Many segments of culture might have you believe that religious men treat women, and their wives poorly. Religious men are sometimes portrayed as chauvinistic, old fashioned and controlling.
But a new study may surprise those who hold to this idea. Researchers have found that men who attended religious services weekly did significantly more housework than either the never-attenders or those in the middle who may only sporadically attend religious services.
Previous research has found that religiously active men provide a lot of childcare and are typically more engaged with their children, but the research did not look into whether this meant that they offset this by doing less domestic work in the home. Researchers Bethany Gull and Claudia Geist are the first to show that religious men also do more housework than others.
It also seems that women are happier when men are involved at home, and that it matters less whether egalitarianism or faith spurs men’s involvement.
Previous work has noted that both feminism and faith call for devoted family men, and that both culturally progressive and religiously conservative fathers report high levels of paternal engagement. Nevertheless, being an engaged father by rough-housing with the kids while mom makes dinner and cleans up afterwards is quite different from being an engaged father who also does housework.