Past research on religious homogamy has struggled to distinguish whether religiosity or homogamy has a stronger impact on preventing a marital dissolution. In order to rectify this problem, I use a latent class approach to compare couples with various forms of partner religiosity and similarity. Based on 707 newlywed couples from the Marriage Matters survey (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004), I discovered four latent classes: "holy" couples (both partners are highly religious), "non-attending" couples (both partners identify as religious, but don't regularly attend services), "unbalanced" couples (the wife is religious, but the husband is not), and "secular" couples (both partners are not religious). Findings indicate that holy, non-attending, and unbalanced couples experience less odds of divorce compared to secular couples, suggesting that religiosity in a variety of forms is more important than partner similarity in avoiding divorce.
The study of family and religion has yet to elaborate on the social ties that connect these two important and changing institutions. Specifically, how does family formation (i.e., marriage and childrearing) impact social ties to religious communities? Using longitudinal data from the Portraits of American Life Study (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012) and fixed effects regression models that control for time-stable heterogeneity (N = 1,314), this study tests the effects of marriage and childrearing on changes in close congregational social ties. Fixed effects estimates suggest that marriage actually decreases close social ties to religious congregations, whereas rearing children within marital unions increases them. Thus, it is children, not marriage per se, that actually integrates married couples into religious communities. These contrasting effects tend to be the strongest among young adults, but they weaken with age as well as marital duration.When individuals age and start to form families of their own, the integration into social networks becomes vital for family well-being. Becoming a spouse or a parent entails a variety of new roles and responsibilities, and supportive social networks tend to provide guidance and may buffer any potential stress as a result of newly
The following case study utilizes in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation data in order to examine how color-blindness operates in a diverse Christian fraternity. The color-blind ideology functions in two distinct ways: to authenticate the fraternity’s collective religious identity as an inclusive Christian community and to obscure within-group racial inequalities reproduced through tokenizing racist jokes aimed at its non-white members. Color-blind statements allow members to attribute their organization’s racial diversity to their accepting religious doctrine, while also making problems of race within the organization difficult to address. This article provides a theoretical contribution by highlighting the dire implications of ignoring race in diverse religious groups, particularly problematic within the “edgy” joking subculture of Christian fraternities.
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