1. Introduction
The purpose of this study was to test if how often the respondent attending a
religious service has any impact on whether the respondent would be divorced or legally
separated from their spouse. Whether or not the respondent had been divorced or legally
separated, was controlled by which social class the respondent identified with, lower
class, working class, middle class, or upper class. Looking at these variables, it was
hypothesized that if a person was attending a religious service regularly they were less
likely to be divorced or legally separated. This hypothesis came into being because the
majority of the religions have a high regard for marriage, it is seen very highly, so if the
respondent were attending a religious service regularly they are likely to have the same
views about marriage. This would cause them to be less likely to seek a divorce or
become legally separated from their spouse.
Literature Review
Previous research literature that looks at marriage and religion found similar
results. The first is a comparative analysis of marriage and religion in the United States.
Waite and Lehrer(2003), found that the majority of American people think of religion and
belief in God as “fairly important”. They compare the religion and marriage as social
institutions. They hypothesized that religion and marriage has positive affects in similar
domains in life. One of the similar domains in life they talk about is that of economic
well-being. This can lead to an economic benefit from the marriage. They found that
religion and marriage both work independently as integrative forces, but they also work
together as an integral force for other domains of life. According to Brandt (2004),
religiously homogeneous marriages have higher marital satisfaction than religiously
2. heterogeneous marriages. Also, homogeneous couples spend more time together, which
can cause higher marital satisfaction levels. This also means that the couple would spend
more time together, which heightens the martial satisfaction. The results supported the
hypothesis, although there was no direct effect. The type of marriage had an impact on
worship frequency which had an effect on how much time was spent together which
impacted the effect of marriage satisfaction. The important finding of this study was that
it can show couples how to have a higher rate of marital satisfaction, especially if the are
in a religious homogenous relationship. According to Orathinkal and Vansteenwegen
(2006), people who are more religious, goes to church more often, or people who perform
religious duties more devotedly they would have a higher rate of marital satisfaction.
They measured religiosity with a four-item scale to determine the dimensions of
religiosity. One of these being “how often so you attend a religious service?” The results
of this were that gender and marital satisfaction had an impact on religiosity, however
this was only a partial effect. The effect between marriage and religiosity needs to be
looked into more to find a link between these variables.
Methods
The data that was used to complete this research came from the General Social
Survey from NORC at the university of Chicago. DIVORCE is the mnemonic title for the
variable if the respondent was divorced or legally separated. ATTEND is the mnemonic
title for the variable of how often the respondent attended a religious service. CLASS is
the mnemonic title for the variable about which subjective social class the respondent
identifies with. All three variables had to be recoded to test the hypothesis. Divorce had
to become recoded for the answer yes to have a higher subjective number than the answer
3. no. Yes was recoded from 1 to 1, no was recoded from 2 to 0. Attend was recoded into 2
categories from 9 categories. The variables never attend a religious service, lt once a
year, once a year, several times a year, once a month, and 2-3 times a month was recoded
as 1 and nearly every week, every week, and more than once a week was recoded as 2.
This was to show 1 as not attending religious services frequently and 2 as attending
religious services frequently. Class was recoded into a dummy variable. The lower class,
working class, and no class (people who did not identify with a social class) were recoded
as 0 and middle class and upper class was recoded as 1. SPSS was used as the data
collector and analysis program to test the hypothesis. The descriptive statistics were
collected for the three variables first. The next process was to recode the variables that
needed to be recoded. As mentioned earlier all three of the variables needed recoding.
The next process was to run a regression analysis for the three variables. Bivariate
analysis regression was processed first. A crosstab between the variables was conducted
as well at this level. After the bivariate analysis a multivariate analysis regression was
conducted.
Results
The descriptive statistics for the dependent variable, divorce, in this study is
M=1.75, SD=. 435. For the independent variable, religious service attendance, in this
study the descriptive statistics are M=3.32, SD= 2.825. For the control variable, social
class, the descriptive statistics are M=2.38, SD= .686. The bivariate regression analysis
between divorce and attend resulted in r2= .001. This suggests that knowing how often a
person attends a religious service allows us to explain .1 percent of the variation in if the
person would be divorced or legally separated. The p-value resulted in p=. 286. The
4. relationship is insignificant at the .05-level (p=. 286). The bivariate regression analysis
between divorce and class resulted in r2=. 001. This suggests that knowing which social
class a person identifies with allows us to explain .1 percent of the variation in if the
person would be divorced or legally separated The p value resulted in p=. 351. The
relationship is insignificant at the .05-level (p=. 351). The patterns between the dependent
and independent variable, divorce and attend, was that more people do not get divorced
or separated regardless of how often the person attended a religious service. The patterns
between the dependent and control variable, divorce and class, people that are of the
upper and middle classes are less likely to be divorced or legally separated. The
multivariate regression analysis resulted in r2= .002. This means that knowing how often
someone attends a religious service and which social class that a person identifies with
allows us to explain .2 percent of the variation in if the person would be divorced or
legally separated. The p value for my primary independent variable, attend, resulted in p=
.263. The relationship is insignificant at the .05-level (p=. 263). The p value for my
control variable, class, resulted in p= .357. The relationship is insignificant at the .05-
level (p=. 357).
