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Across Races, Couples That Pray Together Are Happier

The first major study to compare religion and relationship quality across America's major racial and ethnic groups finds that for all groups, shared religious activity—attending church together and especially praying together—is linked to higher levels of relationship quality.

Blacks derive the most benefits from that connection because they are significantly more likely than whites or Latinos to pray together and attend church together, offsetting other socioeconomic factors tied to lower relationship quality—a finding dubbed the "African American religion-marriage paradox," says W. Bradford Wilcox, PhD, a sociology professor and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

"Without prayer, black couples would be doing significantly worse than white couples. This study shows that religion narrows the racial divide in relationship quality in America," Wilcox says. "The vitality of African Americans' religious lives gives them an advantage over other Americans when it comes to relationships. This advantage puts them on par with other couples."

The same is true, to a lesser extent, for Latino couples, he says.

But religion may not always benefit couples. Couples holding discordant religious beliefs and those with only one partner who attends religious services regularly tend to be less happy in their relationships, the researchers found.

Being on different pages religiously is a source of tension for couples across racial and ethnic lines. "That may be due to less time spent doing things together," Wilcox says, "or having different values about child rearing, alcohol use or any number of things."

The study uses data from the National Survey of Religion and Family Life, a 2006 telephone survey of 1,387 working-age adults (aged 18 to 59) in relationships, funded by the Lilly Endowment and designed by the researchers.

The overwhelming majority of respondents were married (89%), with a somewhat lower rate among the racial and ethnic minorities.

The respondents reported high levels of relationship satisfaction (4.8 on a 6-point scale), but blacks reported being significantly less happy than whites. However, after controlling for age, education and income, the racial differences disappear.

Blacks reported higher levels of church attendance, both with and without their partners. Forty percent of black respondents reported that they attended services regularly as a couple, compared with 29% of whites, 31% of Mexicans or Mexican Americans, and 32% of all respondents.

Blacks were also significantly more likely than the other groups to report shared religious activities like prayer or scriptural study. That difference is probably driving the relationship improvements more than shared church attendance, Wilcox notes.

"The closer you get to the home, the more powerful the beneficial effects," Wilcox says. "It makes sense that those who think about, talk about and practice their beliefs in the home, those who bring home their reflections on their marriage, derive stronger effects from those beliefs, especially compared to those who simply attend church weekly.

— Source: University of Virginia