PsychologicalReports, 1989, 64, 124-126. @ Psychological Reports 1989 MARITAL QUALITY AS A FUNCTION OF CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION IN A SAMPLE OF PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC WIVES FROM THE MIDWEST WALTER R. SCHUMM' AND FELIX C. OBIORAH Kansas State University BENJAMIN SILLIMAN Louisiana Tech Uniuersir)r Summary.-Chi and Houseknecht in 1985 reported a ncgarlve relationship be- tween fundamentalism and marital adjustment when only one spouse was a fundamentalist and no relationship when both were fundamentalists. In this study of 174 Protestant and Catholic wives, frequency of church attendance and self- idenezication as a fundamentalist, evangelical, or charismatic Christian were used to predict nine measures of marital quality in a regression analysis, with controls for rnar- ital social desirability. No significant relationships were found between the independent and dependent measures. No relationship was observed between the in- dependent variables and marital social desirability. In spite of difficulties in differentiating clearly the terms fundamental- ist, evangelical, and charismatic (1, 6), it is apparent that at least a minority of Americans affiliate themselves with at least one of those divisions of con- servative Christianity (4, 5, 9). In one of the few studies reported on the relations between identification with one of those divisions, fundamentalism and marital adjustment, Chi and Houseknecht (2) found a negative relation between those variables when only one spouse was fundamentalist and no relation when both were, although marital stability was negatively related to fundamentalism for all subjects in their study. The objective of the present study was to investigate possible relationships between fundamentalism and other conservative religious self-reported affiliations and a variety of meas- ures of marital quality, with controls for marital social desirability, often thought to be related to religiousity (3). During the 1979-1980 academic year surveys were administered to 238 female respondents in a midwestern community. As discussed in detail else- where (7, 8), respondents were sampled through random selection of voting precincts and residences within those precincts. Of the 238 respondents, 212 were married and 174 of those married classified themselves as Protestant (75.3%) or Catholic (24.7%). The subjects reported an average age of 38.7 yr. (SD = 10.4) and average duration of marriage of 14.7 yr. 'Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station, contribution number 85-176-J. Reprint re uests may be directed to Dr. Schumm, Justin Hall, Department of Human Development an3 Family Studies, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506.