The Relationship of Family Religious Ritual in the Home and the Marital Adjustment of Young Couples

• Main Author: Huish II, Adlin Lamar
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 1976
• Subjects: relationship; family; religious; ritual; home; marital; adjustment; young; couples; Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/2303; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3316&context=etd

The practice of family religious ritual in the home and its effect on family life has not been very well understood because of the small amount of research completed. In order to help increase the understanding of this concept, this study investigated the practice of family religious ritual in the home and measured the effect of family religious ritual on a couple's marital life by testing four hypotheses: 1) The indices of family religious ritual are positively correlated with marital adjustment. 2) Overall family religious ritual is positively correlated with marital adjustment. 3) Husband-wife family religious ritual is positively correlated with husband-wife marital adjustment. 4) Perceptions of parent's family religious ritual is positively correlated with perceptions of parent 's marital happiness scale. The data carne from a larger pool of data collected on a more involved study of family religious ritual made by Schvaneveldt in 1968. It specifically dealt with part of the data collected on eighty-nine husband - and -wife couples selected from the married student's housing lists of Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Trained interviewers completed a questionnaire with each spouse within the confines of their own home. Descriptive statistics were used in analyzing background characteristics and to obtain a profile of the practice of family religious ritual, marital adjustment, their parent's practice of family religious ritual, and parent's marital happiness. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was used to assess the degree of the relationship between their family religious ritual and marital adjustment and their parent's family religious ritual and happiness. From the results of this study the following conclusions were made on the practice of family religious ritual and its effect on the family: 1) Most people who practice family religious rituals report a frequency of observing them "sometimes". 2) Of all family religious rituals, individual prayer and grace are the most commonly practiced in frequency and amounts . 3) Spouses who practice family religious ritual in their homes report basically the same amount and frequency, except for individual prayer and individual bible reading where the wives report a greater observance to each . 4) The practice of family religious ritual in the home and marital adjustment is se en to have low positive correlations. While the research design does not permit the assessment of causality directly, the positive correlations suggest a causal effeCt of the practice of family religious ritual on marital adjustment. 5) The practice of church related religious ritual outside the home is seen to have a low positive correlation. The correlation here is also seen to suggest a causal effect of this ritual on marital adjustment. 6) Husbands show higher positive correlations between the practice of religious rituals and marital adjustment than the wives. This suggests that the practice of religious rituals has a more positive affect on their marital adjustment than the wives .