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Orthodox couples report higher satisfaction with their marriages compared to the general population, according to a new study commissioned by the Orthodox Union.

Nearly three-quarters of the 3,670 respondents rated their marriage as "very good" or "excellent" in the Aleinu Marital Satisfaction Survey II, approximately 15 percent higher than the national figures, according to the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.

The objective of the study, said Frank Buchweitz, OU's national director of community services and special projects, "is to see the state of the union, so to speak, of marriage in the Orthodox community."

Professor Eliezer Schnall of Yeshiva University, one of the study's researchers, said that this relatively high rate of satisfaction corresponds to other religiously observant communities.

Schnall explained that researchers have attributed the higher rate of marital satisfaction in religious communities to the traditional values espoused by different faiths, including Judaism, such as the sanctity of marriage and the prohibition of marital infidelity, in addition to the tight social networks of religious communities.

"The kind of people who are religious might be tied to these values," Schnall told The Jewish State.

The study was born out of a similar project conducted in March 2008 by Deborah Fox of Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles that focused specifically on the Orthodox community of Los Angeles.

"The goal of this is to provide statically valid information of the trends, problems, concerns, and experiences of the contemporary Orthodox couple," said Fox, who participated in this study, at a press conference at the OU's New York headquarters on Jan. 13. "That's what we were looking for."

The Orthodox Union decided to expand upon that survey, taking into account the larger Orthodox community, mostly in the United States, though also including a small number of respondents from Israel, Canada, and the U.K. The study also broadened the scope of the inquiry, adding questions regarding the impact of issues such as premarital counseling, at-risk children, infertility, and birth control.

For the Aleinu II survey, Fox was joined by Schnall and Professor David Pelcovitz, the Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Chair in Jewish Education at Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration of Yeshiva University.

While an overwhelming majority of respondents said they were satisfied with their marriages, a "U-shaped" curve was also registered, as couples reported decreased satisfaction in the first 30 years of marriage with an upswing in satisfaction reported after that. Schnall explained that the curve reflected a general trend, as the stresses accompanying raising children and the general "daily grind of taking care of a household" may cause added pressure on a marriage.

"Within every community there are stresses," Schnall said.

Pelcovitz stressed the typicality of this curve and added that this was especially predictable in the Orthodox community given the financial pressures of Orthodox families who have large families and incur the expense of day school and camp tuitions.

"So often what's guiding us is this totally bizarre view that life is without stress," Pelcovitz said at the press conference. "That we can somehow find a partner where there's no risk of mental illness, no risk that there'll be the slightest difference between their perceptions of what goes into a marriage and our perceptions and that somehow we're going to get the problem free made for ourselves. And the reality is that marriage is about stress, marriage is about conflict. As we found, that the conflicts we have in our marriages are pretty similar to the conflicts that other people have in their marriages."

Pelcovitz said that even with the perception of an increased divorce rate (there are currently no reliable figures on the divorce rate in the Orthodox community), "the overall message is quite positive. Sure there are some problems, but we seem to be doing something right." The study also looked at where couples derived their expectations of marriage.

Topping the list was family/parents, selected by 68 percent of those married less than five years and 60 percent of those married less then 30. Other sources of expectations surveyed included "community standards" (42 and 30 percent respectively), friends (32 and 25 percent), rabbis (32 and 11 percent), kallah (bride) teacher (16 and 1 percent), chosson (groom) teacher (8 and 1 percent), books and magazines (12 and 5 percent), and Hollywood/media (8 and 2 percent).

"One of the things that surprised me was where people were drawing their expectations -- how few people selected rabbis and religious teachers," Schnall said, noting that respondents could choose as many of the options as they wanted. "I thought that was a surprise. I thought that people as at least one of their choices would select rabbi."

For Buchweitz, the results of the study should be seen as a tool to help strengthen marriage, as the findings, he said, confirm the importance of providing marriage counseling training to rabbis, mental health professionals, as well as the couples themselves.

"These are all areas that can translate it into something more tachlichtic, more practical," he said.

Buchweitz said that increased emphasis needs to be put on premarital counseling in particular.

"I don't know if people are entering marriage with their eyes fully open," he said. "Countless hours and dollars are put into weddings and I think we should put that energy into preparing for their marriage, not just for the one day, but what will hopefully be the rest of their lives."