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A Study Of The Relationships Between Religious Affiliation, Religious Practices And Marital Adjustment

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A Study Of The Relationships Between Religious Affiliation, Religious Practices And Marital Adjustment

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Content 72- 11,959
SNIDER, Allan George, 1919-
A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELIGIOUS
AFFILIATION, RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND MARITAL
ADJUSTMENT.
University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1971
Sociology, family
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION, RELIGIOUS
PRACTICES AND MARITAL
ADJUSTMENT
By
Allan George Snider
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Sociology)
September 1971
U N IV E R S IT Y O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA
T H E G R A D U A TE S C H O O L
U N IV E R S IT Y PARK
LOS A N G E LE S , C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, w ritten by
ALLAN GEORGE SNIDER
under the direction of h .D is s e rt a t io n C om
mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The G ra du
ate School, in p a rtia l fu lfillm e n t of require
ments of the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
D ate September .1971
D IX m w rA T iO N COMMITTEE
PLEASE NOTE:
Some pages have indistinct
print. Filmed as received.
UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my wife Rhoda, my deepest appreciation for
her inspiration, confidence and support. To her credit
our happy relationship as husband and wife remained
unaffected by the additional pressures generated during
the course of this research.
To Professor James A. Peterson, for his valued
suggestions and inspiration.
To Professor Thomas E. Lasswell, who rendered
invaluable assistance as chairman of my doctoral
committee. To Professors Edward Ransford and Clive
Grafton for valued contributions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................... ii
LIST OF TABLES..................................... V
Chapter
I. THE PROBLEM............................... 1
Definitions
The Rationale for the Thesis
Thesis Organization — ■ ■
II. REVIEW AND CRITIQUE OF THE LITERATURE . . . 10
Introduction
Specific Findings from These Early
Studies Regarding Religion and
Marriage
General Findings Regarding Religion
and Marital Adjustment
Summary
III. THEORETICAL ORIENTATIONS ................... 45
The Social Psychological Framework
Hypotheses
Summary
IV. PROCEDURES ............................... 73
Selection of the Population to
be Studied
Questionnaire
Refusal Bias
Validation of Measuring Instruments
Summary
iii
V. FINDINGS 81
Characteristics of the Sample
A General Observation
Hypothesis I
Hypothesis Ila
Hypothesis Tib’
Hypothesis III
Hypothesis IV
Hypothesis V
Hypothesis VI
Hypothesis VII
Ancillary Findings
Summary
VI. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . 142
Summary
Conclusions
Implications for Future Research
Limitations of This Study
General Summary
APPENDIXES
Appendix A:
Appendix B:
Appendix C:
Appendix D:
Appendix E:
Appendix F:
Appendix G:
Questionnaire ...................
Mystical and Intellectual Inner
Direction ................... ,
The Assignment of Denominations
to the Categories ..........
Mystical Inner Direction Scale . ,
Intellectual Inner Direction Scale,
Puritan Negativism Scale ....
Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale
157
175
l8l
183
186
189
192
BIBLIOGRAPHY
195
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Mean Age and Length of Marriage of
Respondents............................. 82
2. Age Analysis of Sample..................... 83
3. Social Class Analysis of the Sample .... 85
4. A Comparison of Mean Scores on Marital Ad
justment and Two Types of Inner
Direction............................... 88
5. Marital Adjustment by Religious Affiliation 90
6. Mystical Inner Direction by Religious
Category............................... 92
7. Intellectual Inner Direction by Religious
Category............................... 93
8. Marital Adjustment by Mystical Inner
Direction............................... 96
9. Marital Adjustment by Religious Category
Under Conditions of Low Mystical Inner
Direction............................... 97
10. Marital Adjustment by Religious Category
Under Conditions of Medium Mystical
Inner Direction......................... 98
11. Marital Adjustment by Religious Category
Under Conditions of High Mystical
Inner Direction......................... 99
12. Marital Adjustment by Intellectual Inner
Direction............................... 102
v
io4
105
106
io8
109
112
113
116
117
118
119
120
Marital Adjustment by Religious Category
Under Conditions of Low Intellectual
Inner Direction ...........................
Marital Adjustment by Religious Category
Under Conditions of Medium Intellectual
Inner Direction ...........................
Marital Adjustment by Religious Category
Under Conditions of High Intellectual
Inner Direction ...........................
Puritan Negativism by Religious Ceremony . . .
Marital Adjustment by Puritan Negativism . . .
Responses to the Item "To What Extent To
Use Prayer in Dealing With Problems" . . .
Responses to the Item: "How Often Have
You Used Prayer in Connection With
Problems?" ...............................
Marital Adjustment by the Reported Use of
Prayer Under Conditions of Affiliation
With the Sect Group .....................
Marital Adjustment by the Reported Use of
Prayer Under Conditions of Affiliation
With the Evangelical Group ..............
Marital Adjustment by the Reported Use of
Prayer Under Conditions of Affiliation
With the Liberal Group ...................
Marital Adjustment by the Reported Use of
Prayer Under Conditions of Affiliation
With the Catholic Group .................
Reported Use of Bible Reading and Degree of
Mystical Inner Direction .................
vi
25. Reported Use of Bible Reading in Dealing With
Problems and Degree of Marital Adjustment . 122
26. Frequency of Church Attendance and Degree of
Marital Adjustment ....................... 125
27. Marital Adjustment and Degree of Authori
tarianism ....................................127
28. Authoritarianism and Religious Category . . . 129
29. Attitude Toward Sex Education and Religious
Category................................131
30. Attitude on Abortion by Religious Category . . 134
31. The Reported Use of Prayer and Religious
Categories..............................136
32. The Reported Use of Bible Reading and
Religious Categories ..................... 137
vii
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
This dissertation is concerned with the effects
that religious beliefs and practices may have upon
marital adjustment. Are there significant differences in
marital adjustment between individuals from different
church denominations? If differences do exist., what
explanation may be offered?
The church is regarded by many family sociologists
as one of the major institutions in America concerned
with the socialization process. In an attempt to provide
an intervening link between religious affiliation and
marital adjustment this study uses the twin concepts of
mystical inner direction and intellectual inner direction,
each of which will be defined. Within a social-psycho
logical framework, religious affiliation is viewed as a
socializing structure that determines one's attitudes and
and values. These attitudes and values in turn impinge
upon the process of marital adjustment.
Other questions with which this dissertation is
concerned are: Do some churches tend to inculcate
1
2
greater negativism toward sex5 higher degrees of
authoritarianism or greater leniency in attitudes towards
divorce? If so, what effects do these internalized
attitudes have upon marital adjustment?
Definitions
Religion is a system of beliefs and practices
I relative to sacred things. Churches unite into moral
i communities those who adhere to codes of religious
beliefs and practices.^ In this dissertation, religious
affiliation is being studied in its institutionalized
sense and is defined by the actual attendance of
respondents as reported by the ministers of the churches
studied. Appendix C will contain a list of the churches
attended by respondents and their classification as sect,
conservative-evangelical, institutional-authoritarian
or liberal.
The degree of involvement in religious practices
has been measured by the individual's responses to
questions such as "How often do you pray?" or "How often
do you attend the regular services of your church?"
Marriage is "the union, sanctioned by society,
■^Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life (Glencoe: The Free Press, 19^7).
3
of men and women as husbands and wives."1 The couples in
the sample were assumed to be married on the basis of
their consent to participate in a survey of married
couples. No attempt was made to verify this assumption
by examining other evidence.
Social class has been defined by use of the two-
factor Index of Social Position (ISP).^
Puritan negativism, as a negative attitude toward
sex, was defined as present or absent by use of a scale
developed by the author of this thesis. Pace validity is
claimed for the scale. The questionnaire used includes
such questions as "How do you feel about sex in marriage?"
(See Appendix F for this scale, p. 189.
Attitude toward divorce has been inferred from
the responses to opinion survey questions such as "How
do you feel about divorce?" and "How strict should the
laws be regarding divorce?"
Marital adjustment is defined as the intimate
interaction of a man and a woman as husband and wife, in
which processes of sympathetic cooperation and conflict
Ernest W. Burgess, Harvey J. Locke, and Mary
Margaret Thornes, The Family, From Institution to Compan
ionship (New York! The American Book Company, 1953), p. 1.
2
August Hollingshead, mimeographed material, 1957.
4
take place. In this dissertation it is measured by use
of the Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale.1 High scores on
this scale are indicative of successful marital adjust
ment and low scores are indicative of marital maladjust
ment .
! The degree of d is enchantment is inferred from
■ responses to two survey questions: "How much were you
; in love with your spouse before you were married?" and
"How much are you in love at present with your spouse?"
Divorce rates for this study are defined as the
proportion of reported divorces which have occurred in
each sub-sample.
Mystical inner direction refers to the degree to
which a person's behavior is guided by internalized values
derived from religious experience. In this dissertation
it is defined by responses to such survey questions as
"if you were confronted with a temptation to do wrongs
what would be the foremost thought that would help you
keep from yielding to the temptation?" (See Appendix D
for this scale, p. 183.)
Intellectual inner direction refers to the degree
1Karl Miles Wallace, "Construction and Validation
of Marital Adjustment^ and Prediction Scales" (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California,
1954), p. 121. (See Appendix G, p./«j2-}
5
to which a person's behavior is guided by intellectually
acceptable principles without reference to religious
experience or church dogma. In this dissertation it is
defined by responses to such attitude measurement ques
tions as "It is better to allow children to choose their
i own beliefs than to insist on teaching them what you
j
j believe is right/' and "If you were confronted with a
! temptation to do wrong, what would be the foremost thought
that would help keep you from yielding to the temptation?"
(See Appendix E for this scale, p. 186.)
Authoritarianism was defined as present or absent
by use of a scale developed from responses to such items
as "The most important thing to teach children is absolute
obedience to their parents," and "Any good leader should
be strict with people under him in order to gain respect."
(See Appendix A in Questionnaire, Items 103, 104, 105,
p. 174.)
The following hypotheses were tested in this
study:
I. As one moves from sect to evangelical to
liberal to Catholic groups there will be a consistent
drop in marital adjustment scores.
Ila. The higher the mystical inner direction score,
the higher the marital adjustment score.
lib. The higher the intellectual inner direction
score, the higher the marital adjustment score.
III. Puritan negativism scores will be highest in
the institutional-authoritarian (Catholic) churches, next
highest in the sects, third highest in the conservative-
| evangelical churches and lowest in the liberal churches.
IV. Mean ISP scores will be lower in the sects
! and the institutional-authoritarian (Catholic) churches
; than in the evangelical and liberal churches.
V. The greater the reported number of private
religious practices of a devotional nature, the higher
the mystical inner direction scores and the higher the
marital adjustment scores.
VI. The greater the leniency in attitude toward
divorce in churches, the greater the incidence of divorce.
VII. The higher the authoritarianism score, the
lower the marital adjustment score.
The following diagram depicts the causal flow
which is suggested by the hypotheses of this study.
Religious Type of Inner Degree of Mari-
Affiliation Direction tal Adjustment
Sect churches
High
- ? 7 Direction
Evangelical churches^
Intellectual Inner -
*7 Direction
Liberal churches
Low Inner Direction
PJ of Both Types
Catholic churches
-> Medium
-> Low
7
The direction of flow is indicated as shown
because the type of inner direction is postulated as a
function of the socialization process which occurs within
each of these groups. The converse of this, that churches
attract persons with a certain type of inner direction,
seems less tenable since observation indicates that most
i
| churches depend for their membership upon second, third
! and possibly fourth generation adherents.
The Rationale for the Thesis
This study was conceived as a refinement and
extension of the doctoral dissertation of James A.
Peterson, "An Inquiry into the Relation of Objective and
Subjective Religious Factors to Adjustment and Maladjust
ment in Marriage," an unpublished dissertation in the
library of the University of Southern California.
No claim is made that this study represents a
replication of Peterson's study. It rather attacks the
same problem with some modifications in sampling and
procedure and increased theoretical leverage and more
sophisticated statistical analysis. By definition a
replication should make use of the same sample, or at
least one secured by a procedure identical to that of the
original study. This study does, however, ask the ques
tion characteristic of replications: Are the phenomena
studied stable over time? Comparisons of the findings
8
of this study were made with those of the 1951 study.
Thesis Organization
Chapter II of this study will be devoted to a
selective review of relevant literature. It will cover
the major classical family studies and will proceed to
more recent studies which have investigated the special
|
| field of relationships between religion and marital
stability and adjustment. Special attention will be given!
to the work of Lenski and Peterson.
Chapter III will be an elaboration of the lines
of thought upon which the sociological study of religion
and marriage is based. Included in this theoretical
discussion will be the social psychological approach to
personality development upon which the major hypothesis
is based.
Chapter IV will describe the procedures that have
been followed in the research, including the selection of
the populations for sampling, the method of sampling, the
scales used in measuring the variables involved, and the
statistical procedures for testing the validity of the
findings.
Chapter V will consist of a report of the findings
of this study, including a summary of the major hypotheses
and the relationships between variables.
Chapter VI will summarize the project indicating
which of the hypotheses of the study were confirmed or
rejected or modified by the finding. A comparison will
be made with the findings of the Peterson study.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW AND CRITIQUE OF THE LITERATURE
Introduction
In view of the fact that a number of extensive
reviews of the literature on major family research studies
are available, the writer will not attempt an exhaustive
review of marital studies in general. Such a review may
be found in Chapter Six in Christensen's Handbook of
Marriage and the Family.1 It is felt that it would be
more appropriate to focus on those studies which have
included the religious factor as a specific variable with
special attention on those which have made religion the
major independent variable.
The wisdom of this selectivity may be seen in the
fact that by i960 already, research articles on the family,
O
according to Reuben Hill, numbered more than two hundred
•^Harold T. Christenson, ed. Handbook of Marriage
and the Family (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1964), Chapt. b.
2Reuben Hill and Donald Hansen, "The Identifica
tion of Conceptual Frameworks Utilized in Family Study,"
Marriage and Family Living, 22 (i960), 299-311-
10
11
per year.
This review will be limited, then, to the briefest
possible coverage of the goals, the methodology, and the
weaknesses of the major marital studies, but will include
special treatment of the Peterson work which is being
replicated here, and the work of Lenski and Goode.
Additional research relevant to the major interest of
this study will be referred to in connection with a
review of general findings in the field.
Burgess and Cottrell's study, published in 1939j
is regarded as the first major attempt to study empiri
cally a wide range of variables associated with marital
success or failure.-*- More than 7000 questionnaires were
either mailed out to couples whose divorce had been
recorded in the newspapers, left in mailboxes in apartment
buildings, or distributed in other ways by co-operative
students. Of these, about 19 per cent were returned.
From these a selection of 526 couples was made who were
resident of Illinois and had been married from one to six
years.
The Burgess and Cottrell sample may be criticized
for its non-representative character and for the selecting
out process which occurred in its formation. The final
-*-E. W. Burgess and L. S. Cottrell, Jr., Predicting
Success or Failure in Marriage (New York: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1939).
12
sample was largely middle class, 82 per cent lived in the
Chicago metropolitan area, 60 per cent of the men and 58
per cent of the women were either college graduates or had
some undergraduate experience; 56 per cent had no children
and only 10 per cent had two or more children. The median
age of husbands was 26.1 and of wives 23.^. It is there-
| fore heavily weighted toward professional, college level,
young, urban people. An availability sample of this
nature also raises serious questions regarding the motiva
tions which prompted those who returned their question
naires and, on the other hand, what classes of individuals
composed the 8l per cent who selected themselves out of
the sample.
The major methodological weakness of the Burgess
and Cottrell study, however, was the failure to avoid
collaboration between husbands and wives in filling out
the questionnaires. It is doubtful that complete honesty
may be assumed in the replies when in each case the
spouses were able surreptitiously or otherwise to observe
the response of the other.
Another limitation of the Burgess and Cottrell
study imposed by the sample is in the short marriage time
span of the respondents. The early years of marriage
constitute a special period in terms of adjustment as well
as enhanced physical enjoyment. This time factor also
has serious implications for measuring religious influence
13
since young married couples are known by priests and
ministers to be aberrant in their church interest as
compared with their long-range life style in this dimen
sion.
The writer will be using in the present study an
adaptation of the original criterion of success construct-
| ed by Burgess and Cottrell -- the Wallace Marital Adjust-
I ment Scale."*" For this reason a brief description of
this index will be presented here.
There were five abstractions which were felt by
Burgess and Cottrell to be valid indices of marital
adjustment in our society. Adjustment should be related
logically to the degree of agreement about crucial matters,
the number of common interests and activities, demon
strations of affection and confidence, the number of
complaints, and expressions of personal well-being. These
five types of indicators were made operational by the use
of 26 items to which there were several possible responses.
Each response to an item was given a weight such as 5 for
most favorable, 4 for less favorable down to 0 for least
favorable. The adjustment score is obtained by adding the
weights, or scores, of the responses to all items that a
respondent checked. The weights assigned to each response
were derived by use of a contingency table indicating the
^Appendix G, p. 192.
14
relationship of each item to a straight-forward self-
rating evaluation of the marriage as very happy, happy,
average, unhappy or very unhappy. This analysis made
use of 251 couples of whom it was discovered 72 per cent
agreed exactly with each other on the rating they gave
| their marriage.
| The maximum weight assigned to an item was
j roughly proportionate to the tetrachoric correlation co
efficient between the item and the happiness question.
The weighting system gave a possible score range from 0
to 192 on the Index of Marital Adjustment.'1 '
The mean adjustment score of the 526 couples used
in the Burgess and Cottrell study was 140.8, and the
standard deviation was 38.8. The tetrachoric correlation
between the adjustment scores and the happiness ratings
was .92 for the entire sample. A later test by Burgess
and Cottrell with 68 couples produced a correlation of
• 95.
Numerous studies cited by Straus have since
shown this test to be highly correlated with a subject's
"^Karl Miles Wallace, "Construction and Validation
of Marital Adjustment and Prediction Scale," (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California).
2
E. W. Burgess and L. S. Cottrell, Jr., Predicting
Success or Failure in Marriage (New York: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1939).
^Murray A. Straus, Family Measurement Techniques
(University of Minnesota Press, 1969)> P* 1^3-
15
consideration of divorce, actual divorce, self-ratings
of happiness in marriage, and with ratings given by out
side observers of a respondent's marriage. Further evi
dence for the validity of the index is based upon a com
parison of the scores of segments of the sample who
placed themselves along the continuum of progressive
I
alienation leading to marital dissolution. The mean ad- j
justment score for the 6l marriages in the sample which
had terminated in divorce and 65 where separation without
divorce had occurred was found to be . 91 compared with a
mean of 116 for the 60 marriages where divorce or separa
tion had only been contemplated, and a mean of 151 for
those' reporting that neither divorce nor separation had
been contemplated. Most of the recognized studies on
marital adjustment have used a modified form of this index.
Some innovations in the manner of identifying crucial
items have been used, such as a sentence completion
technique but it would be fair to say that little change
in the substantive content of marital adjustment tests
has occurred.
A study by Terman and his associates1 utilized
many of the items from the Burgess-Cottrell schedule. As
the title indicates, Terman's study differs substantively
1L. M. Terman and Paul Wallin, "The Validity of
Marriage Prediction and Adjustment Tests," American Socio
logical Review, 14 (19^9), 497-504 •
l6
in that his focus was on personality correlates of
marital happiness. This focus called for the inclusion
of items from the Burnreuter Personality Inventory which
had been shown to maintain acceptable correlations with
marital success.
Terman's study utilized a more sophisticated
!
methodology than the Burgess and Cottrell study by provid-!
ing separate questionnaires for husbands and wives -- a I
I
procedure which has since become standard -- and by care
ful avoidance of collaboration between spouses in filling
in the questionnaires. A guarantee of anonymity was
believed to assure a greater degree of honesty on the part
of respondents.
Terman's completed sample was composed of 792
married couples from the middle and upper-middle classes
of urban and semi-urban Californians. The homogeneity of
this sample in terms of social class places a considerable
limitation upon the generalizability of the findings. The
fact that the respondents were secured from knowledgeable,
reform-minded individuals, as suggested by their member
ship in such groups as the Parent Teachers' Associations,
women's clubs, study clubs and family relations centers
also limits its representativeness.
A study by Locke1 had two characteristics which
1Harvey J. Locke, Predicting Adjustment in Marri
age; A Comparison of a Divorced and a Happily Married
distinguished it from previous studies. It was designed
to draw comparisons between a divorced group and group
described as happily married, and the sample was more
representative than those used previously. Names of the
divorced persons were taken from the courthouse files of
Monroe County, Indiana or secured by referral from other
! divorced persons. The names of happily married persons
' were obtained by recommendation of some relative, friend
or acquaintance who so evaluated their marriages and by
similar recommendations from a random sample of persons
in the county. Anonymity was assured to the respondents
and measures were taken to preclude the possibility of
collaboration between husband and wife. Locke's marital
adjustment test included 19 of the Burgess-Cottrell items,
2 from Terman and 8 new items. Included in Locke's work
was an attempt to identify personality traits which could
be used in predicting success in marriage. Various items
were selected as variables which together described four
personality traits and two more general personality
patterns. For the purposes of this thesis we mention only
the latter two which were labeled by Locke "sociability"
and "conventionality." These to Locke were virtually
coterminous with religious participation.’ 1 ' Their use in
Group (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951)•
^Ibid., p. 243: "Our interpretation is that
(attendance at Sunday School, affiliation with a church,
18
this manner serves to point out the limited refinement
of the Locke study in terms of discriminating between
types of religiosity.
