Search Results (35)

Divorce represents a significant life transition with implications for emotional well-being, social integration, and economic security. This study examines the post-divorce experiences of women in Abu Dhabi, focusing on four challenges: financial insecurity, emotional distress, co-parenting difficulties, and struggles in forming new relationships. Drawing on data from the 5th Cycle of the Abu Dhabi Quality of Life Survey (n = 4347), the study explores how these challenges affect indicators such as life satisfaction, mental health, social trust, and financial stability. The findings show financial insecurity is the most prevalent and detrimental issue, particularly among older and less-educated women. Co-parenting stress peaks among women aged 35–49, while non-Emirati women report heightened financial vulnerability. Emotional distress is associated with poor sleep, reduced trust, and digital coping behaviors. Older women face greater social reintegration challenges. Religious practice emerges as a frequent coping mechanism, especially among those experiencing stigma and isolation. Guided by the Stress Process Model, the study highlights the interplay of social and psychological stressors and offers practical insights for psychiatric and mental health practitioners supporting women through family disruption. Full article

Marital crises are common and can arise at any stage of marriage. When facing difficulties, many spouses seek support from religious communities, which provide spiritual and emotional guidance. These communities play a vital role in marriage preparation and helping couples navigate crises. In response to rising divorce rates, changing gender roles, and economic pressures, religious communities are adapting their pastoral methods. One innovative approach is storytelling, which allows couples to connect with others’ experiences, helping rebuild trust and understanding in their marriages. This article explores the role of storytelling as a tool for supporting couples in crisis, particularly in the context of religious pastoral care, focusing on its impact on communication, marital bonding, and spiritual growth. Full article

This study investigates the determinants of women empowerment among refugee women living in Nairobi, Kenya. First, the study constructs an index to examine empowerment drivers using data from the Refugee and Host Household Survey (RHHS) 2021. A fractional logit regression model was employed in the study. The results obtained show that the incidence of refugee women empowerment among refugees living in Nairobi was six percent. In addition, the study finds evidence that age; the gender of the household head; the education level of the refugee woman; employment status; and the education of the household head play substantial roles in enabling women empowerment. Conversely, marital statuses (divorced/separated/widowed and single/never married) and religious affiliations (Muslim) hinder women empowerment. Efforts geared towards improving wage employment and education are likely to empower refugee women. The study emphasizes the recognition of the role played by women in household income through care work. Full article

This article explores the complex issue of disharmony within religious marriages, focusing on Jewish approaches to divorce. Contrasting Jewish divorce mediation with other religions’ approaches to marital conflict, this article examines two Judaic models: one viewing divorce as a severe remedy permissible only under certain circumstances, and the other allowing for divorce when a marriage is irreparably broken. The author highlights the positive Jewish commandment to peacefully divorce, discussing how mediation integrates compassion and justice, in line with Jewish legal and ethical traditions. This work emphasizes the benefits of community-based divorce mediation, including lower costs, shorter timelines, and increased communal acceptance. Jewish divorce mediation, the author argues, is particularly effective in maintaining child-centeredness and co-parenting relationships post-divorce. This article calls for a broader adoption of Jewish divorce mediation through charitable organizations to effectuate Jewish family values and provide amicable resolutions within the Jewish community. Full article

Frequent and unresolved conflict is a significant relationship risk factor for divorce, but it has also been shown that religion strengthens marriages, specifically in ways that give direction and motivation for couples in resolving marital conflict or other marital hardships. Thus, a study of how successful religious couples resolve conflict is pertinent in helping us better understand how to strengthen marriages and families. Our qualitative study of 113 highly religious women of diverse faiths and races found that women’s perceived relationship or connection with God reportedly impacted conflict resolution and coping with marital hardship. Results suggest greater reconciliation and unity with the women’s husbands through couple and relational processes, but more often through personal and psychological processes. We found that religious involvement led women to resources that strengthened their marriage. Resources discussed include (a) prayer, (b) scripture study, and (c) involvement in a faith community. This paper is the second in a two-part series. Full article

Frequent conflict is a significant relationship risk factor for divorce, but it has also been shown that religion strengthens marriages, specifically in ways that give direction and motivation for couples in resolving marital conflict or other marital hardships. Thus, a study of how successful religious couples resolve conflict is pertinent in helping us better understand how to strengthen marriages and families. Our qualitative study of 113 highly religious women of diverse faiths and races found that women’s perceived relationship or connection with God reportedly impacted conflict resolution and coping with marital hardship. Results suggest greater reconciliation and unity with the women’s husbands through couple and relational processes, but more often through personal and psychological processes. The main themes that emerged are: (a) God is at the center of the marriage, and (b) God changed our character (internal manifestations) enabling us to be better prepared to navigate conflict and endure hardships in marriage. Part two of this paper will examine how external manifestations of a relationship with God (i.e., prayer, scripture study, and involvement in a faith community) further help women of faith cope with marital conflict and hardship. Full article

