriage , 1) which is a choice about how individuals channel their sexuality . The implications of sexual choices are apparent when comparing family structures across societal measures, such as education and employment , as well as personal measures, like sexual satisfaction . Frequency of religious worship is pivotal in shaping these sexual choices. 2) In all cases, federal government data show that the intact married family that worships God weekly produces the most profitable and sexually satisfied citizens.

Simply put:

• Marriage impacts the economy , 3)
• Chastity impacts marriage,
• And worship impacts chastity . 4)

Decisions about sexual conduct—and how this plays out in marriage and family life—shape or misshape the ability of American society to function in its major tasks.

1. Marriage Impacts the Economy

One significant way by which marriage impacts the economy is its influence on the future workforce—its children .

According to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 5) American children raised in intact, married families have higher GPA’s 6) than those born into non-intact families . These children are more likely to get further in their education, 7) and to perform more diligently in school. 8)

When religion is factored in, children perform even better. This is especially true for children raised in low-income communities . According to Dr. Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin, weekly religious worship delivers educational benefits that are equivalent to moving the poorer children into middle class neighborhoods. 9) Nothing in public policy yields returns like these in education.

Therefore, it is no surprise that children raised in intact married families that attend religious services weekly are most likely to receive A’s in school. 10)

Common sense and myriad social science studies indicate that the better an individual does in school, the more that individual will earn later when he/ she joins the workforce . 11)

In addition to forming productive workforce participants, married couples also play an important role in sustaining the economy . Controlling for all relevant factors, men’s productivity increases about 26 percent when they marry. 12) Similarly, the most productive segment of the workforce is married men 13) with three or more children.

Marriage is especially necessary to fund the government . 14) The below chart of preliminary, unpublished data by Dr. Henry Potrykus should catch the eye of every politician: Married couples contribute at least 20 percent more to the tax pool than do their non-married male and female counterparts, controlling for related factors.

Despite the inherent value in marriage, adults have steadily retreated from marriage over the last several decades (see red trendline in graph below). 15) This decline in marriages, combined with the impact of marriage on tax contributions, means that the government has lost significant revenues from marriageable adults that remain single.

The role of marriage in shaping personal and societal outcomes clarifies the plight of the Black Family. 16) Black males who forego marriage are less likely to hold a steady job , are more likely to engage in risky behavior , and are less likely to contribute society than Black males who do marry. The retreat from marriage across all four different levels of education (high school dropout; high school graduation; college education; and even professional graduate education) among black men has undermined many of the gains made by the civil rights movement under Dr. Martin Luther King.

Marriage trends are driven by sexual decisions —chastity and monogamy, or their opposite, polyamory. The below chart, perhaps one of the most important in the social sciences, informs all other data in research related to marriage and the family.

This chart shows the status of American marriages five years into the marriage. Among both men and women who have never had any sexual partner other than their spouse (ie. they were totally monogamous), 97 percent of women and 99 percent of men were still married. For women who had one extra sexual partner (for most, before marriage) only 64 percent were still married—a drop of 33 percent, which is twice the rate of men. For those women who had two sexual partners outside of marriage, only 55 percent were still married five years down the road.

Clearly, the more sexual partners an individual has, the less he/ she is capable to sustain marriage. This is especially true for women, who experience a steeper and more significant reduction in marital security with each additional non-marital or extra-marital partner.

Given the negative impact of divorce on income , productivity , and savings , 17) and especially on the education of children , 18) it is clear that chastity is the foundation of an industrious society and flourishing economy.

Chastity is best preserved by religious worship . As shown below, frequency of religious attendance is positively correlated with the percentage of individuals who had sexual intercourse with a “pick up” in the previous year. 19) Individuals who attended religious service weekly or more were far less likely to have had a pick-up sexual partner. More than seven times as many people who never attend religious worship had a one night stand than weekly church-goers.

Religious worship also protects American teenagers from initiating sexual intercourse at a young age. The more teens worship, the more likely they are to abstain from sex during their adolescent years. 20) At age 17, nineteen percent fewer youth who attend church weekly are having sexual intercourse than adolescent who never attend.

