Can an atheist and a believer have a happy marriage?

Studies do show, unsurprisingly, that religious homogamy—the extent to which married couples share the same religious beliefs and participate jointly in religious practices—is reliably, and inversely, associated with relationship discord. The greater the disparity in belief and practice, the less stable the marriage. But in this increasingly secular society of ours, a gross match in belief or disbelief in God may do just fine. In fact, there’s a growing trend in which exact denomination matters considerably less for marital satisfaction than does the degree or type of belief. Unless she’s from Northern Ireland, for example, a Protestant woman should get on better with a Catholic man than a Jewish one, since only one of these people is waiting patiently on the Messiah. Still, Protestants may have more in common with religious Jews than they do with strident atheists, and of course a Christian-Jewish wedding might end in bliss. This wasn’t always the case—not so long ago, Christian lawgivers deemed copulating with Jews and other unrighteous souls equivalent to bestiality, and Jews historically haven’t been fans of mixed marriages, either. (I tell you this as Yishai, the watered-down Jew sired by a lapsed Lutheran.) But times are changing. And the above trend works for those on the depleted end of the religious belief scale, too. A shoulder-shrugging agnostic or lukewarm “spiritual but not religious” person, for instance, would probably be able to tolerate an atheist spouse better than a dead-set Muslim could ever hope to do.

If you really want to go the distance in the till-death-do-you-part clause in the vows—or at least avoid spending the rest of your life with someone who thinks you’re none too clever—you’d be wise to find someone just as emotionally invested, or disinvested, in your particular religious views as you are. Sociologist Scott Myers hits the nail on the head here, I think: “Religious homogamy is a couple-based trait that optimizes marital companionship by reducing the need for a spouse to search for similar views outside the marriage.” Again, although we don’t have any real data to go on, this should hold true for homogamous atheist couples, too. And that’s why I’m not quite willing to commit to my make-believe zealot wife; the perfect imaginary atheist bride might be waiting for me with bated breath.