Couple relationship standards (beliefs about what makes for a satisfying couple relationship) have not included standards held about religion, which is surprising given how important religion is in many parts of the world. In the current study, we developed the Importance of Religion in Couple Relationships Scale (IRCRS) with the aim of having a scale suitable for use across different cultural and religious groups. The IRCRS was administered to three samples: 354 Pakistani residents (178 females, 176 males) who identified as Muslim; 274 Thai residents (157 females, 117 males) who identified as Buddhist; and 165 Westerners (resident in Australia or the United States, 60 males, 105 females) who identified as either not religious (n = 74) or Christian (n = 91). We developed a 13-item measure with a two level structure yielding an overall importance of religion score. The items in the IRCRS had acceptable cross-cultural structural invariance in a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis of the Pakistani Muslims, Thai Buddhists, and Westerners. Pakistani Muslims endorsed IRCRS standards most strongly, Western Christians next most strongly, Thai Buddhists next, and Westerners with no religion least strongly. There were no gender differences, and only very small differences by relationship status. The IRCRS can be used in future research to investigate the association of religious relationship standards with couple relationship satisfaction and might be a useful clinical tool to assess the importance of religion to couples.

中文翻译：

---

评估宗教在基督徒、穆斯林、佛教徒和非宗教人士的夫妻关系中的重要性

夫妻关系标准（关于什么是令人满意的夫妻关系的信念）没有包括关于宗教的标准，鉴于宗教在世界许多地方的重要性，这令人惊讶。在当前的研究中，我们开发了宗教在夫妻关系量表中的重要性（IRCRS），目的是制定一个适合不同文化和宗教群体使用的量表。IRCRS 对三个样本进行了管理：354 名被认定为穆斯林的巴基斯坦居民（178 名女性，176 名男性）；认定为佛教徒的 274 名泰国居民（157 名女性，117 名男性）；和 165 名西方人（居住在澳大利亚或美国，60 名男性，105 名女性）被认定为非宗教人士（n  = 74）或基督教徒（n = 91)。我们开发了一个包含 13 个项目的测量方法，具有两级结构，得出宗教得分的总体重要性。在对巴基斯坦穆斯林、泰国佛教徒和西方人进行的多组验证性因素分析中，IRCRS 中的项目具有可接受的跨文化结构不变性。巴基斯坦穆斯林最强烈地支持 IRCRS 标准，其次是西方基督徒，其次是泰国佛教徒，而没有宗教信仰的西方人最不强烈。没有性别差异，只有非常小的关系状态差异。IRCRS 可用于未来的研究，以调查宗教关系标准与夫妻关系满意度的关联，并可能成为评估宗教对夫妻重要性的有用临床工具。