Age at first intercourse sets the foundation for a lifetime of sexual mores. According to the National Survey of Family Growth, the earlier an adolescent initiates intercourse, the more sexual partners the adolescent will have. Children who engage in sexual intercourse at age 12 have seven times more partners that young adults who initiate intercourse at ages 21-22.

This, in turn, impacts the proportion of out-of-wedlock births in an area. The same survey showed that girls who initiate sexual intercourse at age 12 have over three times the probability of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy as girls who first have intercourse at ages 21-22.

Religious worship also helps establish sexual control. Testosterone levels influence the age of first sexual intercourse for most boys; however, frequency of worship of God also significantly influences sexual initiation. 21) As shown below, religious practice lessens the influence of high testosterone and lack of worship unleashes the influence of high testosterone. Worship of God and sexual conduct work in tandem.

When marriage is factored in, the religious benefits are further intensified. As shown below, adolescents who were raised in intact married families that worshiped God weekly were almost six times as likely to have had only one sexual partner during their lifetime as those who were raised in a non-intact family that did not worship. 22)

The extent to which an individual has remained chaste—the number of sexual partners he/ she has had—sets the pattern for future sexual conduct.

These data taken together show that adolescents raised in intact married families that worship God weekly have the most sexually fulfilling lives. As shown below, 65 percent of adults who were raised in such families report that they are “very happily married”—the highest percent compared to those in non-intact families that did not worship, intact families that did not worship, and non-intact families that did worship. 23)

This helps explain one of the great counterfactuals of the sexual revolution: those in intact families that worship God weekly have the most frequent sexual relations.

Not only do people in intact marriages who attend religious services engage in frequent sexual relations, but they also enjoy the most gratifying sexual experiences . As shown below, this is the group most likely to feel satisfied, 24) loved, 25) wanted/ needed, 26) taken care of, 27) and thrilled/ excited 28) during intercourse.

Given that marriage impacts society, chastity impacts marriage, and religion impacts chastity, it is no surprise that the intact married family that worships God weekly produces the most numerous and significant benefits. A thriving society needs a culture of chastity—joyful chastity if it is to be a happy society, repressive chastity if it is to be a repressive society, and no chastity if it is to be a dysfunctional society. Religious faithfulness is the foundation of this all. Those who worship God frequently are more likely to lead chaste lives; those who lead chaste lives are more likely to have secure and sexually satisfying marriages; and stable marriages are more likely to shape a strong, flourishing nation.

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Support for LGBT Nondiscrimination, Marriage Equality Hits All-Time High

The study from the Public Religion Research Institute comes as the Senate wrestles with legislation that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

LGBT Support Hits All-Time High

Drew Angerer | Getty Images

Just 7% of Americans are completely against pro-LGBT policies, including antidiscrimination laws and same-sex marriage, according to a recent poll.

Support for anti-discrimination laws and marriage equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is at an all-time high, according to a report released early Tuesday by the Public Religion Research Institute. The survey of more than 10,000 Americans reveals unusual unity in a populace deeply divided along partisan lines and grappling with race and gender issues.

More than three-fourths of Americans overall, or 76%, and strong majorities of Americans in every subgroup – no matter what gender, religion, race, age or geographic location support anti-discrimination laws. Further, for the first time since PRRI began surveying the matter, a majority of Republicans endorse same-sex marriage, according to the group, which studies the intersection of culture, politics and religion.

"It really is impressive that we're seeing not just (overall) support but high support among groups where you wouldn't normally expect it," says Natalie Jackson, PRRI's director of research.

For example, 51% of Republicans now back same-sex marriage, up dramatically from 31% of GOPers who felt that way a decade ago in PRRI's surveys. Support for LGBT nondiscrimination laws are highest among liberals, Democrats and younger people, but the increase in support has come mainly from Americans of color and white mainline Protestants, the report found.

