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Drs. Annette Mahoney, Kenneth Pargament and Alfred DeMaris (left to right) have received a $1.2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to fund the first in-depth, long-term study of the part religion plays in couples’ transition to parenthood.

Spiritual DNA? BGSU researchers seek sacred building block to family life

Marriage has been known as “holy” matrimony and childbirth as a “blessed” event for as long as there have been weddings and newborn babies. But is there something more to those spiritual terms?

Dr. Annette Mahoney, psychology, calls religion’s role in marriage and parenting an aspect of family life that’s been overlooked by social scientists. Few researchers have studied it, let alone shown how spirituality impacts families over time.

Now, with $1.2 million in funding from the John Templeton Foundation, Mahoney and colleagues Dr. Kenneth Pargament, psychology, and Dr. Alfred DeMaris, sociology, will embark on what is believed to be the first in-depth, long-term study of the part religion plays in couples’ transition to parenthood.

“This is state-of-the-art social science research,” according to Dr. Arthur Schwartz, vice president for research and programs in the human sciences at the Templeton Foundation, based in suburban Philadelphia.

The four-year project is designed to examine the impact of sanctification of marriage, pregnancy and becoming a parent, and will involve 160 couples in the Toledo area.

Sanctification is defined as perceiving aspects of life to have divine character and significance, or seeing life “through a sacred lens”—the title of the project led by Mahoney.

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