Interfaith marriage becoming more common.

• Position: Religion - Brief article

Marrying within the faith remains common in the U.S., with 69% saying that their spouse shares their religion, maintains a survey from Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C., but a comparison of recent and older marriages shows that having a spouse of the same religion may be less important to many Americans today than it was decades ago.

The survey found that 39% who have married since 2010 have a spouse who is in a different religious group. By contrast, 19% of those who wed before 1960 report being in a religious intermarriage. Many of these recent interfaith marriages are between Christians and the religiously unaffiliated (called "nones"). Of all U.S. adults married since 2010,18% are in marriages between a Christian and a religiously unaffiliated spouse. This is true for five percent of those who married before 1960.

Some research suggests that marriages between members of the same religious group may be more durable than intermarriages. If this is true, the rise in religious intermarriage over time may not be as pronounced as it appears, since the study...