I’m a retired Episcopal priest whose wife has always been clear that she’s not interested in religion, essentially an atheist. It was never an issue in my work or in our marriage. When I interviewed with congregations, I simply explained that if they wanted a priest whose spouse attended or was involved in church, I wasn’t the right pick for them. In the last parish I served before retirement, it seemed that the only people upset by this were the spouses of the assisting clergy… Go figure…
As someone who grew up in an “unequally yoked” situation, I feel like I can speak into what it looked like growing up and how it affected life as a kid.
Both my parents were Catholic, and me and my sister and them went to church regularly growing up. My parents got divorced though and my father got remarried to an evangelical woman who had two kids.
So, suddenly on weekends where we were with my dad the family would split up and go to two different places for church. I was 10ish or so and didn’t really understand what was happening or why. My dad was ardently against the church that they went to, and I feel like it really soured us kids on church. To this day my dad is still deep in the Catholic Church and his wife still deep in her evangelical church. I’m the only one of the kids who even attends church anymore.
I don’t really have a solution, or know the best way they could’ve worked out the differences, I just know what didn’t feel great. My wife and I are both in agreement and in step with each other for how we wanted for our household and I wouldn’t change that.
It would be interesting to know if this pattern (or lack thereof) applies to converts. As a personal anecdote, when my husband and I converted to Catholicism, it was a package-set decision: either we would both convert, or neither would. On the other hand, I know fellow adult converts who were drawn to convert despite the objections of spouses; indeed, the whole history of religious conversions is filled with stories of people defying their family to adopt a new faith.
While I suspect that converts are so rare (as you've shown in other analyses) as to make any statistical analysis of this question impossible, I'm still curious.
I don't think it qualifies as a "strong norm" to marry within the faith anymore if nearly half of Jews are in interfaith relationships. More conservative elements don't *like* it, certainly, but I'd say with those numbers the "norm" is dead!
I grew up in an interfaith household with a Jewish mother and a christian father, and I think every single other Jewish kid I knew was also from an interfaith family (*all* my mother's siblings married non-Jews, so this includes my own cousins!). I am not sure I've ever personally met an American Jew under 35 with two Jewish parents.
It would be tricky but one factor influencing inter-religious (or inter-ethnic) marriage is the availability and proximity of matching partners. Mainstream religions (e.g., Catholics) have lots of potential partners, whereas minority religions (e.g., Jews) have few. Given this "chance" baseline, assortative mating seems much higher for Jews than for Catholics despite the raw figures. Proximity would matter if some religious/ethnic groups tend to live in "clusters" more than others. Perhaps clustering more likely in recent immigrant groups (Muslims, Hindus, ...)? Seeking partners in native countries and arranged marriages would also be higher.
You left out the part that Muslim women are not allowed to marry outside Islam, because they are trained from birth to be completely obedient to their husbands, whereas Muslim men are taught to strike their wives if they are disobedient (Quran 4:34). Thus a non-Muslim woman is expected to have no influence over the religious training of children.
"Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand."
I would be interested in a gender breakdown of some of the splits. My instinct is that “religious woman, secular man” is more common than the reverse, but maybe I’ll be surprised!
Anecdotally, most of the time when a man converts and a woman does not, she divorces him. A man has no problem with his wife being more "moral" than him - he will brag to his buddies about it. But if a woman feels like she is less moral than her husband, she cannot handle that and will leave to get out of that tension.
It may be less about morality and more about not meeting expectations. If a woman wants her husband to change and convert, he is more likely to be okay with not meeting her expectations. But if a wife feels her husband wants her to change and convert, that lack of meeting his expectations doesn't go down well.
These are generalizations but I think your instincts are right - although I'm not sure why.
I’m a retired Episcopal priest whose wife has always been clear that she’s not interested in religion, essentially an atheist. It was never an issue in my work or in our marriage. When I interviewed with congregations, I simply explained that if they wanted a priest whose spouse attended or was involved in church, I wasn’t the right pick for them. In the last parish I served before retirement, it seemed that the only people upset by this were the spouses of the assisting clergy… Go figure…
Makes perfect sense to me and I'm not a clergy wife.
As someone who grew up in an “unequally yoked” situation, I feel like I can speak into what it looked like growing up and how it affected life as a kid.
Both my parents were Catholic, and me and my sister and them went to church regularly growing up. My parents got divorced though and my father got remarried to an evangelical woman who had two kids.
So, suddenly on weekends where we were with my dad the family would split up and go to two different places for church. I was 10ish or so and didn’t really understand what was happening or why. My dad was ardently against the church that they went to, and I feel like it really soured us kids on church. To this day my dad is still deep in the Catholic Church and his wife still deep in her evangelical church. I’m the only one of the kids who even attends church anymore.
I don’t really have a solution, or know the best way they could’ve worked out the differences, I just know what didn’t feel great. My wife and I are both in agreement and in step with each other for how we wanted for our household and I wouldn’t change that.
It would be interesting to know if this pattern (or lack thereof) applies to converts. As a personal anecdote, when my husband and I converted to Catholicism, it was a package-set decision: either we would both convert, or neither would. On the other hand, I know fellow adult converts who were drawn to convert despite the objections of spouses; indeed, the whole history of religious conversions is filled with stories of people defying their family to adopt a new faith.
While I suspect that converts are so rare (as you've shown in other analyses) as to make any statistical analysis of this question impossible, I'm still curious.
I wonder if there will be a study on the effect of one spouse leaving faith. I think that is happening more now.
I don't think it qualifies as a "strong norm" to marry within the faith anymore if nearly half of Jews are in interfaith relationships. More conservative elements don't *like* it, certainly, but I'd say with those numbers the "norm" is dead!
I grew up in an interfaith household with a Jewish mother and a christian father, and I think every single other Jewish kid I knew was also from an interfaith family (*all* my mother's siblings married non-Jews, so this includes my own cousins!). I am not sure I've ever personally met an American Jew under 35 with two Jewish parents.
It would be tricky but one factor influencing inter-religious (or inter-ethnic) marriage is the availability and proximity of matching partners. Mainstream religions (e.g., Catholics) have lots of potential partners, whereas minority religions (e.g., Jews) have few. Given this "chance" baseline, assortative mating seems much higher for Jews than for Catholics despite the raw figures. Proximity would matter if some religious/ethnic groups tend to live in "clusters" more than others. Perhaps clustering more likely in recent immigrant groups (Muslims, Hindus, ...)? Seeking partners in native countries and arranged marriages would also be higher.
You left out the part that Muslim women are not allowed to marry outside Islam, because they are trained from birth to be completely obedient to their husbands, whereas Muslim men are taught to strike their wives if they are disobedient (Quran 4:34). Thus a non-Muslim woman is expected to have no influence over the religious training of children.
"Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand."
https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=4&verse=34
I would be interested in a gender breakdown of some of the splits. My instinct is that “religious woman, secular man” is more common than the reverse, but maybe I’ll be surprised!
Anecdotally, most of the time when a man converts and a woman does not, she divorces him. A man has no problem with his wife being more "moral" than him - he will brag to his buddies about it. But if a woman feels like she is less moral than her husband, she cannot handle that and will leave to get out of that tension.
It may be less about morality and more about not meeting expectations. If a woman wants her husband to change and convert, he is more likely to be okay with not meeting her expectations. But if a wife feels her husband wants her to change and convert, that lack of meeting his expectations doesn't go down well.
These are generalizations but I think your instincts are right - although I'm not sure why.