Background

The research literature finds a positive relationship between couple religiosity and relationship quality, but because public discourse highlights religious victims of domestic violence, we questioned whether couple religiosity prevents negative relationship outcomes as well as it promotes positive ones.

Purpose

This article compares rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) and infidelity among couples with different levels of religious commitment. We further interrogated whether the belief that the man is the head of the household increased couples' risk of IPV or infidelity.

Methods

We used Global Family and Gender Survey data from eleven countries. This was an online survey of adults ages 18 to 50 that used a representative panel for the United States, but used opt-in panels in Australia, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. We limited our analytic sample to the 9920 men and women in heterosexual relationships (6791 married and 3128 cohabiting). We also analyzed the United States probability sample separately from our pooled sample.

Results

Couples with nominal or unequal religiosity (less/mixed religious couples) had higher rates of infidelity than either highly religious couples or couples in which neither partner exhibited much religiosity (shared secular couples). Infidelity was generally similar between highly religious couples and shared secular couples, but in the US women in highly religious couples did cheat less. We found no differences in IPV—measured by both women's reports of victimization and men's reports of perpetration—according to couple religiosity. Further, the belief that the man is the head of the household did not influence couples' risk of either IPV or infidelity across the entire sample. In Latin America, however, patriarchal men in shared secular couples perpetrated IPV significantly more often than their egalitarian or more religious counterparts.

Conclusions and Implications

Our Latin American evidence hints that patriarchy may be a more dangerous ideology for secular couples than for religious couples. Our more general conclusion is that even though negative relationship outcomes are not more common among religious couples, the resources religious traditions have at their disposal to discourage violence within intimate partnerships seem tragically underutilized.

中文翻译：

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夫妻宗教信仰、男性领导、亲密伴侣暴力和不忠

背景

研究文献发现夫妻宗教信仰和关系质量之间存在正相关关系，但由于公共话语突出了家庭暴力的宗教受害者，我们质疑夫妻宗教信仰是否可以防止消极关系结果以及促进积极关系结果。

目的

本文比较了具有不同宗教承诺水平的夫妻之间的亲密伴侣暴力 (IPV) 和不忠率。我们进一步询问，认为该男子是一家之主的信念是否会增加夫妻遭受 IPV 或不忠的风险。

方法

我们使用了来自 11 个国家的全球家庭和性别调查数据。这是一项针对 18 至 50 岁成年人的在线调查，该调查使用了美国的代表性小组，但在澳大利亚、法国、爱尔兰、英国、加拿大、阿根廷、智利、哥伦比亚、墨西哥和秘鲁使用了选择加入小组。我们将分析样本限制在 9920 名处于异性恋关系中的男性和女性（6791 名已婚和 3128 名同居）。我们还对美国的概率样本与我们的合并样本分开进行了分析。

结果

具有名义或不平等宗教信仰的夫妇（较少/混合宗教夫妇）的不忠率高于高度宗教信仰的夫妇或双方都没有表现出太多宗教信仰的夫妇（共同的世俗夫妇））。高度虔诚的夫妻和共同的世俗夫妻之间的不忠情况大致相似，但在美国，高度虔诚的夫妻中的女性出轨较少。我们发现 IPV 没有差异——根据女性的受害报告和男性的犯罪报告——根据夫妇的宗教信仰来衡量。此外，在整个样本中，认为男性是户主的信念不会影响夫妻遭受 IPV 或不忠的风险。然而，在拉丁美洲，共同世俗夫妇中的重男轻女实施 IPV 的频率明显高于平等主义或更宗教化的男性。

结论和意义

我们在拉丁美洲的证据表明，对于世俗夫妇而言，父权制可能是一种比宗教夫妇更危险的意识形态。我们更普遍的结论是，即使消极关系结果在宗教夫妇中并不常见，但宗教传统可以用来阻止亲密伙伴关系中暴力的资源似乎没有得到充分利用。