A study made in Sweden by Georg Karlsson1 was j
|
designed largely to test the results of the Locke study j
in a different society from that of the United States. ;
It made use of a sample considered to be fairly represent-;
ative of the total population of Sweden. The data were
collected by personal interviews, analysis of the data
was highly sophisticated and there was high confirmation
of the Locke findings. Due to the similarity in the two
studies we do not include a further review of its method
ology here. Karlsson's work is a further step in the j
search for valid predictors of marital success. ;
2
A study by Burgess and Wallin and its follow-up
study by Pineo^ provided a great deal of source material
for family texts and journal articles in recent years.
It is valuable for its longitudinal character and the
comprehensiveness of the data used. In addition the
regularity of church attendance, and the like), are in
dices of basic tendencies of conventionality, sociability,
and stability . . .
^Georg Karlsson, Adaptability and Communication
in Marriage (Upsala: Almquist and Wiksells, 1951)3 p. 33*
2
Ernest W. Burgess and Paul Wallin, Engagement and
Marriage (Philadelphia: L. B. Lippincott, 1953)•
^Peter C. Pineo, "Disenchantment in the Later Years
of Marriage," Marriage and Family Living, 23 (1961), 3-11.
I
19
inclusion of considerable case material has provided a
base for insightful explanatory discussion as well as
suggestions for hypotheses for further testing.
Burgess and Wallin secured data from engaged
couples so that comparisons could be made in terms of
marital adjustment scores obtained from these couples
' after they had been married for several years. An
: attempt was made from these comparisons to locate factors
which might be predictive of success or failure in
marriage.
From the 6000 questionnaires distributed the
first 1000 to respond were used for the Burgess and
Wallin sample. In addition to the data from the question
naires, additional information was provided by the persons
serving as contacts of the engaged couples and about one-
fourth of the sample were personally interviewed. After
three or four years 666 of these couples were traced and
again interviewed. The original sampling was done in the
Chicago area. The sample, like others before it, was
predominantly middle class with higher than average educa
tion, income, and occupational status. This characteris
tically accompanies the use of college students as con
tacts in research. There is no way of being sure that
collaboration did not occur in the filling in of question
naires though respondents were requested to avoid doing
this.
20
Burgess and Wallin made use of multiple criteria
of marital adjustment. Since no check was made on the
degree of internal consistency among the items in each
index there is no evidence that it was a unidimensional
scale. However, Burgess and Wallin'1 ' report a correlation
I of .82 for hoth husbands and wives between marital happi-
j ness and the general satisfaction index. These two
indexes may have been measuring essentially the same thing.
Pineo made use of the data from the Burgess and
Wallin study in a followup made twenty years after the
marital adjustment study. By this time it was possible
to trace only 400 couples of the original 1000. The major
finding of the Pineo work was the large degree to which
marital satisfaction had decreased over the intervening
years. This was measured by comparisons between the
couples' marital adjustment scores and those secured after
the twenty year period. This deterioration has come to
be known as disenchantment and is a focus of interest in
a considerable number of smaller studies and theoretical
discussions.^
3
A study by Blood and Wolfe is another comprehen-
^Ernest W. Burgess and Paul Wallin, Engagement and
Marriage (Philadelphia: L. B. Lippincott, 1953)•
p
Peter C. Pineo, "Disenchantment in the Later Years
of Marriage," Marriage and Family Living, 23 (1961), 3-11.
^Robert 0. Blood and Donald M. Wolfe, Husbands and
Wives, The Dynamics of Married Living (New York: The Free
21
sive research on marriage which was a part of the Detroit
Area Study. A number of variables were used in examining
the general question, "What is happening to American
families?" Religion is used in only ancillary fashion
and follows the now-familiar use of the Catholic-Protestant
dichotomy for most comparisons. For this reason it does
I not lend itself to any search for finer distinctions in
: terms of religious denominational affiliation and marital
adjustment.
The findings of the Blood and Wolfe research study
were gained from interviews with 909 families, 731 of
which were city families and 138 of which were farm
families. Interviews were with the wives only. This
procedure was felt to be justified by the fact that pre
vious studies had shown strong correlations between the
views expressed by husbands and wives. The major theoreti
cal framework from which Blood and Wolfe gained inspira
tion is that of structure-functionalism but they also make
use of insights from other approaches such as the develop
mental in T:erms of role performance differentials.
Blood and Wolfe were interested in discovering
the effects of different interaction patterns on the gen
eral welfare of husbands, wives, and whole families.
Some of the interaction patterns with which they were
Press, i960).
22
concerned were the characteristics of the nuclear family
(such as number of children and family-life stage), the
effects of the family's position in the larger society
(the church, the occupational system); and the effects
of past experience and training (education, nationality,
background, social mobility, etc.).
I Blood and Wolfe identified as major sources of
solidarity for the family the following four: (1) social
status; (2) homogamy (including religion); (3) the extent
to which individual needs were met by each other; and
(4) children -- "in moderation." Their findings confirmed
the Pineo conclusions regarding increasing disenchantment
with the passage of time. Along with all other major
studies they found that the greater the difference in
religious beliefs and practices the less the satisfaction
with the marriage.
As we have pointed out in the introductory section
of this proposal, Peterson1 was interested in investigat
ing whether there were measurable differences in marital
adjustment as a function of affiliation with different
specific religious groups. He was dissatisfied with the
use of the terms sociability and conventionality to
describe the psycho-social impact of religious activities
1James A. Peterson, "An Inquiry into the Relation
of Objective and Subjective Religious Factors to Adjust
ment and Maladjustment in Marriage," (unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Southern California).
23
upon the family. Incorporated into his study was an
inquiry into the hypothesis that the family varies in its
religious5 economic and social structure according to the
socio-economic factors of the neighborhood in which it is
located. The present study is not concerned with such
factors.
In the Peterson study, religious influence upon
the stability and permanence of a family was determined
by discovering the association of marital success, with
religious participation and religious belief. Nonrelig
ious populations were contrasted with religious popula
tions as a whole, and also with specific categories of
denominations. The categories used by Peterson are the
same as used in this study. (See Appendix C, p. l8l.)
The degree of marital success was measured by means of an
adjustment score based on predictive items validated in
previous studies by Burgess and Cottrell, Terman and
Locke. The extent of religious participation and the type
of religious belief were determined by specific questions
on an interview schedule which was submitted to 210
families.
Peterson's sample was obtained by utilizing a
previous study made by Shevky and Williams of the charac
teristics of census tracts in Los Angeles County. The
Shevky-Williams study rated the census tracts on the basis
of two scales, one measuring socio-economic status and the
24
other the degree of urbanization. Peterson's sample
consisted of all white persons. Houses were chosen at
random in each of the eight "social areas" designated by
Shevky and Williams and two interviewers visited each
home, selected one to interview the husband the other the
wife.
The findings of the Peterson study are as follows:
1) The adjustment of man and wife in marriage
varies with the type of religious institution to which
they belong. Men and women who are members of authori
tarian, dogmatic, and emotional religious groups tend to
have lower adjustment scores than those who are members of
religious groups of liberal and intellectual types.
2) The sexual adjustment of man and wife in
marriage differs when related to religious membership in
almost the same degree as does the general marital adjust
ment indicated in the first finding.
3) The degree to which guilt feelings are present
in a marriage concerning both sexual relations and birth
control varies in almost the same manner as does the
general adjustment of families belonging to different
religious groups.
4) The marriages of Catholics and Protestants
represent special hazards, for the findings tend to show
that such unions are essentially more fragile than
marriages between mates with no such religious dissimilar
25
ities.
5) The marriage of a church member to one who is
not a church member may or may not create a situation of
conflict, depending upon the degree to which the mate who
is a member orients his life around church activities and
beliefs.
6) The validity of the conclusions of previous
studies on the relationship of religion to the family was
brought under question by the findings of the Peterson
study, because, when a careful examination of this rela
tionship is made in terms of differentiated religious
categories, widely different results are obtained. This
means that the generalizations of those studies which
reported that religion was not significantly associated
with adjustment or maladjustment in marriage may have been
the result of an inadequate methodology. Consequently,
the conclusion that religion is important in marriage
studies only as an index of "conventionality" must be
restudied.
Lenski's study1 was the first major study since
the work of Max Weber to deal in comprehensive fashion with
the relationship of religion to major social institutions.
The major dependent variables of his study were economics,
politics, education, science and family life. Lenski
i-Gerhard Lenski, The Religious Factor (New York:
Doubleday and Company, 1961).
26
attempted to measure empirically the effects of membership
in various religious groups on the behavior of individuals
within these major interactional areas. Lenski devoted
a chapter to the subject of religion and family life which
was of primary interest in terms of the goals of this
thesis.
By the late 1950's sociology had come to recognize
to an increasing degree the importance of utilizing
probability sampling and theory in research. Lenski's
work attained a methodological sophistication, therefore,
beyond that of the pioneering studies which have been
briefly sketched above. The theoretical orientation
followed in the tradition of Max Weber, emphasizing the
theme that every major religious group develops its own
distinctive orientation toward all of life's various areas
of interaction and that through the shaping of the
individual's attitudes the major institutions are also
shaped.
The requirements of probability sampling that
theoretically every adult should have an equal chance to
be included in the sample was fulfilled in Lenski's study.
Previous analysis of the findings of the Detroit Area
study, of which this study was a party, had shown that by
the use of a sample so chosen data from 600 individuals
out of six million persons in the Detroit area produced
the same findings as the U.S. Census.
27
For this study by Lenski a sample of 750 from
Detroit was selected of which 87 per cent were success
fully interviewed. This completion rate is considered
excellent by experts in field study research. Non
respondents were studied and found to similar on most
important variables except that of age. A greater propor
tion of older persons were often either unable or unwill
ing to participate. |
There were two major features of Lenski's study
which are relevant to this review. They were the categor
ies of religious groups delineated by Lenski and his
technique for measuring religiosity. The sample was
divided into four "socio-religious" groups: the white
Protestants, the Negro Protestants, the Catholics and the
Jewish. This lumping together of all Protestants was a
weakness of the study since it failed to take into account
the great differences between denominations (and sometimes
churches) in beliefs and practices. Even more limiting
was the failure to pay due regard to social class and
ethnic factors within the Catholic group. The differences
detected between Catholics and Protestants in regard to
ties with the extended family are probably a function of
ethnic traditions to a greater extent than that of
religious influence.
The Lenski study focused on a number of family life
variables including vertical mobility, child rearing
28
attitudes, use of leisure time, present-versus future-
orientation, methods of discipline, family size, inde
pendence training and strength of loyalty to the kin
group. The last-named is of most interest in terms of
the focus of this study.
Lenski sums up what he believes his findings in
this area indicate:
In brief, the great body of evidence both from
this study and elsewhere points to the conclusion
that the Protestant churches have long been, and
continue to be a force in society weakening the
bonds of the extended family (and perhaps of the
immediate family as well) and simultaneously stip
ulating the formation of, and participation in,
voluntary associations. The relatively high di
vorce rate among Protestants may well be linked
with this peculiar feature of the group. This
is not to suggest that the protestant churches
ever encourage divorce, but only that by their
tendency to turn the interests of individuals
beyond the limits of family and kin, they set
in motion a chain reaction which ultimately has
this effect.1
It is the view of the writer of this thesis that
when differential divorce rates are being studied a great
amount of variance may be accounted for by discriminating
between denominations within Protestantism and making
comparisons in terms of authoritarianism and ritualism
without emotional participation, as well as by taking into
account the severity of the proscriptions and sanctions
covering divorce.
In regard to differing divorce rates Lenski does
^Ibid., p. 247-
29
indeed acknowledge that the higher rates among Protestants
may be a function of the differing views on the serious
ness of divorce but in keeping with his general thesis he
states that "undoubtedly" there is an association here
with differing attitudes toward the immediate family.
The conclusions of the Lenski study regarding
religion and family life call for closer examination.
This is particularly applicable to the inference made to j
the immediate family. The measures used for family
solidarity such as willingness or unwillingness to migrate,
relative influence of family and friends in terms of
advice giving, and frequency of visits to relatives have
validity in terms of closeness to the extended family but
do not in any sense measure the solidarity within the
nuclear family nor adjustment between husband and wife.
The use of divorce rates does measure adjustment
between husband and wife and has been used as the major
criterion in several marital studies. However, it is the
approach of the present study that a comparison between
the divorce rates of an authoritarian group, which forbids
divorce except under the most unusual circumstances and
uses the threat of excommunication from the group as a
means of control, and the rates of divorce for a conglo
merate group such as the Protestants whose rules vary from
extremely liberal to a similar rigidityto that of the
Catholics is not an acceptable comparison. Specifying
30
variables should be used in making such comparisons. A
more valid comparison would be between groups matched on
the rigidity variable. For example a comparison between
Mormons and Catholics would meet this requirement. These
two religious groups are very much alike in their prohibi
tion of divorce and the probability that the offenders
will experience excommunication, or at least be "dis-
fellowshipped" from what is claimed to be the one true
church.
1
The work of William Goode has been reviewed
literally hundreds of time in the popular literature over
America largely because it was the first attempt to make
a comprehensive field study of the problems experienced
in our society by the divorced woman after her divorce.
It marked a turning point in terms of understanding the
incidence of divorce in terms of social class. Up until
Goode's study appeared it was still commonly believed by
social scientists that divorce occurred more frequently in
the upper classes. In Goode's study and in all subsequent
studies the reverse has been shown to be the case. Goode
rejected use of the usual probability sample because of
the relatively small percentage of recent divorces in the
general population. He also wished to study post-divorce
experience at different time periods in the lives of the
■'"William J. Goode, Women in Divorce (New York:
The Free Press, 1956).
31
divorcees. Due to the insurmountable difficulties
involved in a true panel study which would meet the
requirements of longitudinal study he selected "Time
Groups" instead. These groups consisted of women who had
been divorced two months, eight months, fourteen months
and twenty-six months prior to interviewing.
| Goode's sample was drawn from court records in
i 1948 and consisted of 892 divorcees of whom 4-33 were
eventually interviewed. A careful analysis of the 19
per cent who had refused to be interviewed indicated that
a slightly higher percentage were Catholics indicating
perhaps a greater reluctance to discuss an experience
which had constituted a violation of church law.
Throughout his study Goode recognized the impor
tance of religion and drew a number of comparisons.
However, his use of the simple dichotomy, Protestant-
Catholic, removes his study from serious consideration as
of much value in describing the true influence of the
differences between the various types of religious affilia
tion within Protestantism with which the present study is
concerned.
Goode's evidence seems to offer strong confirmation
of the value of religious commitment in terms of its moral
influence, a theme which occurs in most family texts. An
example of this was the finding that in keeping agreements
made, 65 per cent of Catholic ex-husbands kept all
32
agreements, 59 Per cent of the Protestants (no statistic
ally significant difference), but only 35 per cent of
the husbands in the "other religion or none" category kept
all agreements they had made with their former wives as
perceived by the wives. This would appear to indicate that
even after divorce, religious women perceive their hus-
! bands as honest people.
Specific Findings from These Early ;
Studies Regarding Religion
and Marriage
Two tendencies were noted in the earlier studies
in terms of their interest in religion. One was to regard
religion of little importance as a causal factor of vary
ing degrees of marital adjustment with concomitant neglect
of its inclusion in the interview schedule. The other was
the failure, which has been underlined elsewhere in this
study, to discriminate adequately between types of relig
ious practice and experience particularly within Protest-
ism.
The tone for this benign neglect of the religious
factor seems to have been set by Mowrer'1 ' from conclusions
from his own study. Mowrer dismisses the small differences
which he found in desertion rates as a function of nation
ality differences between Catholics and Protestants thus
-^-Ernest R. Mowrer, Family Pis organization (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1927), pp. 231-250.
33
all but eliminating religion from serious consideration
as an independent variable. The second tendency mentioned
above is illustrated by Mowrer’s broad generalization
regarding the church and sex:
The church finds itself in the paradoxical
position of removing marriage from the mundane
plane through ceremonies and at the same time
building up an attitude of dislike and suspicion
toward the sex relations which marriage initiates.
Mowrer has lumped together all denominations into one
general category5 "the church." In America the church is
characterized by a fascinating diversity which forbids
such categorization. Sweeping generalizations such as
that made by Mowrer seem incongruous with the current
emphasis in sociology on rigorous and elegant research
design and analysis. Is Mowrer's conclusion valid for
all denominations? The answer tentatively is in the
negative. To find a more empirically based answer is one
of the purposes of this present study. It is suggested
that there are differences on this dimension between
church groups and that forty-four years after Mowrer's
study there is probably little discernable negativism
regarding sex for some religious people.
Several studies will be cited which indicate that
there exists a positive relationship between religion and
good adjustment in marriagea a conclusion which has been
^Ibid.5 p. 26.
34
supported by the findings of the earliest studies. First
the findings of Burgess and Cottrell'1 ' in this area state:
For the husband both Sunday school and church
attendance seem to have practically the same
relationship to marital success; for the wife
Sunday school attendance affords a better cri
terion.
The husbands who never attended church are the
"poorest" matrimonial risks, those who attend
once or less a month "average," and those who
attend two, three, or four times the "best."
The 175 wives who attend church four times a
month include a smaller proportion (22.3 per
cent) of those "poorly" adjusted than those who
never attend (37*1 per cent) or who did not check
attendance although they are church members (37.5
per cent). (p. 122-124)
The proportion of the very happy is 46.2 per cent
where both husband and wife repeat some degree of
church attendance; 38.4 per cent where there is a
slight difference in attendance, and only 20.9
per cent in case of great difference.
Whatever data were examined to test the relation
ship to marital adjustment of religious senti
ments interests, and activities--Sunday School or
church attendance, place of marriage, or official
performing the ceremony--all agree in showing a
positive relationship.4
The Terman study2 paid limited attention to the
religious factor and marital happiness. His analysis and
conclusions were based upon responses to one question
which allowed the individual to evaluate his religious
^E. W. Burgess and L. S. Cottrell, Jr. Predicting
Success or Failure in Marriage (New York: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1939).
2L. M. Terman and Paul Wallin, "The Validity of
Marriage Prediction and Adjustment Tests," American
Sociological Review, 14 (1949), 497-504.
35
background along a continuum from very strict, strict,
considerable, little or none. What "strictness" means
here is defined by the respondent rather than the question
naire. Does it refer to doctrinal matters whether con
servative or liberal or is it a description of behavioral
demands in terms of attendance at church and Sunday
! i
i School? This ambiguity limits the validity that can be j
, i
attributed to any conclusions drawn from the correlations
which Terman discovered. However, it is of interest to
cite the conclusions as an illustration of this style of
limited inclusion of religion in early marital studies:
It will be seen in Table 6l that the biggest happi
ness mean is for subjects who have had a medium
amount of religious training, i.e., subjects fall
ing in the category of 'considerable' as contrasted
with those in the extreme categories on either side.
For the combined categories 'little' and 'none' the
mean for each spouse is lower than that for 'con
siderable' by an amount that approaches statistical
significance.
Comparison of high and low happiness groups (Table
62) agrees with the data for means in the fact
that a larger proportion of highs than lows falls
in the category 'considerable.' This holds for
both sexes. However, only the husbands show sig
nificantly larger proportions of 'little' or 'none'
in the low group, while wives (but not husbands)
show a much larger percentage of lows than highs
in the category of 'very strict.'
The conclusion suggested, though by no means estab
lished, is that neither very much or very little
religious training is less favorable to marital
happiness than a moderate amount.1
Terman's final summation of the religious factor
1Ibid., p. 235.
36
as he sees it from his investigation is that there is no
evidence that early religious training has an effect one
or another on happiness in marriage. Based as it is upon
tenuous evidence, this conclusion is open to question,
particularly since it runs counter to the findings of all
| other major studies.
| The conclusions reached by Locke in regard to
! religious influence on marriage have been mentioned.
His findings indicated that wives "never" going to church
was related to maladjustment in marriage as was also an
earlier cessation of regular Sunday School attendance.
One out of four in his divorced sample had been married
by a Justice of the Peace. Frequent church attendance was
also found to be positively related to marital adjustment.
Peterson's dissatisfaction with Locke's interpre
tation of his findings i.e., that they indicate a basic
tendency toward sociability, conventionality and stability
seems justified. Locke's interpretation disregards the
wide differences between religious denominations on these
characteristics.
General Findings Regarding Religion and
Marital Adjustment
The present study is concerned with specific
degrees of marital adjustment as a function of different
religious affiliations, but it seems appropriate to dis
cuss briefly some of the general findings regarding
37
religion and marital adjustment.
There seems to be a general consensus from the
studies in this area that religion is associated posi
tively with good adjustment, not only in marriage, but in
other social relationships.
Stone examined the association between church par-
| ticipation and social adjustment of high school and
; college youth in the State of Washington. The findings |
indicated that two-thirds of the boys who said they were
active in religious activities also indicated that their
home life had been very happy. By comparison, less than
half of those who participated little in church activities
considered their homes to be very happy. The same conclu
sions applied to data on the girls in the sample.^
Locke's study indicated that religion is correlated
positively with marital adjustment. His data show that
for the last half of marriage a much larger percentage of
divorced men and women attended church once a month or
less, while a much larger percentage of the married men
2
and women attended church four or more times a month.
