Do Church and Religiosity Have an Impact on One's Love Life?

A new study has found that religiosity might actually have a profound impact on one's love life. Researchers from Portugal's Universidade do Porto found that churchgoers as a group are among the most satisfied with their love lives.

In fact, the level of religious devotion was actually found to have a larger impact than other factors like education, Christian Today reported.

"People who enjoy higher levels of well-being and have harmonious social relationships also tend to be more content with their love lives," said Félix Neto and Maria da Conceição Pinto, who conducted the study.

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Neto and Pinto said their findings are in line with past research about religiosity contributing to greater happiness and better mental health.

After interviewing 1,284 Portuguese men and women between the ages of 18 and 90 about their love lives, Neto and Pinto found that a number of factors, including religious involvement, style of love and marital status all impact how satisfied a person is in his or her love life, Science Daily reported.

Social relationships also help people find joy in their love lives, the researchers found.

And perhaps not surprisingly, those who are married or cohabiting and who have commitment and sexual desire for one another also have more love satisfaction than those who are divorced.

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The study looked at love as a personal desire to be in, to maintain and to connect in an ongoing relationship with another person. But "love life satisfaction" was a subjective measure involving a person's actual enjoyment of love, the Daily Mail reported.

The findings were published this month in the academic journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, which covers quality-of-life research.

(H/T: Christian Today)

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