Relationship Between Religiosity and Marital Satisfication Among Reform Jewish Couples

According to statistics, the current divorce rate in the United States is approximately 50% (Shellenbarger, 2005). Fournier, Olson, and Druckman (1983) developed the Marital Satisfaction Scale to provide a global measure of satisfaction by surveying ten areas of the couple\u27s marriage. These areas include the major categories in ENRICH: i.e. communication, conflict resolution, roles, financial concerns, leisure time, sexual relationship, parenting, family and friends, and religion. Religiosity has been defined and measured through items such as attending religious worship services, the importance of religion in a person\u27s life, and the degree to which people describe themselves as being religious (Sussman & Alexander, 1999). Religious homogamy has been defined as holding similar religious views, while religious heterogamy has beendefined as holding dissimilar religious views (Myers, 2006). From a total accessible population of 1,950 Reform Jewish husbands and wives who were members of a south Florida synagogue, a total of 354 participants (165 husbands and 189 wives) completed the surveys mailed to their homes, for an 18.2% response rate. This exploratory (comparative) and explanatory (correlational) study used independent t-tests, ANOVA, and simple and multiple regression to examine religiosity and marital satisfaction among Reform Jewish couples, and husbands and wives. Results of psychometric analyses indicated both the Religious Homogamy Questionnaire and the Marital Satisfaction Scale had good estimates of reliability for the sample. Results of exploratory factor analyses indicated both measures had multidimensional structures across sub-samples that were inconsistent with prior construct validation studies. Some significant differences in religiosity and marital satisfaction were found according to demographic characteristics, such as length of marriage, occupation level, and employment status. Religiosity was found to be an explanatory variable of marital satisfaction for the total sample and for Reform Jewish wives, but not among Reform Jewish husbands. In testing the religiosity factors as predictors of marital satisfaction, Interpersonal and Social Jewish Relationships was found to be an explanatory variable of marital satisfaction among the total sample. Religious heterogamy was not found to be an explanatory variable, but the regression model for Reform Jewish wives indicated a trend relationship. Structural equation modeling in future studies may further clarify the complex relationships among sociodemographics, religiosity, and marital satisfaction