^Carol Larson Stone, "Church Participation and
Social Adjustment of High School and College Youth," Wash
ington Agricultural Experiment Stations, Institute of Agri
cultural Sciences, State College of Washington, Rural So
ciology Series on Youth, No. 12, Bulletin 550, May, 195^->
p. 15.
O
Harvey J. Locke, Predicting Adjustment in Marri
age; a Comparison of a Divorced and a Happily Married
Group (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951)•
38
A recent report on a marriage counseling experi
ment conducted by the Oklahoma City Family Clinic lends
additional support to the positive effect of religion on
adjustment in marriage. This clinic, utilizing a variety
of professional persons, endeavors to help couples in
! marital difficulty reach a reconciliation. Out of the 250
j
I couples dealt with, the clinic was able to reconcile 225,
1 or ninety per cent. Before becoming involved in clinical
counseling, forty per cent had been separated, eleven per
cent were divorced, and twenty-three per cent had divorces
pending. Only three of these families were attending
church when they came to the clinic. The clinic dis
covered that reconciliation became almost a certainty if
the couple could be persuaded to become actively involved
in a church.1
2
A study done in England by Chesser secured data
from six thousand marriages. A summary of the findings
showed the highest percentage of happy marriages occurred
among the non-conformists (Protestants), a smaller per
centage in the Church of England, and the smallest degree
lDeWitt Reddick, "They Give Marriage a Second
Chance," Child Family Digest, X, No. 2 (February 195^-) •
O
Eustace Chesser, The Sexual, Marital, and Family
Relationship of English Women (New York: Roy Publishers,
1957).
39
of happiness occurred in the group that claimed no
religion at all.
From a Spokane, Washington sample of 6,500 school
children Weeks discovered that twenty-four per cent of
marriages of parents without religion ended in divorce in
contrast to a failure rate of 17.^- per cent for interfaith
marriages. When both husband and wife were Catholic only
3.8 per cent failed, and when both were Protestant ten
per cent failed.1
The Kinsey Reports
For men Kinsey found that religious activity was
found to be inversely related to extramarital relations,
which finding offers some tangential support to the con
clusions stated above. The "inactive Protestant" group
was from two to three times more likely to engage in this
type of intercourse than the regular church attenders.
For women the Kinsey report showed that religious
background was more definitely related to whether or not
a woman engaged in extramarital relations than any other
factor included in the study. At each age level, the
inactive Protestant woman was from three to four times
more likely to be involved in such activities than the
1H. Ashley Weeks, "Differential Divorce Rates by
Occupation," Social Forces, XXI (March 19^3).
4o
devout one.'1 '
The linkage of the Kinsey findings with the pre
sent study is based upon the assumption that a propensity
to engage in extramarital sex is symptomatic of dissatis
faction with the marital relationship. Kinsey lumped all
Protestant groups together so that no distinctions can be
j
! made as to the relative incidence of this phenomenon
i i
! between groups.
' !
Social Class and Marital
Disruption
The popularly accepted impression in America
during the first three or four decades of this century
was that divorce was largely a middle- and upper-class
phenomenon. This impression grew out of family textbook
conclusions based upon what is now considered inadequate
data from government reports from the Bureau of the
Census for 1887-1906. This view was also strengthened by
the manner in which the entertainment media and fiction
writers utilized the divorce phenomenon for their own
purposes.
Ecological studies by Bossoud,^ Schroeder^ and an
■^Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde
Martine, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1§48, and Sex-
ual Behavior in the Human Female, 1953 (Philadelphia: W.B.
Saunders Co.).
2
James H. S. Bossard and Thelma Dillon, "Spatial
Distribution of Divorced Women," American Journal of Socio
logy, 40 (1935), 503-7.
41
occupational study by Meeks1 produced findings with an
opposite conclusion to the view mentioned in the preceding
paragraph. These studies were given little attention
p
until William Goode's study on divorce appeared. Studies
which followed confirmed Goode's conclusion that the
husband's occupation and income are inversely related to
divorce proneness. The findings of the Monahan3 study of
i i l
the non-rural occupations in Iowa and Kephart's study in j
Philadelphia of 1,434 divorces (1955) greatly strengthened !
this conclusion. The lower-lower class led all others,
having a "disorganization factor" four to five times
greater than any other class.
Udry made an intensive study of the i960 census,
arriving at the conclusion which has already been stated,
that an inverse relationship exists between socio-economic
Clarence W. Schroeder, Divorce in a City of 1000,000 Popu
lation (Peoria, 111.: Bradley Polytechnic Institute
Library, 1939)-
■^H. Ashley Weeks, "Differential Divorce Rates by
Occupation," Social Forces, XXI (March 1943).
2William J. Goode, "Family Disorganization" in
Contemporary Social Problems, ed. Robert H. Merton and
Robert A. Nesbit (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
Inc., 1961).
^Thomas P. Monahan, "Divorce by Occupational Level"
Marriage and Family Living, Vol. 17 (Nov. 1968), 651-655.
\filliam M. Kephart, "Occupational Level and Mari
tal Disruption," American Sociological Review, XX
(August 1955).
42
factors and marital adjustment.'1 '
O
Goode suggested that the combination of the
factor of lower income, with other factors commonly
accepted among sociologists as deleterious to good social
adjustment leads to the greater incidence of marital in-
| stability. These other factors are dense population,
' high rates of mobility, and a concomitant condition of
i anomie.
The present study is concerned with the social
class variable in a tangential fashion only. It is hypo
thesized that the inverse relationship outlined above
persists across the lines of the religious groups in the
typology of the study.
The Interfaith Marriage
The present study is not directly concerned with
the interfaith marriage.
The Peterson study indicated that the interfaith
couples from his sample have the lowest mean adjustment
score of any group in the study.
Homogamy for religion is often cited as one
^Richard J. Udry, "Marital Instability by Race,
Sex, Education and Occupations," American Journal of
Sociology, 72 (September 1966), 203-209.
2William J. Goode, "Family Disorganization" in
Contemporary Social Problems, eds. Robert R. Merton and
Robert A. Nesbit. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
Inc., 1961), 479-552.
43
factor predictive of success in marriage. As cited by
Goode, the studies of Bell, Weeks, Landes, Schnepp, and
Monahan and Kephart all showed that mixed religious
marriages tend to be less stable than others.1
The sample used in this study was limited to
| couples actively participating in the same church.
Summary
Chapter II has been concerned with a review of
the pioneering studies of marriage, with special attention
to the methodology used and the major findings. Specific
limitations of these studies have been pointed out.
These include the non-representative character of the
samples, in some cases, or the possible errors due to
interview methods. These studies have been concerned with
the age, sexual adjustment, personality factors, parental
happiness, mixed marriages and social and cultural back
ground factors, with minor attention devoted to religious
factors.
A variety of methodologists have been employed in
the studies reviewed in this chapter, each technique
possessing its own peculiar advantages and limitations.
It should be noted that the study of marital success or
failure is a complex field. These early studies laid the
groundwork for later research that has been done in this
1Ibid., p. 515.
44
field.
Recent studies have evidenced greater sophistica
tion in terms of sampling and other methodological
techniques than the pioneering studies in this chapter
utilized. A number of studies have been reviewed which
focused more sharply on the religious factor providing
insights which should facilitate further research in this
i more specific are.
CHAPTER III
THEORETICAL ORIENTATIONS
Some sort of religion has been found in all human
i
I
societies. The universality of religion has been explained!
in a variety of ways. Early sociology, emanating as it ;
did from the French Enlightment, was dominated by a posi-
tivistic philosophy which tended to see religion as a
socially-transmitted relic of man's pre-scientific and
primitive past. It was expected then, that religion would
disappear as men became more enlightened.
With the advent of the writings of Durkheim and
Weber an almost opposite view was articulated. Durkheim
said that "there is something eternal in religion which
is destined to survive all the particular symbols In which
religious thought has successively enveloped itself.
Durkheim's basic argument was that rather than being an
irrational survival, religious beliefs and practices were
rooted in the basic fabric of society and formed an
integral and necessary component in any stable social
system. Max Weber saw in the pervasiveness of certain
1Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Reli
gious Life (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1947) ■ > p. 429.
45
46
religious philosophies in particular communities of men
a possible explanation for the origin and shape of other
institutional systems. His classic study of the linkage
between the Calvinistic doctrine and practice and the
origins of western capitalism is most often cited in this
connection.
Modern functionalism in sociology has gathered
its inspirations from Durkheim and Weber and tends to see
religion as a structure necessary for the survival and
maintenance of equilibrium in human affairs."1 " The next
logical step from this assumption is to study empirically
the interrelationships between religious institutions and
secular institutions. The present study is in the tradi
tion of Weberian analysis since his major postulate was
that each major religious group develop its own distinc
tive orientation toward the various aspects of human life
and through the individual the larger institutions are
shaped. This basic orientation appears to be isomorphic
to this study on a lower level of abstraction as an
attempt is made to assess the impact of specific religious
groups upon individual personality formation and in con
sequence upon the intimate interrelationships of that
smallest of social groups, the dyad, in this case, the
husband and wife team.
^J. Milton Yinger, Religion, Society and the Indi
vidual (New York: MacMillan, 1957)•
47
The Social Psychological Framework
The conceptual framework upon which this study is
based comes from the field of social psychology. The
basic assumption that the individual personality is
developed through the process of socialization largely in
face-to-face social interaction is accepted. Individual
I I
j reference groups are also an important agent in the process!
: of socialization. The church is regarded as one of these
reference groups. A great deal of theory and research has
been developed in recent years in regard to the pervasive
influence of the group on the individual's perceptions
and, concomitantly, his attitudes. These influences are
seen as a part of the process of socialization whereby
the individual learns to relate more-or-less effectively
and efficiently to other individuals. Socialization theory
begins with the basic fact of man's complete dependency
from infancy for the satisfaction of his needs by others
and for information concerning the world from others.
The social psychological theory of symbolic inter-
actionism is useful in an analysis of this process of
socialization. Man needs man for survival as a human
being as illustrated by the cases of feral children who,
having been deprived of normal social interaction, have
consequently become something less than human, lacking
particularly the ability to communicate through symbolic
intercourse. Man is born with the capacity to become
human but for this capacity to be developed he needs the
learning acquired through social interaction. The type
of individual which emerges as the end product of this
process is determined largely by the characteristics of
the various groups who have functioned as the agents in
the socialization process.
The selfj that long-neglected concept in psycho
logy j is seen in this framework as an organization or
integration of behavior imposed upon the individual by
2
societal expectations and demands. Self-regulation is
inseparable from social control for in the tradition of
G. H. Mead, that component of the personality which he
labeled the '-me" is the internalized community with its
norms and values.
Socialization is like a screening and channelizing
process during which from an almost infinite variety of
potentials for behavior, the individual learns the modes
of behavior considered appropriate by his own social
group. The family has the advantage of being the first
and primary agent in this process, but in time, other
social units assume part of the task. These units include
^William F. Kenkel, The Family in Perspective
(New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, I960), Chap. 11.
2
Alfred R. Lindesmith and Anselm L. Strauss, Social
Psychology (New York: Dryden, 19^-9)•
49
the neighborhood^ the school; and the church. These are
the primary reference groups from which the individual
will draw comparisons and thus evaluate his own behavior.
A large body of research has supported the pre
ceding theoretical stance. Cross-cultural research has
shown that there are differing modal personalities in
different societies corresponding to characteristic
emphases found in these societies.
McClelland's extensive work on achievement moti
vation has shown that the need to achieve is more often
2
found among Protestants and among the middle class.
The power of the group over the individual in
terms of past experience and current has been shown in
almost countless numbers of experiments on perception.
Best known among them are those of Sherif in which the
individual's judgment on the extent of movement of a
stationary light tended to converge on a group norm.
Considerable support has been offered for Festinger's
theory of social reality which states that the individual
needs to establish the correctness of his beliefs; values
and attitudes by group validation. To the extent that
other significant persons share his beliefs; the person
^Edward ¥. Jones and Harold B. Gerard, Foundations
of Social Psychology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
1967), Chap. 3.
2D. C. McClelland, J. W. Atkinson, R. A. Clark,
and E. L. Lowell, The Achievement Motive (New York:
will attach validity to those belief s.
In the context of this study the writer is postu
lating that a person's affiliations in religious groups
have played an important role in developing the unique
constellation of values, attitudes, and beliefs which
| constitute his personality. These differences will be
: I
: significant in terms of statistical measurement procedures i
I !
and will be manifested in varying degrees of marital i
adjustment or maladjustment.
Conversely, persons with divergent values, atti
tudes and beliefs are likely to find socialization diffi
cult, ineffective, or inefficient, and therefore remove
themselves from the group or minimize their interaction
with it. In the case in point, they are not likely to
be regular church attendants.
It is commonly accepted among religious leaders
and students of the sociology of religion that all major
Christian groups embrace the same basic ideal of marital
interaction which is delineated in New Testament scripture.
This ideal suggests that marriage should be a harmonious
relationship based upon mutual love and respect (Ephesians
5:21-33, Philips Translation). If this ideal were to be
Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1953-
-'-Leon Festinger, "A Theory of Social Comparison
Processes," Human Relations, 7 (195^)> 117-1^0.
51
realized in the marital relationship the situation would
illustrate a high score on the marital adjustment index.
The marital adjustment concept as we have defined it and
when used to study religious groups identified as
Christian is, then, an attempt to measure the degree of
j
! success that has been attained by a marital pair in
1 I
i realizing this ideal. j
The assumption that the values in terms of marital i
adjustment are virtually the same for each of the cate
gories under study leads to a further assumption that any
differences in the degree of success in attaining marital
adjustment must be explained by other variables. When the
goal is the same for different groups but some come closer
to attaining it than others we look for explanatory vari
ables in the process of behavioral development or modifica
tion in terms of the pervasive qualities of the religious
milieu in which the members interact. The question that
intrigues this writer is: Why does membership in a par
ticular group.affect marital interaction in such a way
to produce different degrees of adjustment in marriage?
The writer's long experience with different reli
gious groups led him to focus on an obvious difference in
orientation in terms of emphasis and dependence upon
religious conversion experience and how this might affect
behavior. This limited focus, it is admitted, leaves other
differences largely unexplored. For example, there are
52
wide differences between the groups under study in modes
of public worship. Sect groups tend to stress informality
in worship and impromptu audience participation. At the
other extreme the institutional-authoritarian groups are
characterized by strict adherence to prescribed ritual
with little spontaneous participation by the audience.
i (Such participation would be regarded by such groups as
! ;
' disruptive and bordering on the irreverent.) A difference I
of this type is regarded in the present study as super
ficial and is probably an outgrowth of the basic differ
ence which we have mentioned.
Further clarification of the theoretical approach
of this study may be facilitated by reference to the con
cept of inner-direction as opposed to other-direction
which has been found to be useful by a number of socio
logists in recent years. The concept of inner-direction
has been modified in this study to apply to a specific
religious setting of experience but the concept of other-
direction will remain much the same as it was defined by
Riesman in The Lonely Crowd.'1 ' Riesman used the term
inner-directed to describe 1 'havior motivated by rigid
principles which were inculcated in early childhood. This
study employs the concept of inner-direction to describe
an intra-psychic motivation derived from a religious
1David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1950)*
53
conversion experience. The principles to which the
individual adheres may or may not be consonant with
childhood training. Religious conversion often introduces
the convert to a set of rules which are antithetical to
patterns of behavior established from childhood. Riesman
| used the term other-direction to describe sensitivity to
the sanctions imposed upon the individual by external I
: pressures. This use of the term is accepted for use in |
the comparisons made in this study. This kind of motiva
tion is seen as operating within members of the institu
tional-authoritarian groups. It is our hypothesis that
successful adjustment in the intimate relationships of
marriage is facilitated to a greater extent by inner-
direction than by other-direction. A well-known preacher
in early America defined the former as "the expulsive
power of a new affection."
In more explicit terms, if the postulated rela
tionships are supported by the data it is suggested that
those qualities of personality which are conducive to
better marital adjustment are more likely to be developed
In groups characterized by greater inner-direction as we
have defined it, than in groups characterized by conform
ity to external authority. A tentative conclusion might
be that the imposition of a set of rules accompanied by
sanctions may be less effective when not associated with
a satisfying emotional or psychological experience. In
54
terms of the previously stated hypotheses inner-direction
will be highest for the sect groups and lowest for the
institutional-authoritarian groups. Between these two
lie the conservative-evangelicals who represent a mixed
group in which inner-directedness as defined in this
| study will be seen as operative but to a lesser degree
! than in the sect group.
I This study does not attempt to explain why inner
direction of either of the two types described may lead
to good marital adjustment. It postulates that this
relationship exists. It remains for future research to
attempt to analyze the complex question of whether the
internalization of values and attitudes is more effective
when the process occurs in a socio-psychological milieu
of greater emotional involvement or not.
Hypotheses
Protestantism and Diversity
One of the major weaknesses of Lenski's"1 ’ study as
well as many other studies on religion and family life is
the failure to take into account the differences between
groups within Protestantism. These differences are obvious
to one who has been actively engaged in social and business
relationships with ministers of various denominations.
-'-Gerard Lenski, The Religious Factor (New York:
Doubleday and Company, 1951)•
55
Even denominational lines within Protestantism are inade
quate boundaries for defining either religious ideology
or practice. This point has been made by a number of
noted sociologists and theologians in recent years. It
was one of the major points from which the rationale of
the Peterson study emerged.
The term "Protestant" is used to describe such
disparate groups as Mormons, Christian Scientists,
Ethical Culturists and Unitarians. Some high-church
Episcopalians do not regard themselves as Protestants at
all, and historically as well as ideologically they are
probably justified in taking this position.1
In terms of form of worship one need only think
of the contrast between the highly emotional, informal
service of the store-front Pentecostal church and the
highly ritualized high-church Episcopalian service to
emphasize the point. Doctrinal differences as behavioral
guidelines vary from the strict legalistic prohibitions
of the Seventh-Day Adventists to the creedless Unitarians.
It may be argued that the recent ecumenical drive has
served to blur some of these distinctions, but it is
probably more correct to note the polarizations taking
place concomitant with this trend. Those groups merging
will be seen to fit well into the separate categories we
1James A. Pike, If You Marry Outside Your Faith
(New York: Harper and Bros., 195^)•
56
propose.
The categories used in this study are derived from
the well-known church-sect dichotomy developed by Weber.
The best-known of Weber's colleagues, Ernst Troeltsch,
took up this dichotomy and enlarged and refined it.1
Troeltsch conceived of the church and sect as separate and
distinct, representing two radically different structural
and value orientational tendencies in Christianity.
The church was defined as an institution which
considered itself the depository of the sole means of
grace which was to be dispensed through rites performed
only by ordained functionaries. It taught that connection
with the church was a recognized obligation of maturing
children of affiliated families. Its social ethic was
conservative, accepting the social order as much as
possible.
The sect, on the other hand, was a voluntary
association of persons committed to an ethico-religious
ideal which its members attempt to manifest in their
behavior. They do not accept a priestly mediation of
grace, nor is grace conceived to be the property of the
sect. Tne social ethic is either revolutionary, seeking
to reform, or passively critical, ultimately withdrawing
1Ernest Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the
Christian Churches, trans. Olive Wyon. (London: George
Allen and Unwin, 1§49).
into small communities where the pure ideal can be
practiced.
This dichotomy, like all ideal types, calls for
critical reexamination, and a number of writers have
accepted this challenge. Perhaps the most relevant
| treatment was that by Niebuhr, who attempted to delineate
' the process whereby he felt that "sects utlimately become
churches" in terms of their attitude toward the secular '
culture. The process consists of a gradual switch from
harsh rejection to toleration and finally acceptance.
This line of reasoning has implications for the interfaith
marriage, should it occur across the lines just delineated.
The present study is not so much interested in the
differences in terms of the groups1 relationship to the
secular world as with doctrinal emphases which relate to
marriage and sex, with the belief in and claim of mystical
religious experience and with the sources for motivation,
whether internally derived from experience or externally
imposed by authority.
The typology was outlined and sub-divided into
four categories. The typology is built on Peterson's
extension of this analysisbut is a revised version
based upon the writer's personal observation of the groups
^James A. Peterson, "An Inquiry into the Relation
of Objective and Subjective Religious Factors to Adjust
ment and Maladjustment in Marriage," (unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation. University of Southern California, 1951).
58
involved.
The Religiosity Variable
The weakness of the way in which religiosity as
an independent variable has been used in a number of
studies is the failure to recognize that there are
different types of religiosity as a function of the
i
| individual's religious affiliation. For example, to j
I measure religiosity by the number of times an individual ;
attends services without controlling for the qualitative
differences in the type of services attended invalidates
any generalizations made concerning its effects. It is
the assumption of this study that the religiosity of a
person who attends a sect-type church regularly is of a
different variety from that of a person who attends a
liberal church. These differences are qualitative and
will have different consequences in personality development
and in behavior.
On the first level of analysis religiosity will be
seen to have unique properties within the boundaries of
each of the four categories outlined. It is assumed that
active participation in each of these groups reflects a
certain qualitative difference in religiosity. At the one
extreme one group will emphasize the experiential quality
of worship in terms of emotional participation (the sect
group); at the other extreme emphasis is upon intellectual
59
apprehension of ethical precepts (the liberal church).
