Stephanie* is one of the 30 per cent of young Australians who co-habit before marriage. However unlike most of this growing group, Stephanie is a committed Christian.
"I knew the Bible definitely says you had to get married," Stephanie explains, "But I thought, being modern times, that because we loved and respected each other… surely that's what God meant when he talked about marriage."
New research shows that the try-before-you-buy approach of young Australians such as Stephanie to married life is damaging the quality of their relationships.
"It does appear that having experienced a de facto relationship in the past is associated with lack of intimacy and greater insecurity in a current relationship," says the main author of the report, Dr Andrew Cameron.
Dr Cameron's paper entitled Christian Spirituality and Relational Wellbeing will be presented at "The God and The Family' conference at New College, UNSW tomorrow morning, Saturday November 26.
"Our research also shows that the greater security, intimacy and harmony experienced by Christian married partners can only be partially explained by the fact that much fewer Christians have experienced de-facto relationships and multiple partners.
“The fact that Christian belief was much more strongly linked to relational wellbeing across all four indicators " security/insecurity; intimacy/distance; harmony/discord and conflict over gender roles " suggests something more complex is going on," Dr Cameron says.
The paper builds on initial findings from the 2002-2003 Wellbeing and Security Survey (WSS) released last November by a research team from Edith Cowan University, NCLS Research and Anglicare which showed that those people with a religious orientation " and in particular orthodox Christian belief " experience greater levels of wellbeing that those people with either a secular orientation or an orientation towards alternative and eastern spirituality.
The WSS is a 350 question survey tool which was completed by a random sample of 1,500 Australians.
The main findings of Dr Cameron's paper include:
"¢ Marriage enhances a sense of security and harmony with one’s partner, as well as providing couples with some marginal advantages when it comes to intimacy. Significantly, de facto relationships were more strongly associated with insecurity in the relationship than other factors such as poor health, poverty and work stress. Only 7.5% of married people doubt their relationship will last compared to 21% of de factos. Likewise, 42.5% of marrieds said their partners treated them very well compared to 31.2% of defactos.
"¢ Past experience of a de facto relationship or marriage is associated with less intimacy and greater insecurity in a current relationship. For example nearly 1 in 10 people who once had a de-facto relationship now have a cold marriage, compared to about 1 in 20 of those who have never experienced a de-facto relationship.
"¢ The benefits of Christian belief for relational wellbeing are becoming more apparent amongst young generations, a finding linked to the fact that the once "mainstream' nature of Christian morality is now marginal.
"These findings are completely consistent with the theological predictions made at the outset, and suggest that both "Bible-believing' and "conservative' Christianity, far from being deleterious to relational wellbeing, seems to actually enhance the health of a marriage," says Dr Cameron.
"We realize that in the current milieu, such a claim for Christian spirituality, may seem smug and arrogant. However our answer is that we are also publicising the results of our parallel study into home/work conflict and relational wellbeing which found that Christian spirituality has no protective effect whatsoever against very serious home/work conflicts.
“There were reasons to think that Christian belief should bring such benefits. That they do not, we believe, reflects poorly upon our Christian community and its leaders.
"Our main interest in bringing this data to the attention of other Australians is that we hope all of us struggling in difficult, distant and broken relationships might find the kind of new life for their relationships that many Christians appear to be discovering. I particularly like the words attributed to Sri Lankan Christian D.T. Niles, Christianity is just "one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread,” Dr Cameron says.
Stephanie says that because she rarely attended church, she did not have much Christian support at the time she moved in with her boyfriend.
But it was at a university Christian mission that challenged her to reassess her life.
"I really understood the value of Christ's sacrifice for the first time," she says.
After discussions with her pastor and boyfriend, Stephanie announced her engagement and is now married.
* Not her real name