In the context of the Catholic Reformation serious concerns were expressed about the affective potency of naturalistic depictions of beautiful, sensuous figures in religious art. In theological discourse similar anxieties had long been articulated about potential contiguities between elevating, licit desire for an extraordinarily beautiful divinity and base, illicit feeling. In the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in the decades preceding the Council of Trent, a handful of writers, thinkers and artists asserted a positive connection between spirituality and sexuality. Leonardo da Vinci, and a group of painters working under his aegis in Lombardy, were keenly aware of painting’s capacity to evoke feeling in a viewer. Pictures they produced for domestic devotion featured knowingly sensuous and unusually epicene beauties. This article suggests that this iconography daringly advocated the value of pleasurable sensation to religiosity. Its popularity allows us to envisage beholders who were neither mired in sin, nor seeking to divorce themselves from the physical realm, but engaging afresh with age-old dialectics of body and soul, sexuality and spirituality. Full article

State-level COVID-19 vaccination rates among older adults have been uneven in the United States. Due to the immunocompromised nature of older adults, vaccine hesitancy increases the risk of morbidity and mortality. This study aims to determine the association between the social determinants of health, the structural determinants of health, and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among older adults in the United States. Secondary data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) dataset were used. A descriptive analysis and multinomial multivariable logistic regression were performed to examine the association of the independent variables—gender, age, race, immigration status, marital status, broadband internet access, social security income, Medicare coverage, education, and frequency of religious service—with the dependent variable, vaccine hesitancy. Compared to the respondents with no vaccine hesitancy and without the specific predictor, the respondents who reported religious attendance at least once/week were more likely to be “somewhat hesitant”, divorced respondents had higher odds of being “somewhat hesitant”, and older adults aged 65–74 years were more likely to be “very hesitant” or “somewhat hesitant” about the COVID-19 vaccine. Compared to the respondents with no vaccine hesitancy and without the specific predictor, females had higher odds of being “very hesitant”, “somewhat hesitant”, or a “little hesitant”, and African Americans were more likely to be “very hesitant”, “somewhat hesitant”, or a “little hesitant” about the COVID-19 vaccine. Addressing these factors may limit the barriers to vaccine uptake reported among older adults and improve herd immunity among the immunocompromised population. Full article

Limited studies have empirically investigated the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among Black clergy and religious leaders despite their status as helping professionals who are implicated in times of crisis. In light of cultural considerations that position African American churches as trusted institutions linking local communities of color with various social services, African American religious leaders are particularly implicated during crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the present study investigates the relationships between adverse childhood experiences, religious coping, and social support from one’s congregation among a sample of Black religious leaders within Christian churches. Compared to a national sample of Black Americans, we observed significantly higher prevalence rates for four forms of adverse childhood experiences: emotional neglect, parental separation or divorce, mental illness in the household, and an incarcerated family member. The results from two moderated moderation statistical models indicated that higher adverse childhood experiences predicted greater endorsement of PTSD symptoms and that negative religious coping strengthened this relationship. Furthermore, this moderation effect was itself moderated by greater perceived emotional support from one’s congregation, such that greater support mitigated this moderation effect. Conversely, we also found that positive religious coping has the potential to compensate for the lack of emotional support from the congregation. Implications for caring for clergy and religious leaders both within the church and in seminaries are provided. Full article

This paper discusses findings of studies concerning religious attitudes of Polish Catholics belonging to the so-called Generation Z, i.e., people born during the digital revolution. The authors present religious attitudes of Generation Z representatives against the background of other European states relating to religious practices and opinions concerning the acceptability of abortion, euthanasia, divorce, contraceptives and other conduct not consistent with the Catholic Church teachings. The findings prove that even though the Polish society, including those of Generation Z, is distinguishable from European countries with its high percentage of people engaging in religious practices, the observed trends and the dominance of attitudes contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church indicate the possibility of maintaining a downward trend in the number of Catholics in Poland. Full article