On another level of analysis this study will
attempt to assess the effects of objective religious
factors such as dependence upon Bible study, private
prayer and meditation on marital adjustment. Comparisons
within groups and between groups will be made. Do such
i
I
; practices have different effects for people from different
groups? Within each group, does the practice or non
practice of such religious patterns affect marital
adjustment?
Categories of Religious Groups
The following arrangement of categories adheres
closely to the divisions used by Peterson with some
refinements.
The sect group. Sect churches are those which are
characterized by emotional participation, emphasis on the
supernatural and an otherworldly orientation. These
groups tend to secure their members by a cataclysmic
emotional experience of conversion. Their definition of
happiness has reference to a code of conduct which event
uates in eternal life and includes obedience to Biblical
precepts based upon a literal acceptance of Scripture as
they understand it. Their hymns emphasize the great joy
of being "saved" and the prospect of ultimate happiness in
heaven. The church is the primary focus of life, and
6o
recreation is secondary and should be functional for
enhancement of the spiritual life of the individual.
In addition to the conversion experience, which
is usually described as the "New Birth," most of these
groups also emphasize a second pivotal experience
described as the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit." This
experience is not required as a qualification for member
ship, but is expected to occur shortly after conversion. j
It is believed that this experience will introduce the
individual to a new quality of life having implications
not only for participation in private and public worship,
affording greafer enjoyment of these, but also for prac
tical every-day life. The one who passes through this
mystical experience should develop more easily the
qualities of selflessness and equanimity. The implica
tions for this in a study of marital adjustment is obvious.
In the intimate interrelationship of marriage any force
which gets to ameliorate egocentric patterns should bring
about better adjustment.
The conservative-evangelical group. The conser
vative-evangelical group bases its religious beliefs on
the same authority as the sect groups--the Bible, liter
ally interpreted. In general, these denominations are
the older, historic groups which still maintain ortho
doxy in their creeds and continue to
61
emphasize the experience of conversion with much less
concern over its emotional content. Conversion is
defined in terms of a commitment to Christ by a decision
of the will. They stress personal salvation as the gift
of God which should be evidenced by obedience to His laws.
| This group includes the fundamentalists, but for large
I numbers of them this term has fallen into disfavor and
; they prefer use of the term evangelical. They stress very i
strongly regular attendance at church schools (Sunday
School) and the practice of private devotions. In dis
tinction from the first group, they do not accept a
"second work of grace," but tend to stress a growth process
in this religious life.
The institutional-authoritarian group. (Catholic)
The institutional-authoritarian churches are probably
the oldest. Their strongest emphasis is upon creed and
ritual as articulated by the denominational tradition.
The base of authority and truth is not only the Bible,
but traditions as well. They tend to be legalistic and
dogmatic, but lean toward liberalism in terms of partici
pation and enjoyment of the pleasures of drinking and
attendance at the theater. Divorce has become somewhat
more acceptable to them, but they usually retain the
Biblical prohibitions against premarital or extramarital
sex.
62
The liberal churches. The liberal churches are
easily recognized by their rejection of the rigid adher
ence to either the Bible or church traditions as the only
sources of truth. They accept those portions of the
Bible which they feel are consonant with human reason and
the current versions of scientific truth. They are the
most accepting of divorce if they feel it is conducive j
to the individual's personality growth. They stress |
individual autonomy and secure members through intellect- :
ual assent. Worship is more likely to involve the
intellectual aspects with little expectation of emotional
participation. Pulpit preaching is often oriented more
toward current political and social issues rather than
Biblical exposition. They emphasize the Kingdom of God
on earth rather than a heaven and hell theology.
It is not assumed that these descriptive categories
include all of the more than 200 denominational groups
which make up Protestantism. Some groups may be eclectic
and share in characteristics from more than one of these
descriptions. Others may be of such esoteric nature to
defy placement in any of the four categories we have
delineated. These categories, however, do describe cen
tral tendencies and make it possible to expect distinctive
consequences from affiliative participation in such
groups.
It is possible at this point to draw out certain
63
specific hypotheses regarding the major concerns of this
study. The statement of these hypotheses will be pre
ceded by a more specific delineation of the rationale from
which they are derived. We are concerned first with the
modification of the Puritan negativism and the possible
effects of mystical experience.
Puritan Negativism
A recurring theme in the sociological and psycho
logical literature on marital happiness suggests that
the Puritan ethic inculcates a negative attitude toward
sex. It is suggested that concomitantly with this nega
tive emphasis the individual develops guilt feelings which
inhibit successful sexual adjustment, and conflict in
marriage is thus generated.
Some have generalized this indictment to the
entire Christian religion, suggesting that it denigrates
sex. The Christian view of marriage and sex is described
as an irrational system of taboo created by medieval
superstition and Oriental asceticism creating a tendency
toward mental disorders and unwholesome views of life.’ 1 '
A large body of historical literature does indeed
lend support to this view. Early Puritan preachers made
use of certain Biblical admonitions regarding the "flesh"
^Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals (London,
1955).
64
(which they interpreted to mean bodily appetites as such)
to inculcate an ethical approach which portrayed sex as
a necessary evil for procreation, but contrary to true
piety.
This orientation can be traced from the early
centuries of Christian teaching through the Middle Ages,
I when virginity was exalted and celibacy was acclaimed
i as the best possible state for the Christian apostle and !
disciple. Interpretative historians see this as a result '
of infiltration into Christian teaching of pagan sources,
the Manichean and gnostic schools, which despised the
body and its powers, perhaps from a sense of impending
doom upon a declining culture. These pagan schools had
arisen as a reaction to the feverish eroticism of their
own culture. The early church fathers' fury against
sexuality may be understood better, perhaps, by reading
from the pagan sources themselves of the brutal lascivious
ness of the waning years of the imperial Graeco-Roman
civilization.
From a survey of the current literature the writer
has found that the approach of the major faiths repre
sented in the typology of this study is that sex is whole
some and good, but should be confined to the marriage
relationship. The powerful biological urge of sex is to
^V. A. Demant, Christian Sex Ethics (New York:
Harper and Row Publishers, 1963)•
65
be regarded as a part of the creation of God, and there
fore in itself is not evil. Excessive preoccupation with
sex is regarded as a potential for destructiveness in
much the same way as such preoccupation with food or with
wealth could limit the full development of the human
| personality.
i
i The evidence for this changing emphasis in the
; evangelical orientation toward sex and marriage is to be
found in the plethora of books and magazine articles
which have been published by church-related groups in the
last twenty-five years. The Bibliography of this study
lists a number of such publications. They include
Sexual Happiness in Marriage,^ a manual containing
explicit instructions and drawings of the sexual organs.
Such publications by evangelical publishing, houses were
unheard of two decades ago.
The Mystical Experiences of Conversion
and Spirit-Baptism
The experience of conversion and "the Baptism in
the Holy Spirit" are defining characteristics of the sect
group type for the purpose of this study. In the Peterson
study no attempt was made to assess the effects of the
"conversion" experience as an explanatory variable for
the deviance of the sect group from the main hypothesis
^Herbert Miles, Sexual Happiness in Marriage
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House 1967).
66
of the study, even though it was used to differentiate
this group from others. In this study we intend to
incorporate this notion of a claimed mystical experience
as a characteristic of the type of religiosity represented
by this group.
The study was not concerned with the validity
of such experience, nor with the inherent problem in
attempting to measure intra-psychic phenomena of this
type. In the tradition of William James, this study
accepts the respondent's claim to such experiences as the
existential fact with which we are dealing.1 In the style
of W. I. Thomas it is assumed that if a situation is real
to an individual, then to him the consequences are real.
It should be noted that such experience is regarded by
such groups as the sine qua non for the full realization
of the potentials in all of life experiences, including
marriage, not merely as a ticket to eternal "glory."
The twin concepts of Puritan negativism and
consequent guilt briefly described here seem to have been
the philosophical base for the major hypotheses of the
1951 Peterson study. Peterson assumed that those
religious groups which tend to withdraw from life, which
is regarded as sinful; which stress the final values of
life as those of another world; which regard happiness as
' LWilliam James, The Varieties of Religious Exper
ience (New York: Collier Books, 1961).
67
being "right with God/' and find greatest happiness in
religious emotionality would be negatively associated
with marital happiness.
In the Peterson study the deviance of the sect
groups from the general hypothesis was explained by their
| "other worldly" definitions of happiness and their tend
ency to turn the focus of attention away from life
tensions to spiritual values and the possibility that
a vocabulary suited to middle-class groups may not mean
much to the sect groups. This evidence of higher marital
adjustment among sect groups was discounted as unimportant
to the main hypothesis and anecdotal evidence in the form
of individual case studies was introduced to support the
hypothesis.
A recent study by Murstein and Gloudin^ of forty-
three couples receiving marital counseling and thirty-
seven control couples which made use of the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) concluded that
many persons seeking marriage counseling display prominent
phychiatric symptoms and often have personalities which
are poorly suited to successful intimate relationships.
No claim is made by the authors of evidence regarding the
■^Bernard I. Murstein and Vincent Claudin, "The Use
of the MMPI in the Determination of Marital Maladjustment,"
Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 30, 4 (Nov. 1968),
551-b55.
68
origin and development of such personality constellations,
only that they are present.
The weakness of this type of evidence, then, is
that cases from the marriage counsellor's file represent
pathology and not central tendencies for any group under
| study. Each case would have to be regarded as isolated
instances without representativeness. Use of pathological j
: cases tends to ignore the extent of the incidence of j
"healthy" marriages from the same group. The present
study makes use of cross-sectional analysis which includes
both pathology and "health" in terms of marital adjust
ment. The use of cases from the marriage counselor files
is similar to studying the patients in hospitals to deter
mine the effects of climate on physical health without
the use of a control group from the general population of
of non-hospitalized persons.
The following hypotheses have been developed from
the previous discussion:
I. As one moves from sect to evangelical to
liberal to Catholic groups there will be a consistent drop
in marital adjustment scores.
Ila. The higher the mystical inner-direction score,
the higher the marital adjustment score.
lib. The higher the intellectual inner-direction
score, the higher the marital adjustment score.
III. Puritan negativism scores will be highest in
the institutional-authoritarian (Catholic) churches* next
highest in the sects* third highest in the conservative-
evangelical churches and lowest in the liberal churches.
IV. Mean ISP scores will be lower in the sects
and the institutional-authoritarian (Catholic) churches
than in the evangelical and liberal churches.
V. The greater the reported number of private
religious practices of a devotional nature* the higher
the mystical inner-direction scores and the higher the
marital adjustment scores.
VI. The greater the leniency in attitudes toward
divorce in churches* the greater the incidence of divorce.
VII. The higher the authoritarianism score* the
lower the marital adjustment score.
The placement of specific religious denominations
in the ideal-type categories of this study was guided by
the work of Mead* whose Handbook includes the history*
practices and major doctrinal positions of over two
hundred denominations in America. Peterson’s work
supplied a tentative framework* but his placement of one
or two groups is open to question. Some Presbyterian
churches* for example* are far from liberal as are some
Evangelical-Reformed. The placement of this study is
subject to similar reexamination.
The sects for this study are limited to those
70
congregations commonly labeled as Pentecostal. These
included the Assemblies of God, the Pour Square Church,
the various Pentecostal Church of God groups and inde
pendent Full Gospel churches.
The conservative-evangelical group is made up of
| Conservative and Southern Baptists, the Grace Brethren,
I
j the Nazarene, the Bible Churches and the orthodox
: Presbyterians.
The liberal group is made up of Congregational-
ists, United Methodist, American Lutheran and Community
(non-denominational).
The institutional-authoritarian group is limited
to the Roman Catholic churches.
Summary
In this chapter the development of thought
regarding the sociological study of religion has been
briefly outlined with special emphasis upon the work of
Durkheim and Weber. The emergence of the functionalist
perspective has been traced. This view stresses the
relevance of religion as an institution contributing to
equilibrium in the societal system.
A brief introduction to the social psychological
view of personality development as a function of inter
action within groups has been given. The next logical
step in the development of the rationale for this thesis
71
was taken by linking the influence of the religious group
as one of the individual's primary groups with the
development of values which in turn impinge upon the
individual's behavior in the intimate relationships of
marriage.
The concept of inner-direction, defined in terms
of the effects of religious experience or lack of it,
was developed as a means of defining differences between
religious group influences and as an explanation for
differing degrees of success in marital adjustment. The
hypothesis was presented that the greater the degree of
inner-direction, the greater the degree of success in
marital adjustment.
Inner-direction may of two types: one emerging
from mystical religious experience the other from an
emphasis upon intellectual autonomy. The latter may be
characteristic of liberal Protestant groups.
In order to lay the groundwork for developing the
four categories of religious groups which constitute the
sample used in this study a further elaboration of the
diversity which exists in Christian religious groups was
given. There are differences in philosophical approaches
in terms of relating to the secular world, differences in
style of worship on a continuum from extremely informal
to highly ritualized. This study confines itself to an
examination of the basic difference in religiosity in
terms of emphasis upon and expectation of personal
religious experience.
Seven major hypotheses were developed from the
discussion which preceded.
Descriptive definitions of the four groups were
given, which include the sect group, the evangelical
j
I group, the authoritarian group and the liberal group.
1 The chapter closed with the assignment to each category
of specific denominational groups.
CHAPTER IV
PROCEDURES
Selection of the Populations
to be Studied I
--------------------------------------------- I
Religious affiliation has been used to define the j
boundaries of four populations. The selection of par- !
ticular churches for each sample was accomplished by
reference to Mead’s Handbook of Denominations in the
United States. The categories for the study, as defined
by Peterson, were used to guide the placement of each
church within each category. Churches which fitted the
descriptions of Peterson's categories were then purposively
selected from the telephone directories for the Metro
politan area of Los Angeles, including the city of Long
Beach and other cities with boundaries contiguous with
the boundaries of the city of Los Angeles.
Arrangements were made through the pastors or
assistant pastors for meetings with groups of couples who
were actively involved in the church as determined by the
iFrank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations in the
United States (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1961).
73
74 '
pastors themselves. The only stipulation made by the
writer was that the couples not be limited to one age
group.
I
Husbands and wives in interview groups were each j
given separate questionnaires which were coded so that j
they could be matched after each meeting. Collaboration
was avoided by separating the couples. The interviewer
was available for questions from the respondents. The
fact that no one would be identified with a specific
questionnaire was stressed in each meeting. It is be
lieved that a high degree of honesty in the responses
was obtained.
It should be noted that this sample in no way j
represents the general population of the area nor of the !
United States. This is a sample of people from four I
different denominational categories which ministers
indicated that they were actively involved in their
churches. The sample came from a total of forty congrega
tions situated within the area described above.
Questionnaire
The questionnaire used for this study appears in
Appendix As p. 157.
Refusal Bias
There were no refusals on the part of ministers
who were asked to aid the writer in this research. This
75
willingness to help may be a reflection of the strong
sense of interest or perhaps urgency experienced by the
clergy in regard to marital problems. Most clergymen
are sympathetic toward this type of research when it is
presented to them as an attempt to improve marriage
I counseling techniques. (See page 1 of Questionnaire in
I
! Appendix A, p. 158. j
The percentage of refusal of those who were given
an opportunity to participate in the study was small.
For the sect, evangelical and liberal groups the refusal
rate was five per cent. For Catholics the rate was fifteen
per cent. One can only speculate as to the reasons for
this difference in refusal rates. One factor may be that
the Catholic groups with which the writer met were larger
than those of the other groups and there may have been a
tendency to feel less need to join in supporting the
project.
The writer made a neighborhood canvass to see what
differences would occur if this method had been used in
securing a sample. It became evident that the refusal
rate would be much higher if door to door random sampling
had been employed. When a pastor's approval has been
secured a much higher rate of return is assured. Some
evidence of an anecdotal nature seems to indicate that
refusal to participate may be related to current unhappy
76
experiences in marriage.^ If this is true the mean
marital adjustment scores would have been slightly reduced
for all groups in the sample if all those approached had
participated. Since this factor would be operative for
all groups it would not vitiate the comparisons made in
| the study.
; I
! Validation of Measuring Instruments j
o i
In the recent work of Straus over 319 works on !
measurement techniques related to marriage or family
relations were reviewed in abstract form. Of these there
were 24 dealing specifically with techniques for measuring
marital adjustment. Such marital adjustment tests vary
in complexity from the use of one open-ended question
regarding the respondents' evaluation of their own happi
ness in marriage to the use of various projective
techniques or scales containing as many as 29 scored items.
Due to the replicative nature of this study it was
essential that a test be used with validity comparable to
that used in the Peterson work. Peterson used the Burgess-
Cottrell scale consisting of 29 items. It was decided to
iTwo of those the writer attempted to interview
stated that they did not wish to participate in a survey
touching on marriage because of current marital problems.
2Murray A. Straus, Family Measurement Techniques
(University of Minnesota Press, 1969).
77
make use of the Wallace Marital Adjustment test which is
an abbreviated revision of the Burgess-Cottrell scale.'*'
The items included in this test are those which were
shown to have the highest level of discrimination between
maladjusted and adjusted marriages. The mean score on
the Wallace test for 48 marriages in trouble or divorced
was 71.7- For a matched group of marriages known to be
: well adjusted the mean score was 135*9* Another compari
son used to validate the Wallace test showed that only
17 per cent of marriages diagnosed as maladjusted scored
over 100 on the test, while 96 per cent of marriages
diagnosed as adjusted scored over 100.^
The items on this form are divided into three
groups: 1) self-ratings of satisfaction with various
aspects of marriage, including affection, confiding,
methods of settling disagreements and other problems;
2) frequency of disagreement over family life matters;
and 3) a checklist of sources of unhappiness in marriage.
The Wallace scale is composed of 15 items and is repro
duced as Appendix G, p.192 of this dissertation.
The items used for measuring social class are the
1Ibid.
^Karl Miles Wallace, "Construction and Validation
of Marital Adjustment and Prediction Scales," (an unpub
lished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern Califor
nia, 1954), p. 121. (See Appendix G, p.
78
two factors known as the Index of Social Position,
validated by Hollingshead and widely cited in the
literature.’ 1 ' The individual's ISP score is determined by
assigning weights to the two factors, occupation and
education (see Items 7 and 9 in the Questionnaire,
Appendix A, p. 159). The resultant score places the
: individual in one of five classes.
■ i
i
Face validity is claimed for the items used to j
measure attitudes toward divorce, religious practices, '
and religious experience. These are items 15, l6, 17* 18* :
19* 20, 21, 22, 23* 24, 25* 26, 27* 28, 29, 30, 34, 35*
48, 49, 50* 51* 82, 89, 97. They are straightforward
questions which serve to construct the respondent's
profile.
The measurement of Puritan negativism and inner-
direction were especially defined for this study. These
scales are reproduced as Appendices D, E and F with the
identifying numbers from the Questionnaire (pp. 183-191).
The items relating to these measurements which were
included in the final Questionnaire were obtained through
consultation with the members of the dissertation
committee and researchers currently engaged in similar
types of research. Face validity is claimed for these
items.
■^August Hollingshead, mimeographed material, 1957*
79
A limited test was made by checking the correla
tions between the items included in these scales. The
magnitude of these correlations (Gamma = .60 to .80)
suggested that a high degree of internal reliability does
i exist for the scales.
! The questionnaire was field tested to determine
I that difficulties might be expected in administering it
' and corrections in wording were made.
Statistical analysis was accomplished by using a
suitable program published in the Statistical Package for
the Social Sciences.-1 - Tests of significance are included
in the tables which are a part of the next chapter of
this dissertation.
Summary
This chapter has been concerned with an overview
of the procedures employed in the conduct of this study.
A purpose sampling procedure was followed by selecting
churches in terms of the boundaries of the religious
categories under study. Interviewing procedures followed
the format of group interviewing with husbands and wives
filling out questionnaires without collaboration.
Two validated measurements, the Wallace Marital
Adjustment Scale and the Index of Social Position were
lNorman H. Nie, Dale H. Bent, C. Hadlai Hull,
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1970.
8o
incorporated into the interview schedule. Other variables
were measured by items which have face validity.
All data were processed according to accepted
standards by use of IBM computers.
CHAPTER V
FINDINGS
Characteristics of the Sample
The sample for this study consisted of a total of
4l6 individuals, 104 from each of the four religious
categories which had been delineated previously.
The demographic characteristics of the respondents
were gathered from items 1, 2, 3> 4, J, and 8 in the
Questionnaire (Appendix A, p. 158). The tabulated
responses are presented in Tables 1, 2, and 3 which
follow. The mean age and the mean length of marriage are
shown as indicators of the representativeness of the
sample and of the validity of the comparisons which have
been made between groups.
In Table 2 a detailed analysis of the distribution
of the sample in age groups is presented. There is a
slight skewing in the direction of the younger age groups.
Within the groups the sects have slightly more in the
youngest age bracket and slightly more in the 55 to 59
age group.
81
TABLE 1
MEAN AGE AND LENGTH OF MARRIAGE OF RESPONDENTS
Sect
n=io4
Evangelical
N=104
Liberal
N=104
Catholic
N=104
Sample
N=4l6
Age
35-5
36.6 40 36.6
37.1
Length of
Marriage 14 years 13 years 13.5 years 13 years 14 years
TABLE 2
AGE ANALYSIS OF SAMPLE
Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic Entire Sample
Age Group No.
%
No.
