Religious influences on premarital education : access and attitudes.

Abstract

Premarital education has been strongly tied to religious organizations but minimal research exists on the relationship between premarital education and religion. Literature overwhelmingly supports the benefits of premarital education, but only few studies link to religiosity and how religion, religious organizations, or clergy may play factor in the ability to access premarital education, or overall attitudes towards completing premarital education. This brings researchers to ask: How does religion influence participation and attitudes towards premarital education? A mixed-methods study was completed in which 350 participants completed a survey collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. Findings suggest that religion does hold influence on participation and attitudes towards premarital education by: balancing of costs and rewards for participating, subjective norms within a religious community, perceived susceptibility and perceived severity of marital problems or divorce, and the correlation between positive outcomes of premarital education and religious encouragement. These findings are each significant because they each indicate the strong role that religious organizations play as primary providers of premarital education. Religious organizations should move forward with promoting an atmosphere where premarital education is encouraged and valued by members of the religious body. Further research should investigate the requirement of premarital education, and how a requirement may alter or diminish positive outcomes of the program. Further longitudinal research should also be conducted to evaluate the accuracy in perceptions of susceptibility and severity in correlation with religion.