Covenant Marriage and the Sanctification of Gendered Marital Roles

This study contributes to research on changing gender ideologies in marriage by focusing on a unique group of marriage innovators. We compare and contrast newlywed couples who chose covenant marriage, a new legal option in Louisiana primarily attractive to those of evangelical faiths, with couples who chose standard marriage. With quantitative and qualitative data from the Marriage Matters project (1997-2004), we explore how covenant couples solve the problem of endorsing gender traditionalism within an increasingly egalitarian society. Not surprisingly, the quantitative analyses demonstrate that covenants are more traditional than standards across indices of religious, marital, and gender attitudes. Covenant couples actively create a nuanced, complex story about harmony in marriage that involves women’s subordination to men. In fact, covenants defuse the stigma of gender subordination by casting sanctified marriage as a service to God. More importantly, covenant couples routinely discuss a new hybrid form of gender traditionalism which incorporates emotional ethics of mutuality, respect, and egalitarianism. Thus, covenant spouses seem consciously intent on reconciling ideological impulses for both traditionalism and egalitarianism with respect to gender in their young marriages. Conversely, standard newlywed couples are far less adept or adroit at discussing gender obligations or roles, and frequently far less likely to be in agreement as spouses. They are more diverse and fragmented in their views about the roles femininity and masculinity play in marriage. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on struggles in contemporary marriage over the shifting terrain of gender roles.