%
No. % No. % No. %
19-24 16 15.4 8
7.7 7 6.7
10 9.6 41
9.9
25-29 17 16.3 17 16.3 9 8.7 15
14.4 58
13.9
30-34 17 16.3
14
13.5
11 10.6
13 12.5 55
13.2
35-39
12
11.5
11 10.6
15
14.4
19 18.3 57 13.7
40-44
7 6.7 17 16.3
12
11.5
16 15.4 52 12.5
45-49
11 10.6 20 19.2
17 16.3
12
11.5
60 14.4
50-54 6 5.8 8
7.7
18
17.3 9 8.7
41
9-9
55-59
14
13-5 7 6.7 7 6.7 7 6.7 35
8.4
60- ' 4 3.8 2
1.9
8
7.7 3 2.9 17
4.1
104 100 104 100 104 100 104 100 4lb 100
CO
00
84 ;
Social Class
An analysis of the "social class" distribution as
measured by Hollingshead's ISP scale1 confirms the find- ;
O
ings of previous studies in the field of stratification.
(Items 7 and 9 in the Questionnaire in Appendix A, p. 159
were used to gather the necessary data for computing ISP j
scores.) The sects and the Catholics are over-represented;
in the middle and lower classes. The liberals, as
expected, are over-represented in the two top social
classes with only six individuals in Class VI and none
in Class V.
The evangelical group distribution represents a |
middle ground between the two extremes. Almost one-half i
i
i
of the total sample falls in Hollingshead1s Class III.
The distribution of the Catholic sample is of
interest. There are not as many of them in the lower
middle and lower class as would be expected from previous
3
surveys .
lAugust Hollingshead, mimeographed material, 1957
(see Chapter IV, p. 78 of this study).
^Herbert Schneider, Religion in 20th Century Amer
ica (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952); Bernard
Lazerwitz, "A Comparison of Major United States Religious
Groups," Journal of the American Statistical Association,
56 (Sept. 1951), PP. 588-79-
3
The Schneider study (footnote 2) for example founc
that 66% of Roman Catholics were in the lower class--the
equivalent of Hollingshead's Classes IV and V. The sample
of the present study shows 15$ of Catholics in these two
classes.
TABLE 3
SOCIAL CLASS ANALYSIS OF THE SAMPLE
Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic Totals
ISP Category No. % No.
%
No. % No.
%
No.
%
I 4 3 .8 14 1 3 .4 32 3 0 .8 4 3 .8 54 1 3 .0
II 20 19-2 16 1 5 .4 42 4 o .4 20 1 9-2 98 2 3 .6
III 4o 38.4 48 4 6 .2 24 2 5 .0 64 6l .6 178 4 2 .8
IV 32 3 0 .8 20 1 8 .2 6 5 .8 14 13.4 70 1 6 .8
V 8 7 .6 6 5 .8 0 0 .0 2 2 .0 16 3 .8
104 1 0 0 .0 104 1 0 0 .0 104 1 0 0 .0 104 1 0 0 .0 4 l6 1 0 0 .0
00
VJl
86
A General Observation
Before a detailed analysis of the findings is
presented a general observation will be made concerning
the relatively high marital adjustment scores of the
sample.
| Comparison with other studies indicate that this
: group fell into the range of the better adjusted married
' couples of the general population. If the score of 100
is used as a cutting point, 78.6 per cent of the sample
scored above that point. In the validation procedure
used by Wallace 96 per cent of the group known by other
measures to be well adjusted fell above the 100 score.’ * '
This comparison lends some additional support to the
findings of previous studies that active religious par
ticipation is positively related to good marital adjust
ment for all types of religious groups.
This study may be defined then as one concerned
with the degree of difference in marital happiness between
members of different religious denominational categories,
all of whom are comparatively well-adjusted. Put in
another way, the religiously active persons in this sample
score disproportionately high on the Wallace Marital
Adjustment Test when compared with the sample on which
the test was validated.
^Murray A. Straus, Family, Measurement Techniques
(University of Minnesota Press, 1§59).
87
A schematic drawing depicting the hypothesized
causal flow which underlies the thesis of this study and
out of which some of the hypotheses were constructed was
given in Chapter I but is reproduced here for easy
reference:
the findings relevant to each presented in tabular form.
to Catholic groups there will be a consistent drop in
marital adjustment scores.
Table 4. The mean scores on mystical inner direction
and intellectual inner direction are included and will be
discussed in connection with Hypotheses Ila and lib.
Hypothesis I was confirmed for the first two
groups. The liberal and Catholic groups did not fall in
Religious
Affiliation
Type of In-
ner-Direction
Degree of Mari-
tal Adjustment
Sect group
Mystical Inner
Direction
■> High
Evangelical
Intellectual In-
^ ner Direction
-> Medium
Liberal
Low Inner Dir
ection of Both
Types
Low
The specific hypotheses of the study follow with
Hypothesis I
As one moves from sect to evangelical to liberal
The mean scores for each group are presented in
TABLE 4
A COMPARISON OF MEAN SCORES ON MARITAL ADJUSTMENT AND TWO TYPES OF
INNER DIRECTION
Sect
N=104
Evangelical
N=104
Liberal
N=104
Catholic
n=io4
Entire Sample
N=4l6
Marital
Adjustment 126.4
116.3
110.5
112.3
116.5
Mystical
Inner
Direction
57.9
57.0
50.5 40.5 51.5
Intellectual
Inner
Direction 11.8
13-7
25.2
21.9
18.2
00
00
89
the predicted order. The Catholics were third and the
liberals last. The mean scores are presented only as a
helpful addition to the tables which are to follow.
The finding that the sect group were first in
|
j order is in agreement with the findings of the 1951 study
j
: by Peterson. However, the Peterson study showed the
liberals leading the other two and second only to the
sects. This finding of the Peterson study is contradicted
by the data from the present study.
Table 5 which follows is the statistical analysis
which is more relevant to the major thesis of this study.
There are distinct differences between the groups when
examined in terms of Low, Medium and High scores on
marital adjustment. The frequency distributions of the
Catholic and Liberal groups are very similar. Both
indicate a definite trend toward lower marital adjustment.
The evangelical group represented a medium group. The
mean score for marital adjustment of this group as shown
in Table 4 is almost identical with the mean score of the
entire sample. The distribution of the frequencies for
the sect group shows a marked difference from the other
three with 50 in the High category as compared with 15
in the Low category for marital adjustment.
If a dichotomy were formed separating the sect
from the other three groups they appear to be a distinctly
different group in terms of marital adjustment.
TABLE 5
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
Religious Category
Marital
Adjustment
Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Low
(36-109)
15
14$
39
37$
41
39$
43
41$
138
Medium
(110 - 1 3 0 )
39
38^
33
32$
40
38$
30
29$
142
High
(131-152)
50
48$
32
31#
23
22$
31
30$
136
io 4 -io o ^ io 4 -io o ^ io 4 -io o ^ io 4 - io o $ 4 i6
Chi Square p < .001; Gamma = .24
*In this table and all tables in the dissertation the cutting points for all
variables for Low, Medium and High were determined by dividing the total sample frequency
into thirds so that as closely as possible 33$ of the responses fall into each category.
The results for Marital Adjustment Scores are shown in the parentheses above.
vo
o
I
91
The gamma of .24 indicates a modest relationship.
In Table 5 and in all of the tables which follow
the percentages are column percentages. Chi Square will
be used to test for significance and Gamma for association.
Lowa Medium and High categories are all computed by-
adhering to the practice of assigning as closely as
possible thirty-three and one-third percent of the fre
quencies to each category.
The drawing presented in Chapter I and in this
chapter postulated that high inner direction of the
mystical type would flow from affiliation with the sect
and the evangelicals. This assumption is supported by
the data as indicated in Table 6. The percentages show
that as one moves from the sect to the Catholic group
mystical inner direction steadily declines from 48$ to
3$. Conversely,, sixty-four per cent of the Catholics
score low in mystical inner direction versus only 16$ of
those in a sect. The gamma of .54 indicates a strong
relationship.
In terms of causal flow it was postulated that
intellectual inner direction would flow from affiliation
with the liberal group. •
This was confirmed by the data as indicated in
Table 7- (Gamma = .59.) The surprising finding here in
terms of the schematic diagram is that the Catholic group
scored relatively high on this type of inner direction.
TABLE 6
MYSTICAL INNER DIRECTION BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY
Mystical
Inner
Direction
Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic Row Total
Low
17
20
29 67
133
16$
19#
28$ 64$
Medium
37
36$
35
34$
54
52$
34
33%
160
High 50
49
21
3
123
48$
47^
20$
3%
io 4 - io o $ io 4 -io o $ io 4 -io o $ io 4 -io o $ 4 i6
Chi Square = p < .001; Gamma = .54
vo
IV)
TABLE 7
INTELLECTUAL INNER DIRECTION BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY
Religious Category
Intellectual
Inner Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic Row Total
Direction
Low
51
49$
'SR
O J o
- 3 -
5
5$
9
9$
107
Medium 48 48 22 41
159
4 6$
47$
21$
39$
High
5
5$
'SR
. ^ t - cn
l —1 l —1
77
74$
54
52$
150
Chi
104-100$
Square = p < .
104-100$
001; Gamma = -.59
104-100$ 104-100$ 416-100$
vo
00
That part of the theory which postulated low scores for
both types of inner direction for Catholics was not
supported.
This latter finding may be indicative of a liber
alization trend among Catholics who are gaining intellect-
i
ual autonomy concomitant with the ecumenical trend in
their denomination.
An examination of the sect column in this table
reveals that 95 per cent of this group fall into the low
or medium categories on intellectual inner direction. I
Only 5% of sect members score high on intellectual inner j
direction. j
Hypothesis Ila
i
The higher the mystical inner direction score,
the higher the marital adjustment score.
Hypothesis Ila and lib constitute an attempt to
provide an intervening link between religious affiliation
and marital adjustment. This, the first of two types
of inner direction defined in this study, is labeled my
stical since it is based upon the respondent's dependence
upon inner guidance for behavior as a function of claimed
religious experience. These data were drawn from the
responses to the items in the Questionnaire which are in
Appendix D.
Hypothesis Ila is weakly supported by the data
as presented in Table 8. The relationship is significant
TABLE 8
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY MYSTICAL INNER DIRECTION
Mystical Inner Direction
Marital
Adjustment
Low
(9-45)
Medium
(46-59)
High
(60-80)
Low
(36-109)
52
39^
52
32.5^
34
28$
138
Medium
(110-130)
47
35^
56
35^
39
32^
142
High
(131-152)
34
26%
52
32.5^
50
41 %
136
133
160
123
4l6
Chi Square = p <- .10; Gamma = .17
VO
V J 1
96
only at the .10 level and the gamma is a modest .17 but
the relationship is in the direction which was postulated.
To test the theory at a higher level of statisti
cal sophistication a partial correlation technique was
utilized which has the effect of controlling for the
effects of inner direction while testing the relationship
between religious affiliation and marital adjustment.
If mystical inner direction is an intervening
link between religious affiliation and marital adjustment
then controlling for inner direction should reduce the
size of the relationship considerably. The following
three tables (Tables 9a l°a and 11) show the results of
this test. A zero order correlation of .24 indicated
that there is a moderate positive relationship between
religious affiliation and marital adjustment (Table 5).
When controlled for the test variable (mystical inner
direction) this correlation is reduced to .20 for those
with low scores on this variable, to .16 for those with
medium scores on this variable but is raised to .29 for
those with high scores on the test variable. Since the
zero order correlation of .24 was only reduced slightly
in two of the three control partials there is only very
slight support for the system which postulated that
affiliation with sect and evangelical groups leads to
mystical inner direction which in turn leads to better
TABLE 9
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY UNDER CONDITIONS
OF LOW MYSTICAL INNER DIRECTION
Religious Category
Marital Sect
Adjustment
Evangelical Liberal Catholic
onoo
i —1
£
o
7
35$
¥5.
H CO
H on
31
46#
52
Medium 10
59#
5
25$
11
38$
21
31$
47
High 4
23-5#
O O o
>R
IS-3-
OJ
15
2 2#
34
14-100# 20-100# 2 9-1 0 0# 6 7-1 0 0# 1 3 3-1 0 0#
Chi Square = p -C .20 Gamma = .20
VO
-3
TABLE 10
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY UNDER CONDITIONS OF
MEDIUM MYSTICAL INNER DIRECTION
Religious Categories
Marital Sect
Adjustment
Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Low 4 16 21 11
52
11$ 46$
39$
32$
Medium 12
13
22
9
56
32$ 37$
4l$ 27$
High 21 6 11 14
52
57$ 17$
20$ 4l$
37-100$
Chi Square = p .01;
35-100$
Gamma = .16
54-100$ 34-100$ 160-100$
VO
00
TABLE 11
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY UNDER CONDITIONS OF
HIGH MYSTICAL INNER DIRECTION
Marital
Adjustment Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Low 8 16
9
1 34
l6fo
33% 43% 2.9%
27.6
Medium
17 15 7
0
39
3 Wo 30%
23%
0.0%
31-7
High
25
18
5
2 50
50^
37% k% 40.7
Chi
50
Square = p <
49
.10; Gamma = 1.29
21
3 133
VO
VO
100
marital adjustment. These results are consistent with
the data in Tables 6, 7 and 8 which show a strong rela
tionship between religious affiliation and mystical inner
direction (Gamma = .5^-) but a modest relationship between
inner direction and marital adjustment (.17).
To sum up the interpretation of the data as
analyzed by the use of partial correlations, the hypo
thesized relationship between religious affiliation is
supported but not because of mystical inner direction.
Some other rationales are connecting religious experience
with marital adjustment. The correlations do not change
enough with inner direction held constant. Therefore,
mystical inner direction as measured in this study does
not seem to be the link between religious affiliation
and marital adjustment.
An alternative intervening variable derived from
the data of this study will be presented at the close of
this chapter.
Hypothesis lib
The higher the intellectual inner direction score,
the higher the marital adjustment score.
It was felt that the liberals would score low on
mystical inner direction but would give evidence of a
different type of inner direction which has been labeled
intellectual inner direction because it is conceptualized
101
as a function of intellectual autonomy. Responses to an
open-ended question in the questionnaire gave support to
this assumption.'1 ' Selected responses will be included
in Appendix D.
Hypothesis lib was not confirmed by the data of
this study. Table 12 is a test of this relationship.
The results show a modest negative relationship with a
gamma of -.19- Reading across as one moves from low to
high scores on intellectual inner direction, 40$ of those
high on marital adjustment score low on intellectual
inner direction compared to 24$ who are high on marital
adjustment and also high on intellectual inner direction.
This is consistent with the findings shown in
Table 4 which show that the liberal group with the highest
mean score on intellectual inner direction have the lowest
mean score on marital adjustment.
When the partial correlation technique was employee
to test the relationship between marital adjustment and
intellectual inner direction, opposite results to those
discussed in connection with Hypothesis Ila were obtained.
The zero order correlation of .24 was reduced in this
case to .09 for those with high scores on intellectual
^For a discussion of intellectual autonomy see
Riesman's article in Chad Gordon and Kenneth Gergen, eds.,
Self in Social Interaction (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
19btt), pp. 449-4bl. An empirical study of the phenomenon
was made by Olmstead and is reported in the American
Journal of Sociology, 63 (1957), PP* 49-57.
TABLE 12
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY INTELLECTUAL INNER DIRECTION
Marital
Adjustment Low Medium High
Low 26 54 58
138
24$ 34$
39 %
Medium 38 48 56
142
36$ 30$
37%
High
43
40$
57
36$
36
24$
136
107 - 100$ 159-100$ 150-100$ 4l6
Chi Square = p .05; Gamma = -.19
H
o
FO
103
inner direction but increased to .25 for those with
medium scores and to .36 for those with low scores on this
variable. (Tables 13, 14 and 15-) These findings are
consistent with those of Table 12 which showed a negative
correlation of -.19 between intellectual inner direction
and marital adjustment.
These findings must be accepted with caution
because of the small cell frequencies for Catholics and
liberals in the control table for low intellectual inner
direction (Table 13). Probably the most that can be said
here is that the data indicate that religious affilia
tion only predicts marital adjustment for those who are
medium or low in intellectual inner direction.
Hypothesis III
Puritan negativism scores will be highest in the
institutional-authoritarian (Catholic) group, next highest
in the sect group, third highest in the conservative-
evangelical group and lowest in the liberal group.
The only part of Hypothesis III which found
support in the data of this study was the placement of
the liberal group. This group scored lowest on Puritan
negativism.1 The mean scores for each group are: sect
group, 16.0; evangelical group 15.1; Catholic group 14.6
and liberal group 12.3.
-^See Appendix F for this scale.
TABLE 13
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY UNDER CONDITIONS OF
LOW INTELLECTUAL INNER DIRECTION
Religious Categories
Marital
Adjustment Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Low
5 15
1
5
p f s
9# 36# 20# 56#
Medium 21 14 1 2
38
42#
33$
20# 22#
High
25 13 3
2
43
49# 31$
60# 22#
51-100# 42-100# 5-100# 9-100# 107-100#
Chi Square = p <4 .05; Gamma = .36
104
TABLE l4
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY UNDER CONDITIONS OF
MEDIUM INTELLECTUAL INNER DIRECTION
Religious Categories
Marital
Adjustment Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Low 10 16 11
17
54
21$
33$
50$ 42$
Medium
15
31$ '
14
29$
7
32$
12
29$
48
High
23
18 4 12
57
48$ 38$ 18$
29$
4 8 -io o $ 4 8 -io o $ 2 2 - 100$ 41-100$ 1 59 - 100$
Chi Square = p < .05; Gamma = .26
105
TABLE 15
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY UNDER CONDITIONS OF
HIGH INTELLECTUAL INNER DIRECTION
Religious Categories
Marital
Adjustment Sect Evangelical Literal Catholic
Low 0
0.0
8
31%
29
31%
21
39%
58
Medium
000
5
36$
32
42$
16
30$
56
High 2 1 16
17
36
4o$
1%
21$
31#
5-100$ 14-100$ 77-100$ 54-ioo$ 150-100$
Chi Square = p - < ■ .10; Gamma = .09
107
One of the clearest findings of this study is that
the traditional anti-sex puritanism among religious people
seems to be diminishing. The highest possible score on
this index was 37. As can be seen by the mean scores,
all groups scored relatively low. The sample mean score
was 14.5*
Table 15 presents the data on this with the
measures of statistical significance and association.
The preceding analysis suggests that Puritan
Negativism in regard to sex is not correlated with marital
maladjustment. Two groups, the sect and the evangelical,
scored highest on both marital adjustment and Puritan
Negativism. A cross tabulation was run to test this.
A slight positive relationship was found between this
variable and marital adjustment. The findings are
presented in Table 16.
The measure of association between these variables
is so low that the most that can be said here is that for
this sample of religiously devout persons there is no
clear relationship between feelings of negativism toward
sexual matters and good marital adjustment. A more
detailed discussion of this will be included in the
discussion of guilt feelings and marital adjustment.
TABLE 16
PURITAN NEGATIVISM BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY
Religious Categories
Puritan
Negativism Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Low 16 24 60 34
134
15# 23 $ 58$
33^
Medium 41 50
35
42
168
4o$ 48$
33^
40$
High
47
45^
30
29$
9
9$
28
27$
114
io 4 - io o $ 104 - 100$ . 1 0 4 - 100$ 1 0 4 - 100$ 4 1 6 - 100$
Chi Square = p .001; Gamma = .29
108
TABLE 17
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY PURITAN NEGATIVISM
Puritan Negativism
l
i
Marital
Adjustment Low Medium High
j
Low 46
34$
59
35$
33
29$
138
Medium 56
42$
48
29$
38
33$
142
High 32
24$
6l
36$
43
38$
136
134-100$ 1 6 8 - 100$ 114 - 100$ 4 i6 -io o $
Chi Square = p .05; Gamma = .12
H
O
V O
110
Hypothesis IV
Mean ISP scores will be lowest in the sects and
the Institutional-authoritarian (Catholic) churches.
Hypothesis IV was confirmed by the data as has
been indicated in Chapter IV in the demographic descrip
tion of the sample. This finding is related to the
major thesis of this study in a tangential way. Previous
studies cited by the writer1-have reported that there is
a greater degree of marital conflict and disruption in
the lower strata of the general population. The findings
discussed in this chapter suggest that the reverse is
true for devoutly religious people. It may indicate that
participation in certain religious groups is an ameliorat
ing variable. This theory has tentative confirmation
from the findings of this study.
Hypothesis V
The greater the reported number of private reli
gious practices of a devotional naturej the higher the
mystical inner direction scores and the higher the marital
adjustment scores.
Hypothesis V was developed to test the oft-heard
cliche "the family that prays together stay together."
The hypothesis was supported by the data of this study.
This finding contradicts the finding of the Peterson study
1Cf3 p.40.
Ill
of 1951.
There are two findings which may be seen in
Table 18. The devoutness of the entire sample is indi
cated by examining the column totals of the table which
indicate that a high proportion of the people of this
sample make use of prayer in connection with their
personal problems. This suggests that our goal of
developing a sample of people from all four categories
who were high on religiosity was realized.
The percentages indicate a nice relationship --
as reported use of prayer increases, mystical inner
direction increases from to 42^, a substantial differ
ence of 37%.
The Chi Square is significant at the .001 level
meaning that these results could not occur by chance
more than one time in a thousand. The gamma of .29
indicates a moderate relationship.
