Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Relationships are a crucial part of human lives. Among the many relationships that have a huge impact on life, the marital relationship stands out as a very important one. Satisfaction in married life has been shown to be conducive for the health and flourishing of the partners. Driver & Gottman (2004) suggest the necessity for exploring positive qualities required for the thriving of an individual or relationship. Whether religiosity contributes to satisfaction in marital relationships has been a scantily researched topic, especially in India. Since most religions promote forgiveness in interpersonal relationships, it is likely that forgiveness is the pathway through which religiosity contributes to marital satisfaction. In this study, an attempt will be made to investigate the relationship between religious commitment and marital satisfaction and to further find out whether this relationship is mediated by forgiveness. Data will be collected from a sample of approximately 100 married Indian individuals. The tools used will be the Religious Commitment Inventory (Worthington et al, 2012), Heartland Forgiveness Scale (Thompson et al, 2005) and Couple Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge, 2007). Data will be pooled into SPSS and appropriate analyses will be run to see the relationship between the variables.