Patterns of Religious Commitment, Intermarriage and Marital Break-down among English Catholics / Participation religieuse, mariage mixte et échec conjugal chez les catholiques anglais. - article ; n°1 ; vol.64, pg 137-155

Michaël P.Hornsby-Smith, Kathryn Kathryna.Turcan, Lynda Lyndat.Rajan

Description

Archives des sciences sociales des religions - Année 1987 - Volume 64 - Numéro 1 - Pages 137-155
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Archives-des-sciences-sociales-des-religions
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1987
• Nombre de lectures: 26
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Mike Hornsby-Smith
Kathryn A. Turcan
Lynda T. Rajan
Patterns of Religious Commitment, Intermarriage and Marital
Break-down among English Catholics / Participation religieuse,
mariage mixte et échec conjugal chez les catholiques anglais.
In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 64/1, 1987. pp. 137-155.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Hornsby-Smith Mike, Turcan Kathryn A., Rajan Lynda T. Patterns of Religious Commitment, Intermarriage and Marital Break-
down among English Catholics / Participation religieuse, mariage mixte et échec conjugal chez les catholiques anglais. In:
Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 64/1, 1987. pp. 137-155.
doi : 10.3406/assr.1987.2443
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/assr_0335-5985_1987_num_64_1_2443Arch Sc soc des Rel. 1987 64/ï juillet-septembre) 137-155
Michael HORNSBY-SMITH
Kathryn TURCAN and Lynda RAJAN
PATTERNS OF RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT
INTERMARRIAGE AND MARITAL
BREAKDOWN AMONG ENGLISH CATHOLICS
partir de données recueillies en 1978 lors une enquête nationale
réalisée en Angleterre et au Pays de Galles auprès un échantillon
adultes catholiques romains cet article se propose étudier les
rapports entre arrière-plan socio-religieux des catholiques anglais
leurs modes endogamie et exogamie religieuses ainsi que la co
incidence entre échec conjugal consécutif abandon une quel
conque pratique religieuse et la participation religieuse après ces
données il apparaît que la chute assiduité selon les normes de
glise dans assistance la messe une part et le type de mariage
contracté de autre ont une influence capitale sur échec conjugal
Par ailleurs le type de mariage contracté entretient lui aussi un lien
étroit avec la période abandon de toute pratique religieuse Les
auteurs en concluent que vers la fin des années soixante-dix les
défenses qui alors avaient protégé la communauté catholique
de influence des normes de la société environnante se sont
effondrées
INTRODUCTION
This paper reports further analyses of the relationships between the social
and religious origins of English Catholics their patterns of religious endogamy exogamy and the timing of any cessation of religious practice subsequent
marital breakdown and current religious commitment Apart from the intrinsic
interest of these relationships they are also important as indicators of the extent
to which there has been breakdown of distinct Catholic subculture in England
and Wales in the post-war years
The data for this present study come from the 1978 survey of national
sample of adult Roman Catholics in England and Wales N=1023) weighted
according to the Mass attendance and socio-economic status distributions revea
led by Gallup omnibus surveys In the first analyses of these data it was reported
that just under 3 of the sample were currently divorced and that overall
Catholics are not any less prone to divorce than members of the population at
137 ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS
large Homsby-Smith and Lee 1979 117 Four marriage types were distin
guished on the basis both of canonical status and on whether or not the
partner was also Roman Catholic Overall it was reported that
slightly more than half of married Catholics are validly married to other
Catholics about one quarter are validly married to non-Catholics three percent
are invalidly married to Catholic partner while slightly less than one fifth are in
an invalid mixed marriage Homsby-Smith and Lee 1979 107-8)
The evidence showed that there was clear relationship between the mar
riage type and current religious practice and that invalid marriages the propor
tion of which increased very rapidly during the 1970s tended to have been
contracted by those whose links with institutional Catholicism were already
weak In this present study the typology of marriage types will be extended to take
into account the effects of religious conversion not only in the case of respon
dents themselves but also on the part of their spouses In Roman Catholic
Opinion it was reported that around 11 of English Catholics had converted
It is suggested that as long as the Church in England and Wales manifested
