Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 17, 1993 TAG: 9312170063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
White Protestants from conservative religious homes are more than twice as likely as white Catholics to marry in their teens, East Tennessee State University researchers found in a study of religious heritage and teen marriage.
While Catholics and mainline and conservative Protestants all preach chastity before marriage, the conflict between church teachings and societal pressures on sexuality appears to be strongest in homes where the rules are the most rigorous, researchers found.
"When a value system develops which rigorously restricts premarital sexuality but promotes the sacredness of sex within a marital union, early marriage is a likely outcome," Judith Hammond, Bettie Cole and Scott Beck say in the Review of Religious Research.
In a survey of 3,547 white women, 43 percent of conservative Protestants from groups such as the Southern Baptist Convention and the Churches of Christ married by age 19. Only one-quarter of Protestants from groups such as the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches married as teens, and only one in five Catholic women married as teens.
Among 3,577 white men, 18 percent of conservative Protestants married by age 19, as opposed to 10 percent of mainline Protestants and 7 percent of Catholics.
In a finding Beck described as an anomaly, there were no significant differences found among 1,513 black women surveyed. Twelve percent of both conservative and mainline black Protestant women married by age 19, as did 15 percent of black Catholic women.
Too few black men had reported being married by age 19 for a representative sample, Beck said.
by CNB