The second part of Hypothesis V postulated a
positive relationship between private relisious practice
and marital adjustment scores. An examination of Table 19
which follows indicates fairly strong confirmation of
this relationship.
By reading the last column it may be seen that
there were 8l individuals in the "high" category of
marital adjustment who used prayer "very much" in dealing
with problems of a personal nature, with children or
TABLE 18
RESPONSES TO THE ITEM "TO WHAT EXTENT TO USE PRAYER
IN DEALING WITH PROBLEMS"
Use of Prayer
Mystical
Inner
Direction
not at all a little somewhat considerably very much
Low 6 18
29
46
3^
133
30$ 38$ 46$
35^
22$
Medium
13
65$
23
49$
19
30$
50
38$
55
36$
160
High 1 6
15 37
64
123
5%
13#
24$ 28$ 42$
2 0 -ioo$> 4 7 - 1 0 0 $ 6 3 - 1 0 0 $ 1 3 3 - 1 0 0 $ 1 5 3 - 1 0 0 $ 4 l 6
Chi Square = p ^ .001; Gamma = 0.29
BIT
TABLE 19
RESPONSES TO THE ITEM: "HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU USED PRAYER
IN CONNECTION WITH PROBLEMS?"
Marital
Adjustment not at all a little somewhat considerably very much
Low 9
43$
27
57$
28
45$
48
36$
26
17$
138
Medium 8 16 ' 24 48 46
142
42$ 34$ 38$ 36$ 30$
High 3 4 11
37
81
136
15$
8$
17$
28$
53$
20-100$
Chi Square = p < .001;
47-100$
Gamma = .45
63-100$ 133-100$ 153-100$ 4l6
H
H
UJ
113
114
between themselves and their mate. This compares with 46
in the medium category of marital adjustment and 26 in
the low category of marital adjustment who used prayer
very much. In the category of those who used prayer "a
little" there were 27 in the low category of marital
adjustment, 16 in the medium category on this variable
and only 4 who used prayer "a little" who were in the
high category of marital adjustment.
A chi square of 61.87 is significant at the .001
level and the gamma of .45 indicates considerable strength
in this association.
The Reported Use of Prayer and Marital
Adjustment by Religious Category
Does the effect on marital adjustment of the
reported use of prayer vary with membership in different
religious groups?
By statistically controlling for the effects
of affiliation in religious groups the following results
were obtained: the zero order correlation of .45 between
the reported use of prayer and marital adjustment remained
about the same for the sect group at .44, increased to
.62 under conditions of affiliation with the evangelical
group, dropped to .24 under conditions of affiliation with
the liberal group, and to .34 under conditions of affilia
tion with the Catholic group.
115
An interpretation of these findings suggested that
the reported use of prayer has the most meaning in terms
of marital adjustment for those who are members of
evangelical churches and the least meaning for those who
are members of liberal groups but that for all four of
the groups the correlation holds at a moderate level.
The relationship is weakest for those groups with the
lowest marital adjustment scores lending added confirma
tion to Hypothesis V.
The partial correlations may be seen in Tables
20, 21, 22 and 23 which are on the following four pages.
The use of Bible reading in private is universally
recommended by fundamentalist religious leaders from
both the sect and evangelical groups as a means to
improve behavior in terms of ethics and to strengthen
interpersonal relationships. For this reason it was
decided to include a test to determine if there is any
relationship between this variable and marital adjustment.
The first step was to check the relationship
postulated in Hypothesis VIII between the use of Bible
reading and inner direction of the mystical type. Table
24 records the findings.
A fairly strong relationship is observed here as
will be noted by the Gamma of .43 and a Chi Square of
79*5» This evidence further supports the hypothesis
TABLE 20
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY THE REPORTED USE OF PRAYER
UNDER CONDITIONS OF AFFILIATION WITH THE
SECT GROUP
The Reported Use of Prayer
Marital
Adjustment a little somewhat considerable very much
Low 2
50#
2
22#
7
21#
4
7$
15
Medium 2
50%
4
44#
13
39$
20
34#
39
High 0
0%
3
3 4#
13
4o#
34
59$
50
4-100# 9-100% 33-100# 58-100# 104-100#
Chi--Square = p <. .05;Gamma = .44
*See footnote Table 5, page 90.
H
H
TABLE 21
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY THE REPORTED USE OF PRAYER UNDER CONDITIONS
OF AFFILIATION WITH THE EVANGELICAL GROUP
The Reported Use of Prayer
Marital not at all
Adjustment or
a little
somewhat considerably very much
Low
5
56#
10
11%
14
47$
10
19#
39
i
l
i
Medium 4
3
10 16
33
44# 23# 33^ 31#
High
0 0
0 0
6
20#
26
50#
32
Chi
9-100#
Square = p -C .001;
13-100#
Gamma = .62
30-100# 52-100# 104-100#
H
H
TABLE 22
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY THE REPORTED USE OF PRAYER UNDER CONDITIONS
OF AFFILIATION WITH THE LIBERAL GROUP
The Reported Use of Prayer
Marital
Adjustment Not at all a little somewhat considerable very much
Low 4
33%
13
57%
9
35%
12
39%
25# i+1
Medium
7
58#
9
39%
10
38#
10
32#
33% 40
High 1
9#
1
4#
7
27%
9
29^
42# 23
12-100# 23-100# 26-100# 31-100# 12-100#
104
Chi Square = p< .05; Gamma = .24
118
TABLE 23
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT BY THE REPORTED USE OF PRAYER UNDER CONDITIONS
OF AFFILIATION WITH THE CATHOLIC GROUP
The Reported Use of Prayer
Marital
Adjustment not at all a little somewhat considerately very much
Low 4
57$
8
67$
7
47$
15
38.5$
9
29$
43
Medium 1 1
7 15
6
30
14$ 8$
47$ 38.5$ 19$
High 2
3
1
9
16
31
29$ 25$
6$
23$ 52$
7-100$
Chi Square = p <• .02;
12-100$
Gamma - .35*
15-100$ 39-ioo$ 31-100$ 104-100$
H
Ml
TABLE 24
REPORTED USE OF BIBLE READING AND DEGREE OF MYSTICAL INNER DIRECTION
Mystical
Inner
Direction
not at all a little somewhat considerately very much
Low 48
5 0 $
28
3 8 $
33
36$
10
1 2 $
iR
1 —1 1 —I
133
Medium 44
4 5 $
32
4 4 $
31
34$
27
3 3$
26
36$
160
High 4
5 $
13
1 8 $
C O O
C M C O
45
5 5 $
33
4 5 $
123
96-100$ 73-100$ 92-100$ 82-100$ 73-100$ 4l6
Chi Square = p < .001; Gamma = .43
H
i\e
o
121
that the use of Bible reading is positively related to
good marital adjustment.
Table 25 presents the findings on the relationship
between the reported use of Bible reading in dealing with
problems and good marital adjustment. This part of
Hypothesis V is also supported by the data. The greatest
difference occurs between those who responded that they
used this religious practice "very much" and the next
step down, those who responded "considerably". The
number of those in the high category of marital adjustment
who used the Bible reading "very much" was 43 as compared
to the 9 i - n the low category who claimed to use Bible
reading to this extent.
To further check the effects of the reported use
of Bible reading in dealing with problems a specifica
tion technique was used by statistically controlling for
the effects of affiliation in the four religious
categories of the study.
The zero order correlation between the reported
use of the Bible and marital adjustment was .31* This
was increased to .42 for the sect group, to .40 for the
evangelical group, but fell to .09 for the liberal group
and to .09 for the Catholic group. These results indicate
that the hypothesis that the use of Bible reading as a
subjective religious practice is positively related to
good marital adjustment is selective according to particu-
TABLE 25
REPORTED USE OF BIBLE READING IN DEALING WITH PROBLEMS AND
DEGREE OF MARITAL ADJUSTMENT
Marital
Adjustment not at all a little somewhat considerably very much
Low 42
4 5 $
31
4 3 $
34
3lio
22
21%
9
12#
H
O O
C O
Medium 33 22 38 28 21
142
3 3 $
30% 4 i # 3 4 # 2 9 #
High 21 20 20 32
43
136
2 2 # 2. 1% 22%
39% 59 $
96-100%
Chi Square = p <. .001;
13-100%,
Gamma = . 31
9 2 - 1 0 0 # 32-100% 73-100# 4 l 6
H
r o
to
123
lar religious groups.
An interpretation of the partial correlation
procedure indicates that this relationship is strongest
for those affiliated with the sect and evangelical groups
but almost disappears for the liberal and Catholic groups.
It was decided to determine if the relationship
between religious practices and marital adjustment could
be verified by other statistical techniques. Use was made
of Pearson's coefficient of correlation. Correlations
were obtained on the responses regarding the use of prayer,
Bible reading and the degree of orthodoxy (Items 21, 22,
48, 49, 50 and 51) as related to marital adjustment scores.
The correlation between the use of prayer and
marital adjustment was .33* a moderate relationship.
The correlation between Bible reading and marital adjust
ment was .30 and between orthodoxy and marital adjustment,
.26. These correlations are all significant at the .001
level.
These findings are the opposite of those reported
in the Peterson study of 1951a who found no significant
relationship (pp. 174-179)*
The effects of participation in public religious
worship services were not included in Hypothesis V but
the importance of this feature of the religious life is
often stressed by leaders in all religious categories.
A test was run on this variable to check on the
1
124
relationship between the frequency of church attendance
and good marital adjustment.
The frequency was small for those who responded
that they attended the regular services of their church
on "holidays" or "never." However, by examining the first
column of Table 26, it can be seen that there were 129
individuals in the high adjustment category who were
frequent attenders, 119 in the medium category and 111
in the low category. A Gamma of .40 suggests a moderately
strong relationship.
A confirmation of the relationship between church
attendance and marital adjustment may be seen in the fact
that mean scores on marital adjustment for the four
religious categories (Table 4) fall in exactly the same
sequence with the per cent who attend services "once a
week or more." For the sect group 100 per cent gave this
response, for the evangelicals, 93*3 pen cent checked
this category, for the liberals the percentage was 72.1
and for the Catholics the percentage was 79-8.
Hypothesis VI
The greater the leniency in attitude toward
divorce in churches the greater the incidence of divorce.
The data from this study offers no evidence to
support this Hypothesis VT. The liberal group, as
expected, evidenced the greatest leniency in attitudes
TABLE 26
FREQUENCY OF CHURCH ATTENDANCE AND DEGREE OF MARITAL ADJUSTMENT
Marital once a week
Adjustment or more once a month holidays never
Low 111 11 10 6
138
31$
36$ 63$
60$
Medium 119
15 5 3
142
33$
48$
31$
30$
High 129
5
1 1
136
36$ 16$ 6$ 10$
359-100$
Chi Square = p <• .01;
31-100$
Gamma = .40
16-100$ 10-100$ 416-100$
H
r o
ui
~.... ’ ' ~ ~ 126
toward divorce but the percentage of divorces within each
group did not differ significantly.
The number of divorces experienced by the
evangelical and Catholic groups was 11 for each group.
For the sect and the liberal groups the number was 8 for
each group. There were few divorces among the sample.
| For the Catholic group a speculative explanation might
be the traditional excommunication which follows divorce
and remarriage. For the other groups no explanation is
j
| offered.
!
|
Hypothesis VII
The higher the authoritarianism scorej the lower
i
| the marital adjustment score.
! Hypothesis VII was not confirmed by the evidence.
| To test this hypothesis three items were used in the
I Questionnaire (Appendix A, Items 103, 104 and 105, p.
! Table 27 indicates a modest positive relationship between
I
I
; authoritarianism scores and marital adjustment (Gamma =
i
1
I .17). Hypothesis VII predicted a negative relationship.
By reading across the bottom column of Table 27 the
percentage of those with high marital adjustment scores
increases from 10% for those low on authoritarianism to
48$ for those high on authoritarianism -- a net increase
of 36$.
When the effect of authoritarianism was controlled
TABLE 27
MARITAL ADJUSTMENT AND DEGREE OF AUTHORITARIANISM
Marital
Adjustment
Low
(3-6)
Authoritarianism
Medium
(7-10)
High
(11-15)
Low
53 59
20
138
(36-109) 46% 36#
19$
Medium 52 54 36
142
(110-130)
W 33$ 33$
High 12
53
52
136
(131-152) 10#
31$
48$
Chi Square
117-100%
= p <. .001;
165-100%
Gamma = .17
106-100% 4ife
127
128
statistically by cross tabulation of marital adjustment
by religious category under low, high and medium condi
tions of authoritarianism a zero order correlation of
.24 fell to .01 under low, increased to .30 under medium
and to .2 8 under high conditions of authoritarianism.
This finding suggests that when people have great intel
lectual flexibility (low authoritarianism) religious
affiliation only predicts marital adjustment for moder
ately and highly authoritarian people. The partial
tables for this hypothesis are not included.
The writer was interested in a test to determine
whether a relationship exists between religious affilia
tion and authoritarianism. The results are shown in
Table 5 8 . The greatest contrast may be seen between
the sects and the liberals. The sects have k'jfo of their
number in the high category on authoritarianism as
compared to 6% of the liberals. The sects have only 13%
of their number who score low on authoritarianism as
compared with 60% for the liberals. The evangelical
and Catholic groups fall into a middle ground with
almost identical frequency distributions on authoritarian
ism.
The findings of Table 28 are consistent with
those of Table 17 since the sect group which scores
significantly higher on marital adjustment are also
higher on authoritarianism.
TABLE 28
AUTHORITARIANISM AND RELIGIOUS CATEGORY
Religious Category
Authori
tarianism Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Low
( 3 - 6 )
14
13 %
30
2 9 $
63
6 0 $
29
2 8 $
136
Medium
(7-10)
41
40$
47
4 5 #
35
3 4 $
43
4 l $
166
High
( 1 1 - 1 5 )
49
4 7 %
27
2 6 $
6
6$
32
31 #
114
104-100$ 104-100$ 104-100$ 104-100$ 416
Chi Square = p < .001; Gamma = .2 4
H
ro
VO
I
130
Ancillary Findings
Guilt Regarding Sex Relations
in Marriage
This variable was measured by item 60 in the
Questionnaire (Appendix A, p. ±6j). The findings of the
Peterson study that guilt regarding sex relations in
marriage is related to poor marital adjustment received
some confirmation in the present study. The cross
tabulation of marital adjustment with degree of guilt
generated a Chi Square significant at the .001 level and
a gamma of .33.
However, a more relevant finding in terms of
the discussion on diminishing puritanism is that there
is indeed a surprisingly small amount of guilt feelings
reported in this area among the respondents. For the
entire sample, 70.9 per cent indicated "no guilt" and
13.9 per cent indicated "a little" guilt.
The group with the strongest indication of guilt
feelings in sex relations was the Catholic. In this
group the per cent who experienced no guilt was 66.3
compared to the sample average of 70.9 per cent.
Attitudes Toward Sex Education
One way to attempt to measure rigidity in sex
attitudes is to secure responses in regard to attitudes
toward sex education. Table 29 presents the findings on
TABLE 29
ATTITUDE TOWARD SEX EDUCATION AND RELIGIOUS CATEGORY
Attitude
Toward Sex
Education
Sect
Religious
Evangelical
Categories
Liberal Catholic
"should be
taught in the
3 9
52
19
82
public schools" 3% 9% 50% 18%
"taught in the
public schools
but carefully 62
71
41 62
236
regulated" 60% 68%
39^
60%
"kept out of the
public schools
and taught in the
39
24 11
23
96
home"
37% 23^
11% 22%
104-100% 104-100% 104-100% 104-100% 41b
Chi Square = p <4 .001; Gamma
= -31
131
132
the responses to item 8l in the questionnaire (p. 10).
As can he seen in Table 29 there are significant differ
ences between the categories. The sect churches are the
most rigid, with the evangelical and the Catholic a close
second, and as expected, the liberals were highly
tolert on this subject.
The liberal group had a total of 52 respondents
who stated that sex education should be taught in the
schools with no qualification but only 3 from the sect
group, 9 from the evangelical and 19 from the Catholic
group would go that far. At the other extreme there were
39 sect group respondents, 24 evangelicals, and 23
Catholics and 11 liberals who felt that sex education
should be kept out of the public schools and taught in
the home. The position of the Catholics in this range
suggests a liberalizing trend among this group.
The rigidity of the sect group and the evangelical
group does not seem to have had an adverse effect on
marital adjustment for this sample because these groups
had the highest mean scores on marital adjustment of the
four groups in the study.
Attitude Toward Abortion
While this study was being conducted nation-wide
interest was attracted by legalization of abortion in
many states of the United States. In an indirect way
133
attitudes toward abortion may be viewed as a measure of
rigidity in sexual matters. This is a highly tenuous
assumption but as the findings of this study show atti
tudes toward sex education and abortion follow similar
patterns in terms of a liberal-conservative continuum.
Attitudes were measured from responses to item 92 in the
questionnaire (Appendix A, p. 171)*
As shown by Table 30 the sect group and the
Catholic group have similar tendencies to "strongly
oppose" abortion (60.6 percent and 61.5 percent). The
evangelical group lies somewhere between and the liberals
tend to favor abortion (42.3 percent).
The low gamma here has little meaning because the
sect group and the Catholic group which are placed at
opposite ends of a continuum of emotionality in religion
in the table have very similar frequency distributions5
suggesting that their agreement on this issue is in
terms of doctrinal similarity.
An Alternate Intervening Variable
The weak support found in the data for mystical
inner direction as an intervening variable was dis
appointing. This weakness may be due to the complexity
of the measure of mystical inner direction. This scale
may be too complex to serve as an indec for this type of
inner direction. It may be that the reported dependence
TABLE 30
ATTITUDE ON ABORTION BY RELIGIOUS CATEGORY
Religious Categories
Attitude
on
Abortion
Sect Evangelical Liberal Catholic
Strongly favor 4
4%
12
12%
46
44%
13
12.5#
75
mildly favor 14
13#
36
35%
31
30%
12
11.5#
93
mildly oppose
23
22%
24
23%
15
14%
15
14%
77
strongly oppose
63
6l%
32
30%
12
12%
■ = ! ■ CM
MD^O
170
1 0 4 - 1 0 0 # 1 0 4 - 1 0 0 # 1 0 4 - 1 0 0 % io 4 -io o % 4 1 5
Chi Square = p< .001; Gamma = .13 H
u>
- f = -
1
135
of the individual on private devotional exercises would
serve adequately to measure mystical inner direction.
The following diagram was constructed as a serendipity
made from a study of the data of this study.
A test was run to measure the strength of this
relationship. Tables 31 and 32 show the results.
Table 31 shows a rather strong relrationship between
religious affiliation and the reported use of prayer
(Gamma = .48). The percentage of those who used prayer
very much was 56$ for the sects, 50$ for the evangelicals,
30$ for the Catholics and 12$ for the liberals. Table 32
shows an even stronger relationship between religious
afffiliation and the reported use of Bible reading
(Gamma = .61). The percentage of those who use the
Bible very much fall from 4l$ for the sects, to 24$ for
the evangelical, to 3$ for liberals to 2$ for Catholics.
Religious
Affiliation
Degree of Private Degree of Mar-
Devotional Practice ital Adjustment
Sect
High Use of Prayer
and Bible Reading
- ? > High
Evangelical
Medium Use of Prayer
and Bible Reading
■ > Medium
Catholic
Low Use of Prayer
and Bible Reading
Low
Liberal
A comparison with the findings in Table 19 and
TABLE 31
THE REPORTED USE OF PRAYER AND RELIGIOUS CATEGORIES
Use of
Prayer Sect Evangelical Catholic Liberal
Not at all 4
9 19 35
67
or a little 4% 8%
1 9 $
34%
somewhat
9
9 $
12
12%
15
14%
25
24%
6i
considerably
33
32%
31
30%
39
3 7 $
32
30%
135
very much 58 52 31
12
153
56% 50% 30% 12%
104-100% 104-100% 104-100% 104-100% 4lb
Chi Square = p ^ .001; Gamma = .48
TABLE 32
THE REPORTED USE OF BIBLE READING AND RELIGIOUS CATEGORIES
Bible
Reading Sect
Religious
Evangelical
Category
Catholic Liberal
not at all 8
17 76 66
or a little 8$ 16$ 72$ 64$
±o (
somewhat 21 24 24
25
94
20$
23$ 23$ 24$
considerably 32 38 2 10
82
31$ 37$
2$ 10$
very much
43 25
2
3
73
41$ 24$ 2$
3$
104-100% 104-100% 104-100% 104-100% 4lb
Chi Square = p <. .001; Gamma = = .61
137
138
Table 25 suggests strong support for the use of prayer
and Bible study as a better intervening variable, both
of which are probably indicators of mystical inner direc
tion. In Table 19 the gamma of .45 indicated a strong
positive correlation between the use of prayer and
marital adjustment and in Table 25 a gamma of .31
indicated moderate support for the relationship between
the use of Bible reading and marital adjustment.
An interpretation of these findings suggests that
affiliation with sects and evangelicals leads to a greater
use of prayer and Bible reading in dealing with problems
which in turn leads to better marital adjustment.
Summary
This chapter has presented in tabular form the
findings of the research with a brief discussion of each
in terms of relevance to the seven hypotheses of the
study. In addition, findings were presented related to
the schematic diagram which was offered as a postulated
relationship between the independent variable of
religious affiliation, the intervening variable of inner
direction and the dependent variable of marital adjust
ment .
