Religious Involvement and Marital Sex in Australia and the United States

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to examine religious involvement as measured by church attendance, and how it is related to various dimensions of sexual expression within marriage for women. Data on marital sexual behavior as related to church attendance is examined for 1,442 Australian women and 2,372 women in the United States. In general the evidence supports the assumption that women who are religious are more conservative in their sexual behavior than are women who are not religious. Our evidence also indicates that religion tends to influence marital sex in Australia and the United States in essentially the same way. There is some evidence that sex roles are more segregated in Australia and there is more confusion and frustration on the part of Australian women in sexual matters than there is for American women.