They say a family that prays together, stays together. And they might be right. A recent study conducted by The Institute on Family Studies found that couples who attend worship services together are happier than couples that don’t. Furthermore, the study found that couples that have a church-going man are happier than couples that don’t. Even a couple with only a man who attends church is happier than a couple where only the woman attends. The study’s findings read:
“Seventy-eight percent of men and women in couples who regularly go to services together, or where only the man attends regularly, report that they are ‘very happy’ or ‘extremely happy,’ after adjusting for differences in race, age, education, marital status, region and other factors. By contrast, 67 percent of men and women in relationships where neither partner attends are happy, and just 59 percent of people in couples where only she attends regularly report they are very happy. Clearly, shared attendance and his attendance are linked to higher self-reported relationship quality.”
And, on the more surprising discrepancy between the happiness of a couple with a church going man and a couple with a church going woman, the findings suggested that men’s religious attendance was especially beneficial because churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are some of the few institutions in American life that pay particular attention to encouraging men to invest in their families. So, before you roll your eyes and snicker at your pastor the next time they joke about making a date night out of the next church outing, remember there’s a study that backs them up now. A couple the goes together, grows together.
