"A NEWSWEEK Poll found that 84 percent of American adults consider themselves Christians, and 82 percent see Jesus as God or the son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the virgin birth, and 67 percent think the Christmas story-from the angels' appearance to the Star of Bethlehem-is historically accurate."

(Source: Jon Meacham, "The Birth of Jesus," Newsweek, December 13, 2004; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6653824/site/newsweek/ .)

" One of the most conservative, religious, fascinating - and, in many ways, admirable - politicians in America today is Sam Brownback, the senator from Kansas who is a leader of the Christian right.

Sure, Mr. Brownback is to the right of Attila the Hun, and I disagree with him on just about every major issue. But 'tis the season for brotherly love, so let me point to reasons for hope. Members of the Christian right, exemplified by Mr. Brownback, are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad - thus creating opportunities for common ground between left and right on issues we all care about.

...The other day, Mr. Brownback told me enthusiastically about his trip to northern Uganda and urged me to write about brutalities there. I was disoriented-I thought I was the one who tried to get people to pay attention to remote places.

So why is a conservative Kansas senator traveling to the wilds of Uganda?

'I had a health issue a few years back, and it really made my faith real,' he said, referring to a bout with cancer. 'It made me think, the things that the Lord would want done, let's do. His heart is with the downtrodden, so let's help them.'"

(Source:  Nicholas D. Kristof, "When the Right Is Right," The New York Times, December 22, 2004; http://nytimes.com/2004/12/22/opinion/22kristof.html?hp  .)

Among the astonishingly high number of American couples who now have children out of wedlock, how many do marry during the first year after the birth of their child?  And what are the distinguishing characteristics of these couples who do belatedly take vows?  These questions define an important part of the research agenda for a study recently concluded by a team of sociologists from Princeton, Northwestern, and Columbia Universities.

Using data collected for 3,712 children born out of wedlock between 1998 and 2000 and representative of all non-marital births in American cities larger than 200,000, the authors of the new study found that a year after the birth of their child, less than one-tenth (9.1%) of the initially unmarried parents had wed.  This relatively low marriage rate did not surprise the scholars, who evaluate it in the context of "widespread changes in family-related behaviors" during the Sixties and Seventies.  During this "watershed period for changes in norms and practices governing union formation," Americans witnessed "dramatic increases in the social acceptance" of many behaviors previously recognized as immoral, including "premarital sex, cohabitation, nonmarital childbearing, and divorce."

Among the couples who have a child out of wedlock but then do marry within a year, the researchers identify certain distinguishing maternal and paternal characteristics.  For instance, the data show clearly that "men's actual earnings and employment...[have] a positive effect on marriage."  The researchers indeed find that the effects for higher earnings for men are "large and positive for marriage": statistics showing that "earning $25,000 or higher in the past year more than doubles the odds of marriage."

In contrast, women's employment and income have mixed and ambiguous effects on the likelihood of wedlock after a nonmarital birth.  Thus, although "women's hourly wage rate...has a positive effect on marriage," the researchers report that "most effects of mothers' earnings...are negative in sign for predicting marriage."  Overall, the researchers conclude that "women's nonemployment does not hurt the chances for marriage."  The authors of the new study thus interpret their findings as evidence that "some fragile families do associate marriage with the specialization that entails women's nonemployment," a marital specialization that enables women to "specialize in home, rather than market, production."

Homemaking is not the only activity that frequently sets belatedly married mothers apart from still-unmarried peers: the authors of the new study find that among couples who have a child out of wedlock, "women's church attendance increases the chances of marriage" during the first year after the child's birth (p < 0.05).  In a permissive culture that generally accepts non-marital childbearing, "religion...[remains] one source of resistance to the liberalization of sexual norms and behaviors."