Interreligious Marriage in the United States: Patterns and Recent Trends

Combined data from six U.S. national surveys conducted from 1973 to 1978 were used to study patterns of interreligious marriage in the mid-1970s and to indicate changes since the Current Population Survey gathered data on interreligious marriage in 1957. Data on current religious preference showed an important degree of increase in religiously mixed couples from 1957 to 1973-1978. Data on the religions in which individuals had been raised indicated no extremely strong barriers to religious outmarriage except among Jews--the fairly high degree of homogamy in current religious preference apparently being achieved to a large extent by religious switching after marriage or in anticipation of marriage. The impact of interreligious marriage on marital happiness is also studied. (EXCERPT)