Scholarship in pilgrimage studies suggests that people use travel to sacred sites to mark life transitions such as moving into adulthood, retirement, the death of a loved one, or the ending of an intimate relationship. This research has also illustrated how walking pilgrimage can provide physical and symbolic structures for individual therapeutic and spiritual practice. However, pilgrimage scholars have not put the experience of ending long-term partnerships at the center of analysis, and family scholars have yet to explore how people might use extended walking pilgrimage as ritual when relationships end. Recent scholarship in pilgrimage studies has called for a more dynamic and inclusive approach that highlights the multiple and varied social forces at work in travel to and around sacred spaces. I draw from existing empirical studies, recent theory in pilgrimage studies, the literature addressing divorce rituals, and my qualitative document analysis of published narratives of extended walking after ending long-term partnerships to identify important sociological questions, methods, and perspectives for future research. Full article

In Western culture, divorce is becoming a transition event in individual life courses. As a result, it starts to be celebrated in ritual forms. In Italy, divorce is still a highly deritualized event from both civil and religious perspectives, although the transformations that make divorce a transition event have been occurring in recent years. This article depicts the complexities of divorce in a society such as Italy, where instances of social change coexist with strong elements of tradition. Emerging cultural practices related to couple dissolution in both formal and informal contexts are discussed. Structural determinants emerge as a force that can contribute to shaping the divorce rite as a new rite of passage. Full article

The fact that legal issues support local wisdom, ethics, and human rights and the way in which they operate in the nation-state are not well-understood; however, this is a significant issue. Indonesian independence, achieved on 17 August 1945, initiated substantial changes in the religious life of Indonesians. While most of Indonesia is Islamic, other religious beliefs include Hinduism and Christianity. Indonesia did not consider the Balinese a formal religious group in 1945. However, because of the Mount Agung eruption in Bali, many Balinese migrated outside the island. They lived in Lampung (Sumatra), certain places in Java, Palangkaraya (Borneo), Palu (Celebes), and other areas in the Indonesian archipelago, and have lived there for a long time. The total number of Balinese at the present day is around three million, but outside Bali, their number is 10 million. Their number increased throughout the Old Regime, the New Order, and the Reformation periods until the present time. They face many significant problems regarding the marriage and divorce laws juxtaposed with national law, as is the case with other religious communities, such as the Islamic community in Indonesia. Several important questions need to be addressed in this paper. First, what is adat law, or customary law, in Bali and outside Bali regarding the concept of Hindu Nusantara? Second, how should customary law be implemented, for example, relating to marriage and divorce issues in the building of the nation-state? Third, what is the customary law relating to the present situation of the Hindu communities in Indonesia? These are some significant questions. By using interdisciplinary approaches to customary laws, religious history, anthropology, and sociology, we expect to have a better understanding of how the Balinese customary law can become part of the formal law in modern Indonesia. By understanding these issues, it will be possible to strengthen national regulations by adopting certain values of customary law in modern Indonesia. Full article

This article explores a story taken from the Talmud Bavli (Yevamot 65b) which describes a dialogue between the arguments raised by an anonymous woman and a rabbinical judge, R. Ammi, with regard to her demand for a divorce and for receipt of the payment for her prenuptial agreement. The article examines aspects relating to the design of the Talmudic story, which belongs to the genre of halakhic stories containing an argument, the law, and its explanation, i.e., elements that are not always explicitly stated in the Talmudic text. The article also examines the point of encounter between the pleas of the anonymous woman who sought a divorce from her husband alleged that he was infertile and that she wished to have a child, versus the strict customary legal halakhic law that exempted her from the religious obligation to procreate and therefore did not protect her rights. In addition, the article provides the context of the woman’s pleas in court and the attitudes of the judge towards the woman, as evident in two contradictory rulings with regard to the anonymous woman. Finally, the character of the anonymous woman, as reflected in the story, is described. This article joins a gradually developing trend in recent years within the study of the Talmud Bavli that addresses issues related to women’s status and gender discourse. Nevertheless, it is notable that different orientations emerged in the research with regard to gender issues from the mid-1990s onwards. Full article

This article portrays how the Catholic Church in Indonesia in the 1980s faced some legal civil decrees that were contrary to Catholic beliefs, but they nonetheless responded in a wise manner. Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has had a new outlook on the relationship between Church and State. As stated in canon 22 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the Church is willing to accept and observe civil law, as long as it is “not contrary to divine law and unless canon law provides otherwise”. There were three instances in which the Catholic Church in Indonesia had to deal with such controverting matters. The first was the divorce issue and the second was the enforcement of family planning. In both cases, the Catholic Church strongly opposes them. The third issue was the law on inter-religious marriage, which the State strongly prohibits, although the Catholic Church provides dispensation. The observation of the Indonesian Bishops’ Conference’s opinions shows that the Catholic Church were able to maintain good relations with the State because the bishops could apply the Catholic teachings in the Indonesian context and better distinguish the rights of being Catholic from the rights of being an Indonesian citizen. Full article