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Muslim women on top in the battle against premarital sex: US Study
Hyderabad, December 26:
The
burqa really works. When you cover your women head to toe with cloth to
keep them from being viewed by men outside their family, and you keep
them strictly segregated from men throughout their growing years until
they get married, you’re going to have less premarital sex.
That was the Rev Paul Sullins’ reaction to a new study on sex outside marriage. Sullins is a sociologist at the Catholic University of America.
With their “True Love Waits” jewelry, conferences and T-shirts, Christians may be the face of the abstinence movement, but Muslims are more likely to abstain from premarital sex.
Of all the world's major religious groups, Muslims are the least likely to have sex outside of marriage, new research found. And as a country's Muslim population grows, the rate of premarital sex declines for all residents, even non-Muslims, according to the study.
Researchers analyzed the responses of over 620,000 people (ages 15-59) who were interviewed as part of the Demographic and Health Surveys in 31 mostly developing nations from 2000 to 2008. Most countries included in the sample had either a Muslim or Christian majority, except India and Nepal, which have Hindu majorities, and Cambodia which has a Buddhist majority. (The United States was not included in the study.)
That’s the conclusion of a new study in the American Sociological Review, which also found that Muslims and Hindus — at least in the developing world — are more likely than Christians and Jews to refrain from extramarital sex.
“All major world religions discourage sex outside of marriage, but they are not all equally effective in shaping behavior,” said Amy Adamczyk of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who co-authored the study with John Jay doctoral student Brittany E. Hayes.
Adamczyk said the study evolved from another study she was doing that found countries with large Muslim populations have very low rates of HIV and AIDS. “I was trying to figure out why that would be,” she said. One reason she considered was lower rates of sex outside of marriage.
“In many countries around the world — but in Muslim countries specifically, there’s just much less interaction between the sexes,” said Adamczyk. “It’s just going to be much less likely that they’re going to meet a potentially romantic partner.”
Drawing on the Demographic and Health Surveys funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the study included data from 31 developing nations collected between 2000 and 2008. The authors focused on individuals’ responses to questions on religious affiliation, marital status, and sexual behavior outside of marriage.
The authors hypothesized that the larger the proportion of Muslims and Hindus in a country, the lower the rates of premarital and extramarital sex.
Adamczyk and Hayes found that 94 percent of Jews in the nations they studied reported having premarital sex, compared to 79 percent of Christians, 65 percent of Buddhists and 43 percent of Muslims.
As for extramarital sex, 4 percent of Jews reported having sex outside of marriage, compared to 3 percent of Christians. Less than one percent each of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists reported having extramarital sex.
Suzy Ismail, a marriage and divorce counselor and the author of several books on Muslim marriage, said low rates of premarital and extramarital sex among Muslims are rooted in the religion.
That was the Rev Paul Sullins’ reaction to a new study on sex outside marriage. Sullins is a sociologist at the Catholic University of America.
With their “True Love Waits” jewelry, conferences and T-shirts, Christians may be the face of the abstinence movement, but Muslims are more likely to abstain from premarital sex.
Of all the world's major religious groups, Muslims are the least likely to have sex outside of marriage, new research found. And as a country's Muslim population grows, the rate of premarital sex declines for all residents, even non-Muslims, according to the study.
Researchers analyzed the responses of over 620,000 people (ages 15-59) who were interviewed as part of the Demographic and Health Surveys in 31 mostly developing nations from 2000 to 2008. Most countries included in the sample had either a Muslim or Christian majority, except India and Nepal, which have Hindu majorities, and Cambodia which has a Buddhist majority. (The United States was not included in the study.)
That’s the conclusion of a new study in the American Sociological Review, which also found that Muslims and Hindus — at least in the developing world — are more likely than Christians and Jews to refrain from extramarital sex.
“All major world religions discourage sex outside of marriage, but they are not all equally effective in shaping behavior,” said Amy Adamczyk of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who co-authored the study with John Jay doctoral student Brittany E. Hayes.
Adamczyk said the study evolved from another study she was doing that found countries with large Muslim populations have very low rates of HIV and AIDS. “I was trying to figure out why that would be,” she said. One reason she considered was lower rates of sex outside of marriage.
“In many countries around the world — but in Muslim countries specifically, there’s just much less interaction between the sexes,” said Adamczyk. “It’s just going to be much less likely that they’re going to meet a potentially romantic partner.”
Drawing on the Demographic and Health Surveys funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the study included data from 31 developing nations collected between 2000 and 2008. The authors focused on individuals’ responses to questions on religious affiliation, marital status, and sexual behavior outside of marriage.
The authors hypothesized that the larger the proportion of Muslims and Hindus in a country, the lower the rates of premarital and extramarital sex.
Adamczyk and Hayes found that 94 percent of Jews in the nations they studied reported having premarital sex, compared to 79 percent of Christians, 65 percent of Buddhists and 43 percent of Muslims.
As for extramarital sex, 4 percent of Jews reported having sex outside of marriage, compared to 3 percent of Christians. Less than one percent each of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists reported having extramarital sex.
Suzy Ismail, a marriage and divorce counselor and the author of several books on Muslim marriage, said low rates of premarital and extramarital sex among Muslims are rooted in the religion.
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