Evangelicals are Better Husbands and Fathers

Religious men, especially evangelical Protestants, are more involved and attentive husbands and fathers than men who are not religious, new research shows.

Though they favor a patriarchal family structure, evangelical Protestant men who attend church regularly scored higher on several national surveys that evaluated levels of family involvement and affection than did men from other religious groups and men who consider themselves religiously unaffiliated. Surveys included the government's National Survey of Families and Households.

"Evangelical Protestant dads come out on top compared with every religious group in the U.S.," says University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, who conducted the study.

He analyzed data from three large surveys conducted several times from 1972 to 1999 that examined behaviors and attitudes toward family and gender among different religious groups, including Catholics and Protestant Christian denominations, Jews, Muslims and others.

The results point to greater family involvement and less domestic violence among churchgoing Protestants, especially evangelicals, which he says include Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God, and nondenominational evangelical churches.

Wilcox says religion "domesticates men in ways that make them more retentive to the ideals and aspirations of their wives and children."

(I certainly hate to disappoint the ACLU on this point.)