The results of the statistical measures used to
test for significance and association were listed.
The findings indicate that the sample represents
139
an above average group in terms of marital adjustment.
The major thesis of the study was found to be
supported by the data. There are significant differences
in marital adjustment between the categories defined in
the study. The order of placement on a continuum of
marital adjustment which was postulated was not supported
in all cases. The order from highest to lowest for
marital adjustment was: the sect group, the evangelical,
the Catholic and the liberal according to the data of
this study. It was postulated that the liberal group
would be third on this continuum.
The theory that inner direction would be shown
to be an intervening variable was supported only for
mystical inner direction. A negative relationship with
marital adjustment was found for intellectual inner
direction.
Puritan negativism was found to be highest in the
sect group, next in the evangelical group, third in the
Catholic group and lowest for the liberal group. The
presence of this characteristic was shown to be slightly
related to marital adjustment in a positive direction.
The lower social classes were, as expected, found
to be more highly represented among the sect and Catholic
groups.
One of the clearest relationships shown by the
data was the positive association between the practice
i4 o
of private and public religious practices and good
marital adjustment.
No connection was found between lenient attitudes
toward divorce and the incidence of divorce.
Mild degrees of authoritarianism were found to be
related to good marital adjustment.
Negative attitudes toward both sex education and
abortion were found to be stronger among sect people and
Catholic people but no evidence was found that these
attitudes have a deleterious effect on marital adjustment.
Feelings of guilt regarding sex relations in
marriage were found to be mildly associated with poorer
marital adjustment for the whole sample but no clear
connection with any of the groups could be established
with the exception of the Catholic group whose low score
on marital adjustment compares with a higher degree of
guilt regarding sex relations. This finding must be
regarded as tentative, however, since the liberal group
with low degrees of sex guilt are also low on marital
adjustment.
An alternate to mystical inner direction as
measured in this study was offered. It was found that
the relationship between religious affiliation and the
use of prayer and Bible study was strong and in turn
the relationship between use of these private devotional
exercises and marital adjustment was also strong
l4l
suggesting that the use of such religious practices may
flow from affiliation with sect and evangelical groups
and in turn lead to better marital adjustment.
CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter contains a summary of the study, the
conclusions and some implications for future research.
Summary
The major thesis of this study was that there are
significant differences in marital adjustment between
members of different religious groups. These differences
are seen as a function of affiliation with these groups.
An attempt was made to explain such differences
in marital adjustment by use of the concept of inner
direction which is seen as an intervening variable in a
causal chain. Two types of inner direction were
postulated: mystical inner direction and intellectual
inner direction.
Four categories of Christian churches were defined
in terms of a continuum of emotionality in religious
practices in an earlier work by Peterson. The sect group,
composed of churches known in the religious vernacular
as "Pentecostal," were categorized as the most emotional
and most likely to emphasize the necessity of a mystical
142
I
143
conversion experience by which one enters into the
Kingdom of God and thus becomes qualified for membership
in the church. The evangelical group was placed next
on the continuum since they stress religious conversion
more in terms of a "decision for Christ" and tend to veer
away from emotionality in worship while still retaining
a considerable degree of informality in public services.
The liberal churches constituted the third group on the
continuum because they are characterized by increased
| formality in worship services and do not emphasize the
l
j need for a conversion experience. Catholics were placed
i
fourth because their worship in public is generally
ritualistic in nature and more dependence is placed upon
I external priestly functions as a means to acceptance into
i
i the church and into God's Kingdom.
!
In terms of inner direction the sect group was
i
| expected to refer more often to inner guidance emanating
| from religious experience as a source of direction for
i
| behavior. The evangelical group was expected to place
i
a stronger emphasis upon direction from the Bible but
along with this dependence to maintain to a lesser
degree a dependence upon inner spiritual experience. The
liberal group was expected to stress guidance from a code
of ethics suggesting greater intellectual autonomy. The
Catholic group was expected to be more likely to refer
144
to church authority as the source of direction. All of
these expectations were confirmed by the findings of the
study.
The independent variable of the study then is
religious affiliation. The intervening variables are
mystical inner direction and intellectual inner direction.
The dependent variable is marital adjustment. Subsidiary
to the major independent variable are the private
religious practices of prayer and Bible reading, and
I attendance at church services.
| A sample consisting of 208 couples selected from
; four major Christian religious categories of church
!
| groups was surveyed by the use of questionnaires issued
| in group meetings. Each category contained 104
| individuals.
j
j Care was exercised in the sampling to secure a
|
representative group from each religious category in
terms of age and length of marriage. The individuals
varied in age from the early twenties to a few as old
|
as seventy. The average age for the sample was 37 years
old and the average length of marriage was 14 years.
A broad representation from forty different congregations
was secured. These congregations were located in
various cities in the Los Angeles area whose boundaries
are largely contiguous with one another. Most of the
sample came from the lower middle, middle and upper
social classes. The sample was composed entirely of
Caucasians.
Each husband and wife in the sample was presented
with the questionnaire shown in Appendix A, and asked
to fill them out separately without collaboration. Most
of the interviewing was done in groups to which the
i
I
! writer or an assistant had been invited for the purpose.
i
i In a few cases it was necessary to send questionnaires
i
| home for husbands or wives to fill out. In these cases
I explicit directions were given to avoid collaboration.
! Separate envelopes were given for each questionnaire so
I that they could be mailed after having been completed.
In addition to items regarding demographic in
formation the questionnaire included the Wallace Marital
Adjustment Scale, the Index of Mystical Inner Direction
and Intellectual Inner Direction and a scale to measure
Puritan Negativism. The latter three scales were con-
|
i structed by the writer after consultation with his
dissertation committee and others experienced in the
construction of such scales. For these face validity
is claimed. The questionnaire also included a number
of items designed to elicit information regarding the
respondent's religious practices.
The hypotheses and the findings relevant to each
are:
| 146
i
| Hypothesis I.--As one moves from sect to evangeli-
i
I cal to liberal to Catholic groups there will be a con-
; sistent drop in marital adjustment scores. This was
|
! supported by the data for the first two groups but the
liberal group fell last in order.
; Hypothesis IIa.--The higher the mystical inner
direction score, the higher the marital adjustment score.
This was weakly supported by the data with a modest
gamma of .17 (p .10).
Hypothesis lib.--The higher the intellectual inner
direction, the higher the marital adjustment score. A
i test of this hypothesis produced a mild negative correla
tion of -.19 indicating that it is not supported by the
data.
Hypothesis VI.--Puritan negativism scores will be
highest in the institutional-authoritarian group, next
highest in the sect group, third highest in the conserva
tive-evangelical group and lowest in the liberal group.
This prediction was not supported except that the
liberal group did score lowest on this scale. The others
were in the following order on Puritan negativism: sect,
first; the evangelicals, second; and the Catholics, third.
Hypothesis IV.--Mean ISP scores will be lower
in the sect and in the institutional-authoritarian
(Catholic) churches than in the evangelical and liberal
churches. This was confirmed by the study.
147
Hypothesis V.--The greater the reported number of
private religious practices of a devotional nature^ the
higher the mystical inner direction scores and the
higher the marital adjustment scores. This hypothesis
received the strongest support of any of the hypotheses
of the study.
Hypothesis VI.--The greater the leniency toward
divorce in the churches5 the greater the incidence of
divorce. This hypothesis was not supported. The
frequency of divorce in all four categories was about the
same and too small to make any definitive conclusions.
Hypothesis VII.--The higher the authoritarianism
scorej the lower the marital adjustment score. This
hypothesis was not supported by the data. To a mild
degree authoritarianism was positively correlated with
good adjustment.
It was discovered that there is a strong relation
ship between religious affiliation and the use of prayer
and Bible reading and in turn between these two devo
tional practices and marital adjustment suggesting that
the use of prayer and Bible reading may be better inter
vening variables than mystical inner direction as
measured in this study.
I
148
Conclusions
The confirmation of the major hypotheses leads
to certain tentative conclusions. The amount of variance
left unexplained suggests caution in the degree of
confidence placed in the findings.
1. The adjustment of man and wife in marriage
varies with the type of religious group with which they
are affiliated. In general this study shows that those
who experience greater emotional participation and who
emphasize religious conversion seem better fitted for
the adaptations required in the intimacy of the marriage
relationship.
2. Concomitant with their emphasis upon mystical
experience these groups are generally more rigid in
terms of sexual norms and are more authoritarian but
neither of these facts seem to affect adversely the
marital adjustment process.
3. The influence of a strong religious emphasis
on sin and puritanism upon marital adjustment is not
clear from this study. Past studies have suggested that
such an emphasis is linked with disagreement on sex
relations between spouses. Such disagreement does not
seem to be generated by this emphasis according to the
findings of this study. A modified conclusion is that
when both husband and wife claim a religious conversion
experience a strong, other-wordly, dogmatic emphasis
149
against "sins of the flesh" does not decrease the
possibility of success in good marital adjustment.
4. The subjective factors of religious life,
such as prayer, Bible reading and orthodoxy of belief
are all significantly correlated with good marital
adjustment.
5. The objective factor of regular church
attendance is significantly correlated with good marital
adjustment.
6. Mystical inner direction is mildly correlated
with good marital adjustment but inner direction defined
as a function of intellectual autonomy is negatively
correlated with good marital adjustment.
7. Social class assignment does not seem to be
as good a predictor of marital success for church
attenders as it is for the general population. For such
individuals their religious affiliation may have more
explanatory power. Future studies of social class
differentials in divorce rates should control for
religious denomination.
8. The Pentecostal sect groups seem to attain a
significantly higher degree of marital adjustment than
other religious groups. Their public and private worship
is thought to be most satisfying according to their
literature when accompanied by ecstatic utterances
(speaking in tongues) or at least audible prayer and
150
praise.
In response to the question: Have you received
the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit" accompanied by speaking
in other tongues? 87-5 per cent of this group responded
"yes" as compared with 4.8 per cent for the evangelicals,
1.9 per cent for the liberals and 1.0 per cent for the
Catholics. This type of religious practice does not
seem to attract unstable personalities at least in terms
of marital relationships.
Implications for Future Research
At the present state of increased sophistication
in research it is commonly accepted that the multiple
factor approach is an acceptable technique in the search
for causation. This study has explored only one of many
possible independent variables which could be examined.
As a springboard for future work in this area some
questions may be asked:
1. Why did the liberal group fall short of the
prediction made for them in terms of marital adjustment?
In the Peterson study of 1951^ this group led all others
with the exception of the sect group. One explanation
may be that the liberals have come much further along in
1James A. Peterson, "An Inquiry into the Relation
of Objective and Subjective Religious Factors to Adjust
ment and Maladjustment in Marriage," (unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Southern California, 1951).
151
the transitional period between the traditional and the
emerging equalitarian types of family structure. In the
struggle to gain the new ideal, conflict has been gener
ated and consequent maladjustment. The fundamentalist
groups are not as deeply involved in this change since
most of them still accept a modified version of the
patriarchical structure which recognizes the male as the
"head" of the house according to the Biblical injunctions
regarding the assignment of authority in family life.
Role theory might be useful in examining this
possibility further. A design which might aid in ex
ploring this problem should include measures of role
j expectations. Comparisons between husbands and wives
on this dimension could then be cross tabulated with
j
j religious affiliation. The question might be asked:
To what extent are discrepant role expectations related
to religious affiliation and in turn to marital adjust
ment or maladjustment?
2. Why do the sect members appear to overcome
! the disadvantages of lesser income, lower status, and
limited education and attain a greater degree of satis
faction in marriage?
Three possible investigative paths are suggested:
a. The sect groups in America are not as depressed
economically as they once were. In some occupations they
are better paid. The Pentecostal groups which drew their
152
original following from the lowest strata of society in
large measure have climbed the social ladder considerably.
The demographic data of this study support this conclu
sion. In keeping with the notion of relative deprivation
this group may be more contented as they compare their
lot with their fathers before them.
b. Is it possible that there are emotional and
psychological satisfactions gained in lively, audience
participation types of religious worship which have
| beneficial effects in other areas of interpersonal rela-
| tionships? In the field of psychotherapy there are
I
I
! numerous experimental techniques in groups which appear
j
j to be attempts to create the conditions which are charac-
i teristic of Pentecostal "fellowship" services. Warmth,
| love and understanding may have pervasive effects which
I will "trickle" into family life.
j d. A final possibility as suggested above may
j
| be that consensual agreement on the appropriate roles for
I
husband and wife may be a function of strong Biblical
teaching and religious experience serving to diminish
the possibility of marital conflict. In small group
research solidarity has been linked with clear-cut role
prescriptions. A great deal of research has been done
in this area but without much reference to the function
ality of certain types of religion in terms of increasing
solidarity.
153
This study has made use of an inner direction
concept. Other variables as listed might contribute
to a broader explanatory scheme than presented here.
Limitations of This Study
!
| One of the major weaknesses of this study is the
I
j lack of a control sample of non-religious people. It has
! been necessary because of this lack to rely upon previous
i
i
| research in assessing the meaning of the over-all high
I marital adjustment scores of the sample. The rate of
marital dissolution in the general population in contrast
| to this sample offers some clues to the direction that
might be predicted. A more elegant design would call for
a non-religious sample of the same size as that of each
category which would be comparable in terms of social
class and other demographic variables.
To check further into the question as to whether
! participation in highly emotional sect groups serves
to enable lower class people to attain higher marital
adjustment in spite of the disadvantages of their social
: class position a study should be done among members of
| the decidedly lower stratum including the Negro family.
By use of a control group on people of similar position
in socio-economic status who are not members of such
churches a design could be utilized which would serve to
clarify further this problem.
154
A check at the other extreme of the religious
continuum would he much more difficult. The writer is
not aware of any church groups which could he classified
as liberal in Peterson’s terms whose membership is drawn
from the lowest social classes.
General Summary
i
This study has served to clarify and refine the
findings of previous studies on the differing effects !
that religious affiliation may have on marriage. It has j
left many questions unanswered but it is hoped that it
will stimulate further research in this area in the
search for more complete explanations of the relation
ships that have been studied.
A further investigation into the theory of dis
enchantment in the later years of marriage seems called
for. The data of this study seemed to indicate the
opposite trend. In all religious groups there was a net
gain in the respondents' self-report of the extent to
which they were in love with their spouse as compared
with when they were first married (items 99 and 100).
It may be that for religiously involved people disenchant
ment proceeds at a diminished pace as compared with the
general population. Further research is needed in the
search for the truth in this area.
155
The conclusions made by Lenski^ to which we have
referred in the review of the literature that Protest
antism seems to have a negative effect on the solidarity
of the nuclear family should be modified according to
i the findings of this study. A modification would allow
! for distinctions within Protestantism and would more
i
| accurately describe the situation by stating that for
i groups who are characterized by high degrees of devout
ness in terms of both active participation and religious
: experience this does not hold true.
-^Gerard Lenski, The Religious Factor (New York:
Doubleday and Company, 1951).
| APPENDIXES |
; i
i
| j
s I
! i
] j
i
t
156
APPENDIX A
QUESTIONNAIRE
157
158
STUDY OF MARRIAGE
We are Involved In a scientific study of the
factors that go into adjustment in marriage. A large
number of church people are taking part in this study.
An analysis will be made on a group basis: therefore,
there will be no way to trace individuals in this study.
You will not be asked to give your name, and all informa
tion will be kept highly confidential.
We will be pleased if you will answer all questions
frankly and completely. Thank you for your cooperation;
we hope this kind of research will lead to better j
counseling in the future. j
Thomas E. Lasswell, Coordinating Director J
Marriage Counseling Center
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
CARD 1
12 3
A. So that we can group our findings correctly,
please tell us:
1. Your sex: (1) Male (2) Female - -
4 5
2. Your age:
6
3. Your race: (1)____White (2)____Negro
(3) Other 7
4. How many times have you been divorced:
Never. Once. Twice. Other. 8
5. If you have been divorced, did your last
divorce occur before or after you became 9
affiliated with your present denomination?
Does not apply. Before. After.
10
6. How long were you engaged to your present
mate before you were married?
Less than six months.
11
Six months to two years.
159
Two years or more.
7. What was the last grade in school you
completed?
Grade school (1-6) ___Some college (1-3).
Junior high (7-9) ___College graduate
_Some high school (10-12)
"hut did not graduate
High school graduate (12)
Some graduate work
Graduate degree 12
8. How long have you been married to your
present mate? _____ years 13
9. Husband's occupation at present ___________
___________ (Please be specific) 14
10. Wife's occupation at present
11. Is husband a member of a church?
(1)____ Yes. (2)____No.
12. Is wife a member of a church?
(1)____ Yes._____ (2)____No.
2. Baptism in water.
_3. An experience to conversion (being
born again, or being saved)
I
15
16
17
13. What is the denomination of the church you
now attend? _______________________________ 18
14. Check below the one thing you consider most
important as a requirement before a person 19
is accepted into the membership of the
church:
1. Acceptance of the church creed.
i6o
4. The desire to have fellowship with
the church:
15. How often do you attend the regular services
of your church? 20
About once a week or more
About once a month
On holidays
Never
16. How often does your mate attend the regular
services of your church? 21
About once a week or more
About once a month
On holidays
Never
17. Age you stopped attending religious school
(Sunday School) 22
(1) 6-10___ (2) 11-14___ (3) Eighteen___
(4) Nineteen or older___
(5) Never attended___
For each of the following, indicate how often
you usually attended during your childhood or
youth:
Check one column Once a Once a Once a
for each item: Never week Month Year____
18. Religious school
(Sunday School)_______________________________ 23
19. Church worship
24
20. Youth meetings________________________________ 25
l6l
In the religious items listed below indicate how
often you have used them in connection with your
personal problems, problems of your children,
and problems between you and your mate:
Check one column
for each item
below:
Not A Some- Consid-Very
at little what erably much
all
21. Prayer
22. Reading the
Bible
23.
Religious
Worship
24. Counseling
with the
Minister
Please indicate
following:
the frequency for the
Check one Never
column for
each item
2 or 3 Once Once Once every
times a a few months
a day day week
25.
You pray
26. Your mate
prays
27.
Your family
has grace
at meals
CO
C V J
Your parents
prayed when
you were a
child
26
27
28
29
3C
31
32
33
162
29. Your parents
had grace at 3^ -
meals when
you were a
child
30. Have you received the "Baptism of the Holy
Spirit" accompanied by speaking in other
tongues ?
Yes . No.
Please indicate your feeling as to the
wisdom of marriage between the following:
Check one
column for
each item
Very
unwise
Some
what
unwise
Depends on Very
individual wise
31. Catholics
and
Protestants
36
32. Those who go
to church 37
regularly &
those who
never go
33. Jews and
Christians 38
3^-. Do you believe that it is necessary to have
an experience of conversion (be "saved" or 39
"born again") to qualify a person to be
accepted as a member of the church?
Yes. No. Don't Know.
35- Do you claim that you personally have had
an experience of conversion? 40
Yes. No. Don't know.
36. If you were confronted by a temptation to
do wrongs what would be the foremost thought
that would help keep you from yielding to
163
the temptation? Check one, please.
1 .____It would he against the laws of the
church. 4l
2 .____It would grieve God's Spirit within.
3 .____It would violate your own personal
code of ethics.
4 .____It would he contrary to what you
helieve the Bihle teaches.
Please indicate to what extent you agree or
disagree with the statements below by check
ing the appropriate place:
37. An individual must follow his own beliefs,
even if to do so may cause pain or diffi- 4c
culty to others.
Strongle agree ____ Agree____
Undecided Disagree Strongly-
Disagree____
38. It is better to allow children to choose
their own beliefs than to insist on teaching 43
them what you believe is right.
Strongle agree Agree____
Undecided Disagree
Strongly disagree____
39. A person should be tolerant and avoid
testifying to others about his religious 44
beliefs.
Strongly agree Agree____
Undecided Disagree
Strongly disagree____
40. People who commit adultery should be
punished. 45
Strongly agree Agree____
Undecided Disagree_____
Strongly disagree____
41. I like to hear all sides of an argument
before I make up my mind.
Strongly agree Agree____
Undecided Disagree_____
Strongly disagree_____
42. Sex should not be discussed except in the
privacy of one’s own bedroom.
Strongly agree______ Agree____
Undecided Disagree______
Strongly disagree______
43. The worst sins are those involving sex.
Strongly agree_____ Agree_____
Undecided_________ Disagree___
Strongly disagree______
Indicate for each of the following items
whether or not you feel that a marriage
would be stronger and would last longer if:
Check one column
for each item Yes No Don't know
44. Couples were married
in churches3 homes9
or chapels5 by
ministers
45.
Couples attended
church more fre
quently
46. There were laws
against sugges
tive sex scenes
in movies and
plays
165
47. There was more emphasis
upon fundamental honesty, 52
temperance and personal
initiative in our society___________________
Check the degree to which you have the
following religious beliefs.
Check one Not
column for at
each item all
Some Very
Much
Do not
Know
48. Existence
of a per
sonal God
53
49.
Immortality
of a person
al God
54
50. Punishment
of sin
55
51.
