The State Of The Union

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

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 here last week.

“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 this community who are not as happy with their marriages.”

Results showed that 72 percent of 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.  Continue reading…