Three-fourths of white Catholics and 71% of Hispanic Catholics back same-sex marriage, the report found, although the church formally opposes such unions. White evangelical Protestants were the only religious group without majority support for same-sex marriage; 43% of that group back gay and lesbian marriage.

Photos You Should See - March 2021

Support for nondiscrimination laws for LGBT people was highest in the mid-Atlantic and Pacific states, where 79% of people back such rules. But even in the area with the lowest support for such protection – the Southeast states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi – 69% of those surveyed support such laws, PRRI found.

More than 6 out of 10 Americans, or 61%, oppose allowing small business to refuse products or services to gay or lesbian people if doing so violates the vendors' religious beliefs, while 33% believe businesses should be able to deny services on religious grounds.

And, in perhaps the most dramatic finding, the report revealed that just a small fraction of the American public – 7% – is completely against pro-LGBT policies, including antidiscrimination laws and same-sex marriage.

The study comes as the Senate wrestles with the Equality Act, legislation that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The policy would apply to employment, housing, credit, education, public space and services, federally funded programs and jury service. The act would also expand existing law defining public spaces to include retail stores, services such as banks and legal services, and transportation services.

Backing for LGBT nondiscrimination has previously gotten bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. But Republican opposition in the Senate threatens to halt the Equality Act just when backers can be assured that the current president, Joe Biden, would sign the bill.

Democrats hold 50 seats in the Senate and would likely need 10 GOP votes to stop a potential filibuster. So far, no Republican has committed to voting for the bill. Sen Susan Collins, Maine Republican, previously co-sponsored the Equality Act but now says she wants changes in it and may offer her own legislation.

Some Republican lawmakers say they worry the law will infringe on their constituents' religious freedom and beliefs.

"The language is rather significantly broad and would almost inevitably put this law in a position of occupying a more significant place with respect to religious institutions," Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, said during a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill.

Jackson notes that overwhelming support for LGBT protections doesn't necessarily translate into votes on Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers might get more from taking one side in the culture wars than they would get by voting for the bill.

"People will say, 'I'm in favor of same-sex marriage and nondiscrimination.' But when it comes to voting for their congressman, that's not something they're looking for," Jackson adds.

State law is widely variant in providing legal protections for LGBT people. The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT rights group, estimates that 165 million Americans in 27 states face legal discrimination in housing, employment and other arenas because their home states do not have nondiscrimination laws covering them.

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Religious Affiliation and Marital Satisfaction: Commonalities Among Christians, Muslims, and Atheists

Associated data.

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://figshare.com/s/d2bd33a9605a3a204881 .

Scientists have long been interested in the relationship between religion and numerous aspects of people’s lives, such as marriage. This is because religion may differently influence one’s level of happiness. Some studies have suggested that Christians have greater marital satisfaction, while others have found evidence that Muslims are more satisfied. Additionally, less-religious people have shown the least marital satisfaction. In the present study, we examined marital satisfaction among both sexes, and among Muslims, Christians, and atheists, using a large, cross-cultural sample from the dataset in Sorokowski et al. (2017) . Our results show that men have higher marital satisfaction ratings than women, and that levels of satisfaction do not differ notably among Muslims, Christians, and atheists. We discuss our findings in the context of previous research on the association between marriage and religion.

Introduction

Religion has been present nearly since the dawn of human history ( Dickson, 1992 ; Clottes, 2006 ). Nowadays, it continues to play a key role in most societies ( Tarakeshwar et al., 2003 ). Almost 82% of the world’s people affiliate themselves with a religion. By country, only 5% of Americans, 4% of South Africans, 1% of Brazilians, and 3% of Indians claim to be atheists ( Win-Gallup International Poll, 2012 ). It therefore seems viable that we should deepen our understanding on how religion influences our lives ( Miller and Thoresen, 2003 ; McCleary and Barro, 2006 ). As religion is strongly connected with a wide range of relationship-related values and norms ( Zarean and Barzegar, 2016 ), the link between religion and family life has been among the most widely discussed topics in the social sciences ( Thomas and Cornwall, 1990 ; Ammerman and Roof, 1995 ; Christiano, 2000 ). The present study aimed to investigate one of those aspects: the association between religion and marital satisfaction.

