Marital Satisfaction Paper - Article Example

Coinciding with the increase in divorces is the change in the overall perception of society and what roles people fill. Besides changing gender roles and expectations, proximity to family and long-time friends has become greater, and the overall organization of life has been altered. The support that once was manifested in family and community has. Marita McCabe believes the dwindling levels of support may correspond with the increase in the divorce rate. “The importance of social support to marital satisfaction has assumed increased significance.

In fact, support both within and outside the marriage may be an important variable to consider in determining the factors significant to marital satisfaction” (McCabe, 2006, p. 55). Support comes from both outside the marriage as well as inside. Levels of marital satisfaction seem to correlate with the amount of support marriage partners feel from not only each other but from their families and community as well. Community support through religion One source of community that has dwindled as the divorce rate has risen is religion.

Some believe there may be a connection between that statistic and the increase in divorce. . 498). Based on these ambiguous findings, Orathinkal and Vansteenwegen conducted another study in which they “primarily examined the possibility whether people who are more religiously oriented, frequent church goers, or those who perform religious duties more faithfully have higher rate of marital satisfaction” (Orathinkal & Vansteenwegen, 2006, p. 498). They found that people who included religion in their lives in some way were more satisfied with their marriages than people who were not religious.

There are some definite limitations to this study, such as the fact that the research was done with a non-random sample, and generalizing about the results may cause a problem. For instance, no specific religions were cited as having more happily married people than others. Religion has a broad connotation in the general public, so some participants may have interpreted the term differently than others, so the comparisons may not be accurate. Also, this study was cross-sectional and correlational, which identifies only associations and not causes.

Yet, this research can be helpful for couples undergoing marriage counseling/therapy. Therapeutic application Therapists can use this study by asking a couple to consider the positive association between religion and marital satisfaction. “Therapists could suggest or discuss the role of a transcendental element or a religious or spiritual aspect of the couples or of the partners for marital problems” (Orathinkal & Vansteenwegen, 2006, p. 502). While religion may not be something a marriage therapist will always suggest, for some couples it may be a useful.

Perhaps having a regular