A Research Note on Interfaith Marriage Statistics

Abstract

The distance from a purely quantitative statement of a statistical pattern to a sociological interpretation of that pattern is often quite great. Several steps are sometimes needed to cover that distance. With regard to the interpretation of interfaith marriage statistics, a third refinement is suggested here to add to two previously developed refinements. These should be seen as steps toward greater reliability of measurement; but they still leave us with a definition of intermarriage that fails to take the full range of personality and structural aspects into account. A thorough revision of our conceptions of interfaith marriage is called for.