A large number of studies have addressed marriage in the context of religion (including topics such as marital stability: Heaton and Albrecht, 1991 ; Lehrer and Chiswick, 1993 ; Call and Heaton, 1997 ; Orathinkal and Vansteenwegen, 2006 ; Brown et al., 2008 ; Mahoney et al., 2008 ; Vaaler et al., 2009 ; marital problem solving: Hünler and Gençöz, 2005 ; marital fidelity: Dollahite and Lambert, 2007 ; and marital dependency: Wilson and Musick, 1996 ). Nevertheless, few data exist on how religious affiliation affects marital satisfaction; and even when studies have taken up this topic, they have had limitations. For example, they have mainly focused on various dimensions of religiosity (e.g., church attendance, religious homogamy, and theological conservatism), and not the specific religion ( Schumm et al., 1989 ; Shehan et al., 1990 ; Booth et al., 1995 ; Brandt, 2004 ; Gaunt, 2006 ; Vaaler et al., 2009 ; Wade and Wiloso, 2016 ); examined people of different religions, but without further comparing the effects of each religion on marital satisfaction ( Sullivan, 2001 ; Williams and Lawler, 2003 ; Olson et al., 2016 ); looked at members of one religion (Christian: Shehan et al., 1990 ; Anthony, 1993 ; Booth et al., 1995 ; Sullivan, 2001 ; Williams and Lawler, 2003 ; Asamarai et al., 2008 ; Lichter and Carmalt, 2009 ; Christian and Jewish: Heaton, 1984 (Muslim: Al-Othman, 2012 ; Fard et al., 2013 ; Al-Darmaki et al., 2016 ; Mormon: Schramm et al., 2012 ); been conducted in one country (United States: Brandt, 2004 ; Marks, 2005 ; Brown et al., 2008 ; Schramm et al., 2012 ; Israel: Gaunt, 2006 ; Iran: Fard et al., 2013 (United Arab Emirates: Al-Othman, 2012 ; Al-Darmaki et al., 2016 ; Ghana: Dabone, 2012 ); or included only low-income married couples ( Lichter and Carmalt, 2009 ).

Furthermore, results from those studies brought mixed results. Some research has suggested that religious couples are happier with their marriages than are non-religious couples ( Ortega et al., 1988 ; Anthony, 1993 ; Brandt, 2004 ; Mahoney et al., 2008 ; Schramm et al., 2012 ), with Christians showing greater happiness than Muslims ( Lev-Wiesel and Al-Krenawi, 1999 , but for contradictory results see Abu-Rayya, 2007 ), while other studies have provided evidence of a weak association between marital satisfaction and religion ( Booth et al., 1995 ; Sullivan, 2001 ; Gaunt, 2006 ; Orathinkal and Vansteenwegen, 2006 ; Al-Othman, 2012 ; Fard et al., 2013 ), and a few indicated there is no link ( Williams and Lawler, 2003 ; Luo and Klohnen, 2005 ; Dabone, 2012 ; Olson et al., 2016 ).

There is even less evidence of the relationship between atheism and marital satisfaction. Some studies have shown a positive association between religiosity and marital satisfaction ( Lichter and Carmalt, 2009 ; Wilcox and Wolfinger, 2008 ), or mental well-being ( Galen and Kloet, 2011 ), which would suggest atheists (at the low end of the religiosity continuum) may have lower indicators of marital happiness than religious adherents. Nevertheless, to date, researchers have not directly addressed the issue of atheists in the marriage context, as existing studies have generally focused on religious married couples ( Giblin, 1997 ; Fincham et al., 2011 ), thus excluding the relatively large number of atheists. These prevent drawing of certain conclusions about marital satisfaction among non-religious people.

