Churchgoing Catholic couples trend the happiest, report finds
Amid a loneliness epidemic, recent research shows faith and family are “antidotes to isolation.”
A report published by Institute for Family Studies on Sept. 25 found that churchgoing Catholic couples are happier than other couples. In fact, happiness more than doubled among spouses who attend church compared with their peers.
Among the report’s most notable findings is that despite cultural challenges to faith and a decline in marriage, people who attend church consistently report higher levels of happiness and their marriages are strong.
The report drew on data from the General Social Survey (GSS), CARA data, YouGov, Pew Research, and other sources.
Report co-author Brad Wilcox, senior fellow and director of the Get Married Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, noted that “churchgoing Catholics and Protestants marry more, have more children, and divorce less than their secular peers.”
“The good news in the report is that the happiest and most sexually satisfied husbands and wives are churchgoing Catholics,” Wilcox told EWTN News. “For instance, 79% of churchgoing Catholics and 74% of churchgoing Protestants are very happily married, compared to 66% of nonreligious husbands and wives.”
“Among churchgoers, 55% of Catholics and 45% of Protestants report being satisfied with their sex lives. (i.e., rating one’s sex life as “excellent” or “very good”), compared to just 45% of nominal Catholics, 35% of nominal Protestants, and 40% of Nones,” Wilcox said.
Also, churchgoers are 39% more likely to be married than their peers, the report found.
“Men and women tethered to the institutions of faith and marriage are more than twice as likely to be very happy today compared to their peers who are not,” read the report, authored by Wilcox along with Grant Bailey, Richard Dell’Isola, and Jane Lankes Smith.
“There’s a ‘faith-family paradox’ where the role of faith, marriage, and family life has shrunk since the 1970s (with Catholic weddings falling by 74% since 1970 to the present),” Wilcox said. “But the believers who remain are more likely to enjoy strong, stable families.”
Belief in the teachings of the Church makes a difference in marital happiness, the study found.
“Couples who embrace classic Catholic teachings about marital permanence and openness to life are most likely to be happily married and sexually satisfied,” Wilcox continued.
The report found that churchgoing couples have "significantly more sex, and more sexual satisfaction, than their secular peers,” the report read.
“Catholics and Protestants who believe marriage is a permanent commitment are more likely to be sexually satisfied than their counterparts who do not hold this view (60% versus 46% for Catholics, with a smaller 43% versus 40% difference among Protestants),” Wilcox said.
Given what the data showed, the authors of the report called for greater attention to faith and family.
“Strengthening faith and family is therefore not a matter of nostalgia but of necessity: it could mean the difference between a society that sustains the foundations of personal and social well-being and one that leaves its people to drift alone and unhappy,” the report read.
But the report also shed light on problems in churchgoing couples and families, like pornography consumption and lack of community support for big families.
“It’s not all good news,” Wilcox said. “Men who are struggling with pornography are more likely to get into trouble in their marriages.”
Churchgoing husbands still view porn at similar rates to their secular counterparts (a quarter of religious husbands compared with one-third of nonreligious husbands).
In addition, a significant minority of Catholic spouses “worry their marriage may not last.”
Catholic parents of families of three or more children reported lower happiness in their marriage. The report cited a lack of community support as a major reason.
“Catholic parents of large families (three or more children) report lower marital happiness, in part, we think, because they don’t get enough support from their local church communities,” Wilcox said. “Unfortunately, only 46% of churchgoing Catholic parents report receiving even ‘some help’ from their church community.”
The report, which was commissioned by the Catholic group FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), also compared the data with a group of 1,219 respondents who were FOCUS alumni. This group was more likely to get married and to be happily married than other Catholic couples, while also less likely to be sexually satisfied than other Catholic couples.
The authors recommend in the report an active faith life, intentional marital discernment, family support at the parish level, and marriage formation for adolescents and young adults.
“In an age marked by unprecedented digital distraction and loneliness, the value of faith and family is powerful and may well be growing,” the report concluded.
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