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In what is described as the first major look at relationship quality and religion across racial and ethnic lines, researchers report a significant link between relationship satisfaction and religious factors for whites, Hispanics and African Americans. The study appears in this month's issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.
True to the aphorism, couples who pray together stay together, said study co-author W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, and "African American couples are more likely to have a shared spiritual identity as a couple."
The study found that 40 percent of blacks in marriages and live-in relationships who attended religious services regularly had a partner who did the same, compared with 29 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 29 percent of Hispanics.
White couples, in general, reported greater relationship satisfaction than other groups, presumably because of income and educational advantages, the study says. But the racial gap lessens when religious similarities come into the mix.
"What this study suggests is that religion is one of the key factors narrowing the racial divide in relationship quality in the United States," Wilcox said.
The strongest difference-maker for couples was spiritual activities such as praying or reading the Bible at home. "Praying together as a couple is something that is very intimate for people who are religious," Wilcox said. "It adds another level of closeness to a relationship."
Such findings bear out in the four-year marriage of Sade and Charles Dennis, who live in Bowie. "Our relationship with the Lord has definitely been the glue that has held it together," said Sade, 34, an author and artist.
Sometimes the couple prays by phone as Charles commutes to his job as an accountant, or as Sade is just waking up and Charles reads her a devotional from his BlackBerry. At times of disagreement, when one can't see the other's point of view, one will interrupt and say: "Let's just pray," Sade said.
"Prayer is the great reconciler," she said. The Dennises attend monthly fellowships as part of a couples ministry at First Baptist Church of Glenarden.
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SOURCE: The Washington Post
Donna St. George