In sum, no cross-cultural studies have compared marital satisfaction among people of various religious affiliations (or non-religious: atheists). One can only hypothesize why scientists are not willing to tackle this issue. One reason might be that such comparisons are often perceived as politically incorrect ( Raines, 1996 ). Nevertheless, comparisons within a single religion or culture do not permit generalization of the conclusions, as people of different religious affiliations might be subject to different, culture-specific pressures and situations ( Tarakeshwar et al., 2003 ). To fill this gap in knowledge, the present study aimed to analyze the relationship between religious affiliation and marital satisfaction, in a large, cross-cultural sample.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

We used data from the dataset published in Sorokowski et al. (2017) , a study conducted between July 2012 and December 2013. Participants, after providing informed consent, completed a written questionnaire (except in two countries where data were collected online), and were not compensated for their participation (except in one country where participants received 50 Hong Kong dollars). See Sorokowski et al. (2017) for more details regarding the participants in the dataset.

The present study’s main goal was to compare people from the world’s most common religions ( Grim et al., 2015 ). The Sorokowski et al. (2017) dataset included Protestants, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Evangelicals, Spiritualists, Orthodox, Hindus, and others not of the aforementioned religious affiliations. Despite this wide representation, we decided to only analyze answers provided by Christians, Muslims, and atheists, as these were the most highly represented religious and non-religious samples deriving from the different countries in the dataset (Christians from 27 countries; Muslims from 23 countries, and atheists from 27 countries; see Tables 1 , ​ ,2). 2 ). Thus, in contrast with studies of people from a single country (e.g., Brown et al., 2008 ; Vaaler et al., 2009 ), our study aimed to compare religious affiliation and marital satisfaction among various nationalities.

Characteristics of study population’s religious affiliation and sex distribution from each country.

Characteristics of studied Christians, Muslims, and atheists, and their marital satisfaction.

In total, analysis included answers of 5,195 participants [mean age: 41.35; standard deviation (SD): 11.54; range: 18–88 years], among whom 2,393 (46.06%) were men.

All questionnaires were translated into the participants’ local language (with the exception of English-speaking countries, where questionnaires were administered in their original wording), using back-translation ( Brislin, 1970 ). Participants were surveyed ( inter alia ) via two questionnaires that inquired on marital satisfaction. In the present study, one questionnaire, the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS) ( Nichols et al., 1983 ; Schumm et al., 1986 ), was included in the analysis. The KMSS is a well-established and commonly used tool for assessing satisfactory psychometric characteristics ( Schumm et al., 1986 ; Crane et al., 2000 ), and was successfully used in studies involving non-Western samples ( Shek and Tsang, 1993 ). Sorokowski et al. (2017) found the scale was culturally equivalent (Tucker’s phi coefficient from 0.92 to 1), and reliable (Cronbach’s alpha on the pooled data reached 0.94). Questions from the scale include: “How satisfied are you with your marriage?” and “How satisfied are you with your wife/husband as a spouse?” Participants answered each item on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (extremely dissatisfied) to 7 (extremely satisfied). In all subsequent analysis, as a measure of marital satisfaction we used mean scores of each participant’s KMSS answers.

Participants were asked directly about their religious affiliation. Certain variables that in previous studies have been shown to correlate with marital satisfaction—such as age, length of relationship, education, number of children, and material situation ( Bradbury et al., 2000 ; Twenge et al., 2003 ; Sorokowski et al., 2017 )—were also included in the analysis. Detailed information about the procedure for data collection can be found in Sorokowski et al. (2017) .

We conducted an analysis of covariance to determine the relation between religious affiliation and marital satisfaction. There was a non-significant effect of the former on the latter, after controlling for sex, age, length of marriage, number of children, education, and material situation [ F (2,5194) = 1.11, p = 0.33]. Analysis showed that some variables were significant covariates, including: age [ F (1,5194) = 6.99, p < 0.05]; material status [ F (1,5194) = 98.34, p < 0.001]; and sex [ F (1,5194) = 34.28, p < 0.001]. Overall, men (mean = 5.83, SD = 1.34) had higher marital satisfaction than women (mean = 5.59, SD = 1.48) (see Figure 1 ). Nevertheless, this effect was extremely weak ( Eta < 0.01).

