The Orthodox Religiosity and Some Aspects of Family Lives
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Date
2020
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Abstract
Religion is the one of the most important aspects of social life. In the premodern societies religion used to strengthen the social ties by using rituals. Although most of the social scientists predicted the “Death of God” (Nietzsche, 1882) or replacement of religions with civil consciousness or science (Durkheim, 2001 (1912)), even in 21st century the religion does not lose its importance and millions of people act, fight or speak according to their beliefs.
Although religion is studied from different perspectives, the role of the religious institution is often discussed in relation to some aspects of family life. Various research indicate the positive correlation between the age and church attendance in Western societies (Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens 1994, Rodgers 1990, etc.) beside the effects of cohort, length of lives in certain communities, the new analytical approaches underline the importance of marriage and parenthood (Chaves 1991, Myers 1996). Due to different types of cohabitation effecting religious activity, religions themselves encourage the ideas of traditional families and importance of parenthood. Most formal religious dogmas promote the establishment and maintenance of family relationships. Organized religions offer institutionalized moral support for love, intimacy, and childbearing in the context of religiously sanctioned marriage (D'Antonio 1983, cited in Stolzenberg, Blair-Loy, Waite 1996).
The aim of my presentation is to analyze the interdependence of orthodox religiosity and some aspects of family lives in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The presentation is based on survey conducted in Tbilisi in 2018. The research instrument is a semi- structured questionnaire. The sample framework was the list of voters from 2016. The sample size was 445. The data was gathered by the students of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (TSU) as a part of Research Methodology curriculum.
The survey results show the positive correlation (0.152) between the marital status and religiosity. The 9% of married respondents indicate that they are not religious people, while the rate of unreligious people among single respondents is 19.9%. the portion of religious respondents among the widows/widowers is also high as religion
has acquired a functional aspect for these respondents creating the emotional support due to losing their loved one. Furthermore, the survey results reveal that the religiosity is closely connected to the traditional and conservative views of the religious wedding, family structure, gander roles and premarital sexual intercourse.
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Orthodox Religiosity, Marital Status, Family Structure, Conservative values