the characteristics of fortress and erected strong defences against the influences
of the wider society and minimised contact with extraneous by
discouraging marriage with non-coreligionists for example by means of less
solemn and aesthetically unattractive marriage ceremonies or the insistence that
children be baptised and brought up as Catholics and reinforced the salience of
the Catholic belief and value systems by means of pervasive Catholic social and
religious environment and nexus of Catholic schools and parishes and where
the agents of social control such as priests and teachers had considerable power
and scope and were buttressed by an ideology which stressed the hierarchical
nature of the Church and the infallible authority of its religious leadership then
deviant attitudes and beliefs on sexual and marital matters largely remained
unspoken and unrecognised However it will be shown that among Roman
Catholics in England and Wales by the end of the 1970s there was substantial
divergence from the traditional and official norms of the Church and break
down of the fortress model of the Church with its distinctive subculture This is
apparent in the accelerating increase in the proportions not only of mixed
marriages but also ofcanonically invalid marriages Current trends if continued
as seems most likely suggest that there will be serious long-term consequences in
terms of the lack of religious commitment of the children of such marriages and
hence the size and characteristics of affiliated Catholics
In Roman Catholic Opinion Homsby-Smith and Lee 1979 it was shown
that there is considerable amount of religious heterodoxy in terms of both
practice and belief among English Catholics This is also apparent in
the five marriage types which will be distinguished Considerable variations are
found in the religious beliefs and practices of non-mixed marriages depending on
whether or not the respondent or spouse is convert and between valid and
invalid mixed marriages Processes of disaffiliation have been explored by
relating the time of apostasy with that of marriage in an attempt to discover the
causal sequence and determine whether exogamy leads to apostasy or vice-versa
It will be shown that those whose links with institutional Catholicism are already
weak are more likely than other Catholics to contract invalid mixed marriages
which have the highest propensity for marital breakdown
In sum it will be suggested that the evidence leads clearly to the conclusion
that there has been significant change in the nature of the Church in England
138 ENGLISH CATHOLICS
and Wales in the post-war years In particular not only do Catholics demonstrate
much higher degree of heterodoxy in their attitudes to sexual and marital
morality than has hitherto been assumed but there has also been very sub
stantial breakdown of the social and religious constraints to religious inter
marriage and convergence to the national norms of divorce The implications of
these changes and the dissolution of the distinctive Catholic subculture for
Catholic attitudes towards religious authority will be examined in subsequent
publication
In exploring the relationships between marriage types and religious practice
and belief relevant consideration is the attachment to religious norms which
prescribe and proscribe marital choices and so inhibit or encourage the rate of
heterogamous marriages Marcson 1950 Thus we might hypothesise that com
mitted Catholics who depart from the norm of endogamous mate selection will
compensate by higher than average rate of religious practice and orthodoxy of
belief Specifically we might expect high rates of approved religious involvement
from those whose spouse has married-in and converted and also from converts as
compensation for their marginality Conversely those who have married-out
without conversion of their spouses and who have to that extent demonstrated
relative unconcern for in-group social and religious sanctions are likely to show
relatively low rates of religious involvement This is particularly to be the
case of those who have so attenuated their links with the Catholic community that
they have contracted an invalid marriage The present data enable us to test these
hypotheses
In order to investigate these relationships four background variables were
employed to measure the strength of the religious climate of the familial home of
origin and of the social networks of the parental home and local Catholic
community during the childhood years Three demographic variables were
included in the analysis age shown in Roman Catholic Opinion to be major
determinant of religious beliefs and practices) sex and terminal education age to
ascertain the importance of mobility related experiences The two intervening
variables are the five marriage types and the time of cessation of or lapsation
from regular religious practice relative to the time