Men’s and women’s marital satisfaction among the studied Christians, Muslims, and atheists.

The present study’s primary goal was to examine the association between religious affiliation and marital satisfaction, and the results showed that there was no relationship between the former and level of the latter—Christians and Muslims were found to be similarly satisfied with their marriages, as were atheists. Nevertheless, the present analysis provided support for a link between marital satisfaction and age (younger people showed higher marital happiness), material status (higher material status, higher marital satisfaction), or sex (men were happier in their marriages than women).

Previous findings have indicated Abrahamic religions (e.g., Christianity, Islam) share many similarities ( Agius and Chircop, 1998 ; Zarean and Barzegar, 2016 ) and promote formation of traditional family ties, such as marriage rather than cohabitation, and marital rather than non-marital births ( Dollahite and Lambert, 2007 ; Zarean and Barzegar, 2016 ). However, these religions have some substantive differences in beliefs and practices. For example, polygyny is not accepted in Christianity, whereas it is widely accepted in Islam, and such a family model may negatively influence marital life ( Al-Krenawi and Graham, 2006 ). Despite the discrepancies between those two religions, the present study found no differences between them as far as marital satisfaction, and this included people from different parts of the world.

Moreover, since the New York City terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Islam has been central in many debates, discussions, and publications ( Alghafli et al., 2014 ). Discussion on Islam frequently concerns familial issues, perceived by the Western media mostly in a negative light. Problematic issues include, for instance, gender roles and the treatment of women ( McDonald, 2006 ; Ridouani, 2011 ; Ennaji, 2016 ). Studies, however, do not support this unfavorable view of females’ situations: religious Muslims show increased marital satisfaction ( Abdel-Khalek, 2006 , 2010 ; Asamarai et al., 2008 ; Ahmadi and Hossein-Abadi, 2009 ; Zaheri et al., 2016 , but see also Abu-Rayya, 2007 ).

The present study’s results provide evidence that Christians and Muslims do not differ in their level of marital satisfaction. People from various countries identifying themselves as belonging to one of these two religions had similar level of marital happiness, which is consistent with previous findings. For instance, Dabone (2012) compared marital satisfaction among Muslim and Christian spouses, and found relative dissatisfaction, while the religious affiliation did not affect the satisfaction.

As scarce data exist on marital satisfaction among atheists, the present study’s second aim was to investigate whether atheists have similar marital satisfaction to marriages as do religious adherents. Considering positive correlations found between religiosity and marital satisfaction ( Marks, 2005 ), atheists may be expected to have significantly lower levels of both variables. A major drawback of previous related research is its predominant focus on comparisons between more-religious and less-religious people ( Fincham et al., 2011 ), excluding the relatively large group that atheists represent. Additionally, most studies have been conducted in the United States, where atheists are often negatively stereotyped ( Zuckerman, 2009 ). The present study results provide evidence that atheists are neither more nor less satisfied with their marriages than religious adherents, which suggests religion may not influence marital satisfaction.

There are a few possible explanations for observed similar marital satisfaction ratings across people of different religions. Overall, married couples constitute a lower percentage of people in a relationship ( Nock, 1995 ). Those who decide to get married may be particularly committed or well-suited to partnership, regardless of their religious affiliation. Entering a serious relationship, such as marriage, requires strong enthusiasm toward the partner ( Wang and Chang, 2002 ) and, thus, results in higher ratings of subjectively perceived relationship satisfaction. Another possible explanation may be that people generally consider marriage a long-lasting relationship ( Silliman and Schumm, 2004 ; Willoughby and Dworkin, 2009 ), and when they decide to get married, they rationalize and “cognitively close” their choice ( Webster and Kruglanski, 1994 ). Participants in the study population may have felt they had to be satisfied with their relationship, as they had invested so much energy into its development. Had they reported being unsatisfied, feeling an internal conflict may have surfaced (e.g., “Why am I even with him/her if it makes me unhappy?”). The need to explain the dissonance of staying in an unsuccessful relationship would be negatively perceived, and could yield unpleasant emotions, especially in Western, individualistic cultures, which value the pursuit of personal happiness at all costs ( Gilovich et al., 2015 ). Such emotion could also occur in Eastern, collectivistic cultures, which emphasize the importance of being unselfish, grateful, and appreciative of one’s partner ( Kagawa-Fox, 2010 ).