Deity of
Christ 56
Circle the dot on the scale line below which
best describes the degree of happiness,
everything considered, of your present marri
age. The middle point "happy" represents the
degree of happiness which most people get
from marriage, and the scale ranges on one
side to those few who experience extreme joy
in marriage and on the other to those few
who are very unhappy in marriage:
52 . ________. _________. ______ . ________ . _______. _____ 57
Very unhappy Perfectly happy --
58
53- If you had your life to live over, do you
think you would: 59
(1) Marry the same person_____
60
(2) Marry a different person ______
(3) Not marry at all_______
54. When disagreements arrive, they usually
result in:
(1) Husband giving in_
(2) Wife giving in___
(3) Agrement by mutual give and take_
166
61
62
If you have engaged in, or have merely had
thoughts of engaging in, any of the
following, have you felt guilty about them?
Check one Does Very Con- Some A Not
for each not much sid- what Little at
item apply era- all
below
(*) (1)
bly
(3)
(*0
(5)
(2)
55. Divorce
56. Separa
tion
57. Extra
marital
relations
58. Do you confide in your mate:
(1) Almost never______
(2) Rarely______
(3) In most things______
(4) In everything______
59• Do you and your mate engage in outside
interests together:
(1) All of them_______
(2) Some of them_
(3) Very few of them_
(4) None of them____
2
3
¥
5
6
7
8
9 10
11 12
167
Have you ever felt guilty in marriage about
the following:
Check one
column for
each item
below
Does not
apply
Very
much
Con- A Not
sid- little at
era- all
bly
o'
V 0
Sex-rela-
tions
13
•
J —1
U3
Practicing
birth con
trol
14
62. Do you ever wish you had not married? -- --
15 16
(1) Frequently______
(2) Occasionally
(3) Rarely______
(4) Never_______
State approximate extent of agreement or
disagreement during marriage between you
and your mate on the following items.
(The examples should be considered as only
one of many topics under each point.)
PLEASE PLACE A CHECK OPPOSITE EVERY ITEM
MY MATE AND I
(Check one
column for
each item
below)
Always
agree
Almost
always
agree
Occa
sion
ally
dis
agree
Fre- Almost
quent- always
ly dis- dis
agree agree
Al
ways
dis
agree
Handling
family fi
nances
(ex. in
stallment
buying)
17
168
64. Matters of
recreation 18
(ex. going
on outings)__________________________________
65. Demonstra
tion of 19
affection________________________________ _
66. Friends
(ex. dis- 20
like of
mate's
friends)
21
67. Sex re
lations_______________________________________ 22
68. Ways of
dealing 23
with in
laws__________________________________________
69. Convention
ality (ex. good; 24
right or pro-
per conduct)__________________________________
70. Aims, goals,
and things 25
believed im
portant in
life
Check the extent to which you think your
religious activities and religious educa
tion have helped you in the following items.
For instance, if you meet most of your
friends in church, you would check "con
siderably" or "very much" for that item.
My religious activities and education has
helped me in:___________________________________
Check one Not A Some Cons id- Very
column for at Little erably much
each item all
below
71. Handling
finances 26
72. Matters of
recreation
169
27
73.
Amount of
time spent
together
28
74. Friends
29
75.
Sex rela
_______
tions 30 31
76. Ways of
_ _
dealing
with in
laws
32
77.
Convention
ality (ex.
right and
proper be
havior
33
CO
Aims, goals,
_ _
and things
believed im
portant in
life
34
79.
In leisure time I generally prefer to be
"on the go"
35 36
To stay at home
My mate generally prefers to be "on the
go"_______ To stay at home________
Here are a few questions concerning your
attitudes on various subjects. Please
answer honestly, knowing that no one will
be able to trace any answers to any
individual person.
On the following questions please check the
extent to which you agree with the statements:
170
80. How do you feel about sex in marriage? (1)
It is to be enjoyed____ . (2) It should be 37
used in moderation . (3) It should be
used for reproduction only (having children)
. (4) It is a necessary evil .
81. How do you feel about sex education for
children? (1) It should be taught in public 38
schools____ . (2) It should be taught in
public schools but be carefully regulated _
(3) Should be kept out of the public schools
and taught in the home . (4) It should
not be taught at all .
82. Where do you feel that your church stands on
the subject of divorce? (1) Acceptable as 39
long as civil law allows it . (2) A good
thing if personal growth of the individual
is hindered by continued marriage . (3)
Acceptable if adultery or desertion have
occurred . (4) Only as a last resort___
Please check below the most important source
from which you feel your motivation comes in
avoiding conflicts that could lead to
separation or divorce:
83. 1. The rules of your church are against
divorce. 40
84. 2. Your inner spiritual experience with
God has helped you to get along with 4l
your mate.
85. 3. The fear of what family and friends
would think. 42
86. 4. Your own code of ethics.
43
87. 5. The high economic cost of divorce
(court costs, alimony, etc.) 44
88. 6. Other (please specify)
45
171
89* When you think of the word "divorce" what is
your feeling about it? 46
Strongly unfavorable Mildly unfavorable
Mildly favorable ____ Strongly favorable
90. What do you regard as the final authority
governing the personal behavior of 47
Christians?
The church The Bible
Your own conscience
The Holy Spirit within
91. If a person has been "born again" (or
"saved") he receives inner strength which 48
enables him to get along better with people.
Strongly agree Partially agree____
Partially disagree Strongly disagree
Don't know____
92. In your own words, please state what there is --
about religion that you believe helps a per- 49
son get along better in marriage, or makes
it more difficult for him to get along in
marriage.
172
93* How do you feel about legalizing abortion?
50
_______Strongly oppose it.
Mildly oppose it.
Mildly favor it.
Strongly favor it.
94. It is all right to do whatever you wish as
long as you are a "saved" person, and are 51
guided by the Holy Spirit.
Strongly agree . Partially agree .
Partially disagree
Strongly disagree____. Don't know.____
95. The church, through it's leaders, has the
divine right to establish rules to govern 52
a person's behavior.
Strongly agree . Partially agree .
Partially disagree .
Strongly disagree____.
Don't know
96. If a person is given a choice between obey
ing the church laws or following his own 53
conscience he should always obey the church
laws .
Strongly agree . Partially agree .
Partially disagree .
Strongly disagree .
Don't know
173
97. If you had your way in establishing laws
governing divorce there would be: 5^ -
No divorce . Divorce only for adultry___.
Divorce only for incorapatability
Divorce freely granted upon request .
98. To make marriages happier and stronger both
mates should be "born again" Christians. 55
Strongly agree . Partially agree .
Partially disagree . Strongly disagree .
Don't know
Indicate to what extent you were in love
with your present mate before your marriage
by placing a check in one square of the
boxed line below which ranges from "very
i much" to "not at all."
i
! 99. _______________________________________________________
I Very much Considerably Somewhat A little Not at all
56
Indicate to what extent you are at present
in love with your spouse by placing a check
in one square of the boxed line below which
ranges from "very much" to "not at all."
100. Very much Considerably Somewhat A little Not at all
57
101. How do you feel about appearing undressed
before your mate in private? 58
Great embarrassment Mild embarrassment
No embarrassment
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
174
How do you feel about using the nude female __
body in making paintings or photography? 59
Strongly oppose it. Oppose it.
Favorable. Very favorable.
The most important thing to teach children
is absolute obedience to their parents. 5U
Strongly agree____. Agree___. Undecided___.
Disagree___. Strongly disagree___ .
Any good leader should be strict with
people under him in order to gain respect. 5l
Strongly agree____. Agree___. Undecided___.
Disagree___. Strongly disagree___ .
There are two kinds of people in the world:
The strong and the weak. 52"
Strongly agree____. Agree___ . Undecided____.
Disagree___. Strongly disagree___ .
Man is born into a world of sin and can only
be saved through God's grace. 5"3
Strongly agree____. Agree___ . Disagree___.
Strongly disagree .
Man is essentially good and with proper
training can be trusted to make good 54^
decisions.
Strongly agree____. Agree___ . Undecided___.
Strongly disagree .
APPENDIX B
MYSTICAL AND INTELLECTUAL
INNER DIRECTION
175
176
In research of this type there is a certain
aloofness and scholarly detachment required as a con
comitant of scholarly investigation. Tables of frequency
and statistical tests of significance however, may not as
sharply delineate a concept as the words of respondents
who have endeavored to write their own descriptions of
what they feel is occuring in their religious life to
help them get along in marriage.
To brighten up the somewhat drab material of
I the data presentation the writer has selected a few of
| the written responses to an open-ended question which
! was a part of the interview schedule. Item 92 of the
j
! questionnaire in Appendix A asked the respondent to write j
! in his own words what there was about religion they felt |
! either helped or hindered a person to get along in
i
i
! marriage.
Some of the written responses came from people
with limited education but were eloquent expressions of
I their interpretation of the role of religion in marital
adjustment. The first example is of that type:
The respondent is 31 years of age, the wife
of a Navy man. She had gone no further than the ninth
grade in school.
I believe that if a couple is saved (borned again)
they will get along with each other much easier.
Then when a problem comes along they can pray and
take the problem to Jesus and leave it there, it
makes no matter how big or small the problem is.
1
177
Jesus is also a guide and helps the couple make
decisions.
A housewife whose age is 59* had some college
and is married to the principal of a high school. Her
marital adjustment score was 146:
I do not believe that Religion either makes a
marriage easier or more difficult necessarily.
But I do believe accepting Christ as your per
sonal Savior and making Him the head of your
| household makes all the difference in the world.
! For both partners are trying to obey and please
I Him-He becomes their guide and counselor. His
| admonition is to "love your wives" (husbands)
i
j Another housewife writes:
I
! When one is a born again Christian you put Christ
i first, others second and yourself last.
i
j Another housewife, age 60, whose marriage has
; lasted for 4l years and whose marital adjustment score
| was 152 -- the highest of the sample wrote:
j
| Religion is a word ---
I Salvation is real and fills out hearts with love
| and understanding and the Holy Spirit leads and
| guides us in all things. A marriage cannot fail
| when our hearts are filled with love and Jesus
I Christ has full control of our lives.
I
]
; A thirty-nine year old, married for 21 years
! writes:
|
l If both mates are born-again Christians God can
lead each individual through the crises that
appear in each marriage. Relying on God and
inner spiritual strength can cause difficulties
to turn into a stronger tie with your mate.
178
An unemployed elementary teacher, age 31* writes
My religion has helped me to get along better in
marriage because the ecstatic experience I had
made me a more stable person. It caused me to
try to live by the Bible which teaches us to be
kind, loving, gentle, etc. . . . the exact things
needed for a happy, loving marriage. It teaches
us to quit being so self-centered and to try to
please Christ. When we please Him we also make
it easier for others to put up with us.
In contrast to this type of written response
some respondents seemed to be able to verbalize their
views in better style but left the impression that their
response was an intellectualization of the expected
Christian view: A male, 4l, with a number one rating
on the social class variable, but with an obviously
unhappy marriage (marital adjustment score of 53) wrote:
The Judeo-Christian tradition carries that set of
insights which, through the centuries, have repre
sented man's best impulses. In the person of Jesus,
those best impulses are all incarnated. My attempt
to follow -- i.e. live like him -- is essential to
the development of my personal potential and thus,
to a successful marriage relationship.
Members of liberal groups seem to emphasize the
terms encountered in self-help literature of a psycho
logical orientation. They tend to use words implying the
need for self-actualization or "completeness." This is
a type of intellectual inner direction.
A twenty-nine year old teacher writes:
Organized religion presents the opportunity for
me to reevaluate myself regularly. Oftentimes
the minister says something Sunday in church that
I think about all week long -- sometimes longer.
179
A thirty-eight year old manager of a liquor
department comments:
Religion is something you have or don't have, but
if you believe in religion you can believe in your
own self as a person as well as your mate. Also
religion shared in marriage to me would make you
feel more complete.
A hospital administrator:
Religion is necessary, I believe, to be a
"complete" person, successful marriage requires
"complete" persons.
In general the sect and evangelical people tend
to emphasize that their religion is something that
happened to them in conversion and brought about a
living relationship with God or Christ, liberals speak
more often of high ethical principles for guidance, and
Catholics will more often mention the duty and responsi
bility laid upon them to stay together which they see as
a help to overcome the pressures that might break up the
marriage.
What of the potentially negative effects upon
personality growth which may occur when two people who
are unsuited to each other feel obligated to remain
together for religious reasons?
A sample composed of people actively engaged in
their churches would not be expected to yield much infor
mation on this problem. Among those in the sample whose
marital adjustment score fell in the lower range there
were occasional comments which does indicate that this
problem may exist for some. These comments are included
here as a possible area for further study which might
check on the frequency of this problem. None of the data
I
| of this study indicates that this problem is widespread.
A 28 year old, married to a 4l year old who
| had one previous divorce, writes:
i
j Religion doesn't help anyone get along. Only
I Christ makes the difference. I get along with
' my husband because the Bible says for wives to
be submissive to their husbands. I try to do
this but I fail a lot of times because we are
not emotionally, spiritually or in any other way
suited to each other as I have been told you
should be to marry. I married because I was
lonely as so many do today and now the loneliness
is even greater. We are both Christians but that
doesn't help when a mistake has been made and a
promise must be kept.
Another respondent from an authoritarian type
church writes:
I know that the rules of my church are against
divorce for any reason. Therefore we have worked
harder at solving our problems though at times
because of our differences the struggle has been
painful to us. However, I am grateful for this
influence of my church for our marriage has held
together in spite of these problems and I feel
this has been better all around, especially for
the sake of our children.
APPENDIX C
THE ASSIGNMENT OF DENOMINATIONS
TO THE CATEGORIES
181
182
By making use of the descriptions of the
Peterson study which have been delineated in this disser
tation and comparing them with the listing of denomina
tions by Mead the denominations listed in this Appendix
were assigned to the categories as shown.
SECT
Assemblies of God
Church of the Four Square Gospel
Independent Tabernacles
EVANGELICAL
Conservative Baptist
Christian Church
Grace Bretheran
Southern Baptist
Independent Baptist
Bible Churches
Nazarene
Orthodox Presbyterian
LIBERAL
Congregational
Presbyterian
United Methodist
American Baptist
Community (non-denominational)
CATHOLIC
Roman Catholic
APPENDIX D
MYSTICAL INNER DIRECTION SCALE
183
184
36. If you were confronted by a temptation to do wrong,
what would be the foremost thought that would help
keep you from yielding to the temptation? Check
one, please.
1 . It would be against the laws of the church.
2 .____ It would grieve God's Spirit within.
3 . It would violate your own personal code of
ethics.
4 .____ It would be contrary to what you believe the
Bible teaches.
Please check below the most important source from which
you feel your motivation comes in avoiding conflicts that
could lead to separation or divorce:
00
u>
•
•
i —1
•
- 3 "
CO
2.
85. 3.
•
VO
CO
4.
CO
5.
C O *
CO
6 .
90. What do
helped you to get along with your mate.
The fear of what family and friends wou
think.
The high economic cost of divorce (court
costs, alimony, etc.)
6. Other (please specify)
the personal behavior of Christians?
_The church The Bible
Your own conscience The Holy Spirit within
91. If a person has been "born again" (or "saved") he
receives inner strength which enables him to get
along better with people.
Strongly agree Partially agree____
Partially disagree Strongly disagree_
Don't know
94. It is all right to do whatever you wish as long as
you are a "saved" person, and are guided by the
Holy Spirit.
Strongly agree Partially agree____
Partialy disagree Strongly disagree____
Don’t know____
95. The church, through it's leaders, has the divine
right to establish rules to govern a person's
behavior.
Strongly agree Partially agree____
Partially disagree Strongly disagree____
Don't know____
96. If a person is given a choice between obeying the
church laws or following his own conscience he
should always obey the church laws.
Strongly agree Partially agree____
Partially disagree Strongly disagree____
Don't know____
98. To make marriages happier and stronger both mates
should be "born again Christians.
Strongly agree Partially disagree____
Partially disagree Strongly disagree____
Don't know____
37. An individual must follow his own beliefs, even if
to do so may cause pain or difficulty to others.
Strongly agree Agree Undecided____
Disagree Strongly disagree____
Highest Possible Score = 80; Lowest = 0
APPENDIX E
INTELLECTUAL INNER DIRECTION SCALE
186
187
Highest Possible Score = 38, Lowest = 0
36. If you were confronted by a temptation to do wrong,
what would be the foremost thought that would help
keep you from yielding to the temptation? Check
one, please.
1 .____It would be against the laws of the church.
2 .____It would grieve God's Spirit within.
3 .____It would violate your own personal code of
ethics.
4 .____It would be contrary to what you believe the
Bible teaches.
38. It is better to allow children to choose their own
beliefs than to insist on teaching them what you
believe is right.
Strongly agree Agree Undecided____
Disagree Strongly_disagree___
39- A person should be tolerant and avoid testifying to
others about his religious beliefs.
Strongly agree Agree Undecided____
Disagree Strongly disagree___
4l. I like to hear all sides of an argument before I
make up my mind.
Strongly agree Agree Undecided____
Disagree Strongly_Disagree___
107. Man is essentially good and with proper training can
be trusted to make good decisions.
Strongly agree Agree Undecided____
Disagree Strongly disagree___
Please check below the most Important source from which
you feel your motivation comes in avoiding conflicts that
could lead you to separation or divorce:
83. 1. The rules of your church are against
divorce.
84. 2. Your inner spiritual experience with God has
helped you to get along with your mate.
85. 3« The fear of what family and friends would
think.
86. 4. Your own code of ethics.
87. 5- The high economic cost of divorce (court
costs; alimony^ etc.)
88. 6. Other (please specify)
APPENDIX F
PURITAN NEGATIVISM SCALE
189
19 o j
j
| Highest possible score = 37, lowest = 8 ;
| !
| 40. People who commit adultery should be punished. j
| i
! Strongle agree____ Agree____ Undecided____
i I
Disagree Strongly disagree____
43. The worst sins are those involving sex. |
i 1
I Strongly agree Agree Undecided
j — —
Disagree Strongly disagree____
Have you ever felt guilty in marriage about the following:
Check one Does not Very Consider- A Not at
column for apply much ably little all
each item
below
60. Sex re
lations
8 0 . How do you feel about sex in marriage? (l) it is
to be enjoyed__. (2) It should be used in moder
ation . (3) It should be used for reproduction
only (having children) . (4) It is a necessary
evil .
81. How do you feel about sex education for children?
(1) It should be taught in public schools_____.
(2) It should be taught in public schools but be
carefully regulated____ . (3) Should be kept out of
the public schools and taught in the home____. (4)
It should not be taught at all .
102. How do you feel about using the nude female body in
making paintings or photography?
Strongly oppose it. Oppose it. Favorable.
Very favorable.
101. How do you feel about appearing undressed before
your mate in private?
Great embarrassment. Mild embarrassment.
No embarrassment.
Sex should not be discussed except in the privacy
of one's own bedroom.
Strongly agree Agree Undecided____
Disagree Strongly disagree
APPENDIX G
WALLACE MARITAL ADJUSTMENT SCALE
192
! 193
I
| Highest possible = 158
State approximate extent of agreement or disagreement dur
ing marriage between you and your mate on the following
items. (The examples should be considered as only one of
I many topics under each point.)
1
! PLEASE PLACE A CHECK OPPOSITE EVERY ITEM: MY MATE AND I
(Check one column Always Almost Occa Fre Almost Al
for each item agree always sion quent always ways;
below) agree ally
ly
dis dis-.
dis dis agree agr
agree agree ee
63. Handling fam
ily finances
(ex. Install-
ment buying)
64. Matters of re
creation (ex.
going on out
ings)_________
65. Demonstration
of affection
66. Friends (ex.
dislike of
mate’s friends)
67. Sex relations
68. Ways of dealing
with in-laws
69. Conventionality
(ex. good, right
or proper con-
duct) __________________________________________________
70. Aims, goals, and
things believed
important in life_____________________________________
79- In leisure time I generally prefer to be "on the go"
To stay at home_______ .
My mate generally prefers to be "on the go"
To stay at home_______ .
194 |
Circle the dot on the scale line below which best describes!
the degree of happiness, everything considered, of your i
! present marriage. The middle point "happy" represents the !
degree of happiness which most people get from marriage, |
and the scale ranges on one side to those few who experien-j
ce extreme joy in marriage and on the other to those few j
who are very unhappy in marriage: !
52 . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ j ; _ !
Very unhappy happy Perfectly happy j
j 53. If you had your life to live over, do you think you
! would:
I |
! (1) Marry the same person____
(2) Marry a different person____
(3) Not marry at all____
54. When disagreements arrive, they usually result in:
(1) husband giving in_____
(2) wife giving in_____
(3) agreement by mutual give and take_____
58. Do you confide in your mate: (1) almost never .
(2) rarely . (3) in most things_____ .
(4) in everything______ .
59* Do you and your mate engage in outside interests
together: (1) All of them , (2) Some of them__.
(3) Very few of them ~ 3 (4) None of them .
62. Do you ever wish you had not married?
(1) Frequently . (2) Occasionally_____ .
(3) Rarely . (4) Never______ .
I
i
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Asset Metadata

Creator Snider, Allan George (author)

Core Title A Study Of The Relationships Between Religious Affiliation, Religious Practices And Marital Adjustment

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Sociology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, individual and family studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Lasswell, Thomas E. (committee chair), Grafton, Clive L. (committee member), Ransford, Harry Edward (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-569796

Unique identifier UC11362181

Identifier 7211959.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-569796 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7211959.pdf

Dmrecord 569796

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Snider, Allan George

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA