Every year there are 2.2 million marriages in the United States. That means that more than 6,000 couples tie the knot every day.

A new study by a professor at Brigham Young University says that being actively religious could help those millions of marriage partners stay faithful.

One man interviewed in the study, who was a Methodist chemistry professor, said making his marriage vows before a deity affected his commitment to fidelity.

"I mean fidelity to a vow and making a vow in front of God and the family. That's pretty serious living up to that. ... And speaking those vows in front of her 10 brothers ... raised fidelity on the list," said the interviewee.

David Dollahite, a professor of family life at BYU, did the research while working on a larger project about the ways that religion influences marriage and family.

Dollahite said there have been several studies that show religious involvement helps protect marriages from infidelity. Research shows that religious couples are 2.5 times less likely to be unfaithful in marriage than non-religious couples.

He wanted to know more.

"What I did was try to answer the question as to why that might be the case," Dollahite said.

The conclusions are drawn from in-depth interviews with 57 married, heterosexual couples in New England and California. Each couple claimed to be highly religious and represented several different faiths, including Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

When asked how religion affected their marriages, the couples mentioned fidelity.

Dollahite found that highly religious couples viewed their marriages as sacred and more important than a simple human connection.

"They just feel that their marriage has a sacred quality to it that they certainly didn't want to disrupt by being unfaithful," Dollahite said.

Couples interviewed said they found that feeling in marriage by jointly participating in religious activities, such as attending church services and studying religious texts together. Couples who viewed their marriages as sacred were more likely to say that they have similar purposes in life and values as their spouses. Those couples also reported feeling like they had divine help resolving marital conflicts.

The study also found that couples who had made religious vows were more likely to have a relationship with God, and that relationship strengthened couples' commitment to fidelity.

Dollahite said a number of the couples he interviewed mentioned breaking religious commitments if they were unfaithful. Jewish couples wanted to keep true to their traditions, while evangelical Christians were more likely to say they felt they would displease God.

Nathaniel Lambert, now a student at Florida State University, helped Dollahite analyze the data.

"When people have a strong relationship with God, they include him in their marriage," Lambert said. "Then they're accountable not only to each other, but to God also."

Lambert said it was interesting to note how the findings crossed religious lines.

"It was really interesting to see how so may different religions were talking about the same sort of things that helped them avoid and prevent illicit sexual relationships," he said.

The Rev. Matthew Ortega, who is the pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in American Fork, said a relationship with God is integral to a good marriage.

Ortega said anyone can have a good marriage, but the best marriages glorify God through a personal relationship with the deity.

The rate of divorce is similar for religious and non-religious couples. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that in 2001, 43 percent of first marriages broke up within 15 years.

Dollahite said divorce rates decrease the more a couple is active and involved in faith. For example, research shows that among orthodox religious couples, the divorce rate is somewhere around 10 percent or 15 percent.

The study does not say that religious couples will always have good marriages and that non-religious couples are doomed to failure, Dollahite noted -- religion is just one factor in keeping partners faithful to one another.

Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at blusk@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.