In general, participants were relatively satisfied with their marriages. Nonetheless, men’s marital satisfaction differed from women’s (independent of religious affiliation). Over 40 years ago, Bernard (1975) presented a provocative and controversial thesis asserting marriage is better for men than for women, and his statement has raised heated discussions. Most of the research has provided evidence for to support Bernard’s (1975) that thesis ( Fowers, 1991 ; Schumm et al., 1998 ), and this is also true in non-Western cultures ( Shek and Tsang, 1993 ; Asamarai et al., 2008 ). However, there was also one study which yielded unclear findings ( McNulty et al., 2008 ). Results of the present study – which is based on the analysis of a large, cross-cultural sample, confirm the differences among men’s and women’s marital satisfaction: husbands did indeed have higher marital satisfaction than wives. Nevertheless, the size effect of these sex differences was extremely small ( Eta < 0.01).

In conclusion, despite a large body of research on marital satisfaction ( Bradbury et al., 2000 ; Twenge et al., 2003 ; Hilpert et al., 2016 ), most studies have rarely controlled for participants’ religion. Even when they have done so, they have not explored the differences between people of various religious affiliations ( Sullivan, 2001 ; Williams and Lawler, 2003 ; Olson et al., 2016 ). Future research should therefore focus on people of different (1) religions (especially less-prevalent ones); and (2) cultures (as most studies up to date have been conducted on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic populations ( Henrich et al., 2010 ), and should take into consideration other factors that may influence marital satisfaction among people of different religious affiliations (e.g., number of children, education, country’s development), as this would provide further understanding on the interaction between religion and marital happiness, as well as culture.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed in conducting the statistical analysis and preparing the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank Adam Goulston, MS, ELS, from Edanz Group ( www.edanzediting.com/ac ) for editing the draft of this manuscript.

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Opinion Why religion is becoming an even stronger force within the Republican Party

Former president Donald Trump’s struggle to find a position on abortion that appeases religious activists in his party without offending more moderate and secular voters is perhaps the clearest example of one of the most important tensions in American politics today: Religion is declining in America overall but in some ways becoming an even more important force within the Republican Party . We have less religion but still very religiously influenced politics.

You’ve no doubt read articles over the past two decades about the declining numbers of Christian Americans and the growing contingent who have no religious affiliation. And that’s not just a story of Democrats and liberals leaving faith. The number of Republicans who attend church weekly and consider religion a core part of their lives is also shrinking .

Yet many policies enacted by local, state and federal Republican elected officials and conservative judges are straight from the religious right’s agenda: vouchers and other initiatives to make it easier for parents to send their children to religious schools ; limits on reproductive rights that ban abortion and could even threaten in vitro fertilization ; restrictions on gay and particularly transgender Americans ; provisions allowing religious Americans to cite their faith in declining to participate in various activities, such as getting vaccinated.

Louisiana’s House of Representatives last week passed a bill requiring the state’s public schools and universities to display the Ten Commandments . Trump is promising to create a federal task force to root out what he describes as “ anti-Christian bias ” in America. Some Republican operatives likely to play major roles in a second Trump term have openly stated that they believe government policies should be shaped in accordance with Christianity.

How are these trends — a secularizing America, a party increasingly tied to its religious wing — happening at once? In some ways, they are causal. Many Americans on the political left and center say they stopped identifying themselves as Christians in part because of the faith’s vocal conservative bloc, particularly its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. On the flip side, Robert P. Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (now known as PRRI), argues White Christians have become more radical in their policy goals and more deeply embedded in the Republican Party because of their alarm at how quickly America is becoming more racially diverse and secular.

