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Spouse's Religious Commitment and Marital Quality: Clarifying the Role of Gender*

Social Science Quarterly

Published online on

Abstract

Objective Research on religion and marriage consistently finds a positive association between spousal religious commitment and more positive marital outcomes. But findings regarding the moderating influence of gender on this relationship have been mixed. This article clarifies whether returns to marital quality from having a devout spouse are greater for married women or men. Method Drawing on data from the nationally representative 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, and utilizing 12 different measures of marital quality, I estimate ordinary least squares (OLS) and logistic regression models to test my hypotheses. Results In analyses of the full sample, spouse's religious commitment generally predicts positive marital outcomes, net of controls for respondents’ gender as well as their religious and sociodemographic characteristics. However, when models are estimated for women and men separately, the returns to marital quality from having a religiously committed spouse are much stronger and more consistent for women than for men. Conclusions Findings suggest that, ceteris paribus, having a spouse who is more religious predicts positive marriage outcomes, but women benefit from having a religiously committed spouse more than men do. Possible explanations are discussed.