Worship and Wedlock: new study on divorce & church attendance
February 17, 2026
A newly released analysis of recent marriage data shows that couples who attend weekly church services have significantly lower rates of divorce than couples who do not. The study further confirms what numerous previous studies have shown, indicating that a shared faith in a higher power and the communal life that churches provide help to strengthen marital bonds.
Writing for the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), Ohio State University sociologist Jesse Smith laid out his findings after analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, looking at marriages from 2009 to 2018. He found that, particularly for couples who marry young, church attendance has a significant impact on keeping them united.