But with a growing number of Republicans saying they aren’t Christian or religious, another explanation is important: internal party politics. Polls suggest there are many Republican voters who would prefer a GOP that wasn’t trying to make abortions impossible and ban books written by LGBTQ+ authors from public schools and libraries.

But those Republicans aren’t organized into well-funded activist groups working at the local, state and federal levels. And the portion of the party wary of the religious right overwhelmingly falls in line and backs GOP candidates in general elections, even if those candidates have adopted the religious right’s agenda.

In contrast, the party’s religious bloc defends its priorities fiercely — and in moral terms. Groups such as the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom are constantly pushing bills in state legislatures and filing lawsuits . They are creative and relentless in exploring methods to execute their agenda, such as their effort to get a future Republican president to invoke a once-obscure law from 1873 (the Comstock Act) to limit abortion.

Those on the religious right argue that abortion, same-sex marriage, people changing their gender identities and other actions condoned by liberals are violations of core religious tenets. So they aren’t willing to set aside those views just because they poll badly. It’s hard for nonreligious Republicans to win intraparty arguments when the religious bloc is speaking with such passion.

So while America and even the Republican electorate is significantly less religious than in Ronald Reagan’s or George W. Bush’s heyday, the GOP is still dominated by the same two groups that have controlled it for decades: wealthy individuals and businesses who donate millions to conservative organizations and Republican campaigns because they want to keep taxes low and regulations limited ; and religious groups that want to keep American culture conservative.

Of course, the religious right has changed over time. Though the term “evangelical” once described religious conservatives of prior eras, it was more precisely a movement led by White, male Southern Baptist leaders and activists. Today’s religious right has a bigger role for Catholics, women and people of color , as well as Protestants who aren’t Southern Baptists , including Pentecostals and those from America’s growing ranks of nondenominational churches. (This is why I use the term “religious right” rather than, say, “Christian nationalists” or “evangelicals.” There are many Christians who argue that the religious right’s stances are a perversion of the faith. The exact meanings of “Christian nationalism” and “evangelicalism” are contested, but everyone agrees there is a bloc on the right that claims to be acting out of religious beliefs.)

Nevertheless, winning Republican primaries still requires courting both the party’s business and religious wings. The former provides money for a campaign; the other voters and local organizers.

These two groups have an informal détente. Wealthy conservatives who are more interested in keeping taxes low don’t trash the party’s religious conservatives for being focused on abortion and school vouchers. And the religious conservatives go along with tax cuts for the wealthy.

Trump is beholden to religious conservatives, too. The business wing of the party tried to break with him after the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 , 2021, attack on the Capitol, spending much of the past three years trying to elevate other potential Republican presidential nominees, particularly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis . But Trump’s strong support among religious voters helped him easily win the Republican primaries this year.

For the general election, Trump’s attempts to distance himself from recent antiabortion rulings from conservative judges in Arizona and Florida show he understands the problem: The religious right’s agenda might be unacceptable to the rest of the country.

It’s not that America is hostile to religion. Seventy-four percent of Americans are affiliated with a faith . (Sixty-seven percent are Christians.) And while atheists and agnostics to be very liberal and anti-religion , the biggest bloc of nonbelievers is people who describe their religious views as “nothing in particular.” This bloc tends to have more moderate views politically and regard religion more with ambivalence than repugnance. It’s likely many swing voters are “nothing in particular” or nominally Christians. So they wouldn’t be turned off by a religious candidate but would oppose someone pushing policies hostile to women, LGBTQ+ Americans and non-Christians.

That means this year’s elections could hinge on whether Trump and other Republican candidates can remain deeply tied to the religious right without offending too many of everyone else. America might not yet be ready for a presidential candidate who is openly not religious, but it might no longer tolerate a candidate who promises to do the bidding of the religious right.

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