We social scientists have known for a long time that a healthy, regular sex life is associated with higher marital happiness. This is as we would expect from the Scriptures. God knit marriage with sex by design, placed it at the core of marriage, and made it pleasurable and unifying. Thus, the sexual relationship will contribute positively to the marital one.
He also made the marital bond ideally and naturally a deep, mutually supportive companionship between a man and a woman. It stands to reason that to the extent that husbands and wives love, serve, and enjoy the company of one another, they will not only be happier in general and in their marriage, but they will also more readily embrace sexual relations.
So, when I demonstrate that regular sex and marital happiness are statistically related to each other, I’m often asked, “Is it sex that leads to marital happiness, or marital happiness that leads to sex?” My reply is, “Yes.” The relationship between these two things is mutual. In the General Social Survey for the last decade this is clear. Among married people, as sexual frequency increases, the percentages that say their marriage is “very happy” also rises dramatically. This holds for older age groups, not just those who are younger.
