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Religion, Pledging, and the Premarital Sexual Behavior of Married Young Adults
Author(s) -
Uecker Jeremy E.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00517.x
Subject(s) - abstinence , spouse , premarital sex , sexual abstinence , psychology , sexual behavior , developmental psychology , longitudinal study , social psychology , demography , medicine , population , family planning , psychiatry , sociology , research methodology , pathology , anthropology
Social scientists know little about the effect of religion and abstinence pledging on premarital sex beyond adolescence. Evidence from a sample of married young adults in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health ( N = 2,079) reveals that premarital sex is widespread even among religious Americans and abstinence pledgers. Nevertheless, these individuals are much more likely than their counterparts to avoid premarital sex entirely. When they do have premarital sex, pledgers are more likely to restrict the behavior to their future spouse. Though contextual, exposure, and social control effects explain some of the influence of religion and abstinence pledging, religion and abstinence pledging appear to exert robust, direct effects on premarital sexual behavior.