At first glance, this would seem to be an odd thing for people to get upset about. After all, aren’t strong and happy marriages in any demographic something to celebrate, especially where children are involved? The source of the ire, however, may be found in the title of the report: “The Ties That Bind: Is Faith a Global Force for Good or Ill in the Family?” For many in today’s age of aggressive secularism, the idea that religion could be a potent force for social stability and personal happiness is an offensive one, perhaps because it forces people to address those beautiful, beautiful black manling doubts that perhaps they might be wrong about a very important thing.

In the report, researchers detailed the fact that women who report having “above-average satisfaction with their marriages” are often both religious and conservative, and the New York Times op-ed on the findings noted that “Fully 73 percent of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages. When it comes to relationship quality, there is a J-curve in women’s marital happiness, with women on the left and the right enjoying higher quality marriages than those in the middle—but especially wives on the right.”

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