A new report found that the happiest wives in America are those who belong to a highly religious, traditional couple.
The Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institution recently published its report about marriage, faith and families entitled “The Ties That Bind: Is Faith a Global Force for Good or Ill in the Family?” The study was conducted in 11 countries: Argentina, Australia, Chile, Canada, Colombia, France, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Fully 73 percent of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages. —Institute for Family Studies
In addition to happier marriages, “highly religious couples in heterosexual relationships” are more sexually satisfied in than couples who are less religious, mixed or secular. Religious couples also enjoy sharing the responsibility of making decisions in the household, reports Catholic News Agency.
“In many respects, this report indicates that faith is a force for good in contemporary family life in the Americas, Europe, and Oceania,” the authors wrote.
According to Breitbart News Network, the authors, who are affiliated with Brigham Young University and Pew Research Center, found that, “Fully 73 percent of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages.”
Relationship quality is measured by the couple’s overall satisfaction, their view of their relationship, sexual satisfaction, and decision-making process in the family.
Highly religious couples, or those who attend religious services regularly, claimed greater satisfaction in their relationship, followed by liberal, secular couples. About 50% of women from highly religious relationships report that they are “strongly satisfied” with their sexual relationship.
“When it comes to relationship quality, there is a J-curve in women’s marital happiness, with women on the left and the right enjoying higher quality marriages than those in the middle — but especially wives on the right,” the authors explained.
The report pointed out that one of the reasons couples who are highly religious are satisfied with their relationships is because of the support they get from an organized religion.
“We suspect that part of their relative unhappiness, compared with religiously conservative women, is that they don’t enjoy the social, emotional and practical support for family life provided by a church, mosque or synagogue,” the study noted.