Orthodox marriages may be happier than their secular counterparts, but religious unions are rocky enough to concern a team of researchers and rabbis who presented the results of their recent study on marital satisfaction at the Orthodox Union.
“Traditional family values and religious values tend to overlap,” said Eliezer Schnall, an assistant professor of psychology at Yeshiva University who was responsible for analyzing the data. “But there are also those in [the Orthodox] community who are not as happy with their marriages.”
Results showed that 72 percent of the men surveyed and 74 percent of women rated their marriages as “very good” or “excellent,” whereas the overall U.S. population has a much lower satisfaction rate of 63 and 60 percent respectively, according to a 2009 General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion.
Only 13 percent of Orthodox couples rated their marriages as “fair” or “poor.”
Aside from a few subjects from the United Kingdom and Israel, the 3,670 respondents were predominantly North Americans who had been recruited through Internet promotions and outreach efforts in New York and Los Angeles synagogues.
Among the most divisive issues for unhappy respondents were infertility, at-risk youth, children with disabilities and use of birth control, according to Deborah Fox, the study’s pioneer and program director of the Aleinu Family Resource Center at Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles.
For some, the results point to the need for more premarital counseling and education.
“A lot of marriages people just jump into — there’s no preparation,” said Frank Buchweitz, national director of community services and special projects at the O.U., who was responsible for coordinating the survey.
Overall the data settles into a U-shaped curve, with the happiest subjects being newlyweds and those later on in their marriages — reinforcing the idea that issues with children and other family-life pressures are major stressors on the health of a marriage.
In addition to Fox’s observations, Schnall cites factors such as financial problems, lack of community, conflicts with in-laws, and both sexuality and intimacy as potential catalysts for frustrations. Smaller problems could include excessive time spent on the Internet or visitation to inappropriate websites — things more common early in a marriage rather than later, according to Schnall.
Later stressors in marriages could be devastating illness within the family or behavioral problems of children who decide to stop being observant.
David Pelcovitz, a graduate school professor of psychology and education at Yeshiva University, and many of his colleagues hope that Jewish spiritual leaders and teachers will start providing marital counseling not only before the wedding but on an ongoing basis, even through the healthiest of marriages.
To this end, the O.U. has been sponsoring marriage retreats on both the East and West Coasts; couples convene to discuss their relationships in a group support setting.
The Jewish community might need to focus more attention on marriage preparation, the doctors and rabbis say, but those facing the prospect of marriage should by no means despair and should remember that the results were still overwhelmingly positive.
“It may not just be the shanda [disgrace] factor,” Pelcovitz said, noting that much more than just shame of divorce likely holds religious unions together. “There may be something about the Orthodox community that leads to more satisfaction in Orthodox marriages.”
Schnall agreed, adding, “Wives and husbands are happy to hear that they would do it all again if they could.”