Conclusion
The hypothesis that a person attending a religious service more often would be
less likely to be divorced of legally separated was found non significant. This means that
how often a person attends a religious service and which social class the person identifies
with does not signify the likelihood for that said person to be divorced or for them to be
legally separated. However, the variable that had the larger impact on whether the person
would be more likely to be divorced or legally separated is how often a person attends a
5. religious service, not which social class that the person identifies with. Some of the
theoretical implications that could be said based on the results of this study is that
attending a religious service more often does not mean that you are less likely to have a
divorce or to be legally separated. This could mean that even if you are attending a
religious service more often, which could mean that you are a highly religious person,
does not have an impact on your own views resulting in a person could be divorced or
legally separated even if the person is spiritual. Some of the real world consequences of
this are that people could think that even if a person is highly spiritual, someone is
attending a religious service frequently; they are just as likely to be divorce or be legally
separated. This could have implications for religious organizations, especially those who
hold marriage in a very high regard. Persons could say that even if a person is attending a
religious service more than once a week, they are just as likely to ruin a marriage, which
could makes religious organizations look hypocritical.
8. Crosstabs
Figure 1
Case Processing Summary
Cases
Valid Missing Total
N
Perce
nt N
Perce
nt N
Perce
nt
IF R
DIVORCED
OR
SEPERATED
* how often R
attends
service
1356 53.4% 1182 46.6% 2538
100.0
%
IF R DIVORCED OR SEPERATED * how often R
attends service Crosstabulation
Count
how often R attends
service
Total1 2
IF R
DIVORCED
OR
SEPERATED
0 647 366 1013
1
230 113 343
Total 877 479 1356
9. Figure 2
Case Processing Summary
Cases
Valid Missing Total
N Percent N Percent N Percent
IF R
DIVORCED OR
SEPERATED *
WHICH CLASS
R IDENTIFIES
WITH
1357 53.5% 1181 46.5% 2538 100.0%
IF R DIVORCED OR SEPERATED * WHICH CLASS R
IDENTIFIES WITH Crosstabulation
Count
WHICH CLASS R
IDENTIFIES WITH
Total0 1
IF R
DIVORCED OR
SEPERATED
0 481 531 1012
1
174 171 345
Total 655 702 1357
10. Regression
Model Summary
Mod
el R
R
Squar
e
Adjusted
R Square
Std. Error
of the
Estimate
1 .039a .002 .000 .435
a. Predictors: (Constant), WHICH CLASS R
IDENTIFIES WITH, how often R attends service
Coefficientsa
Model
Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardiz
ed
Coefficient
s
t Sig.B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) .302 .038 7.960 .000
how often R
attends
service
-.028 .025 -.030 -1.120 .263
WHICH
CLASS R
IDENTIFIES
WITH
-.022 .024 -.025 -.920 .357
a. Dependent Variable: IF R DIVORCED OR SEPERATED
11. Bibliography
Brandt, Sarah. 2004. "Religious Homogamy and Marital Satisfaction: Couples That Pray
Together, Stay Together." Sociological Viewpoints 20, 11-20. Sociological
Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed May 4, 2015).
Orathinkal, Jose, and Alfons Vansteenwegen. 2006. "Religiosity and Marital
Satisfaction." Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal 28, no. 4:
497-504. Sociological Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed May 4, 2015).
Smith, Tom W, Peter Marsden, Michael Hout, and Jibum Kim. 2015. General Social
Surveys, 1972-2012 [machine-readable data file] /Principal Investigator, Tom W.
Smith; Co-Principal Investigator, Peter V. Marsden; Co-Principal Investigator,
Michael Hout; Sponsored by National Science Foundation. --NORC ed.--
Chicago: National Opinion Research Center [producer]; Storrs, CT: The Roper
Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut [distributor].
Waite, Linda J., and Evelyn L. Lehrer. 2003. "The Benefits from Marriage and Religion
in the United States: A Comparative Analysis." Population and Development
Review, 2003. 255. JSTOR Journals, EBSCOhost (accessed May 4, 2015).
