In the absence of marriage: social and religious-based relationships as alternatives to marriage for never-married adults in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Unlike in most Western countries where singleness has been relatively considered as an individual’s choice, singleness is often regarded as a social problem in Indonesia. This causes challenges for never married individuals to meet their belonging needs and to maintain their well-being. The current study aimed to explore the roles of social support, religiosity, and religious coping in assisting never-married Indonesian adults to maintain their well-being, as indicated by their levels of life satisfaction and loneliness. An online survey administered to 350 never-married adults (M_age = 29.79; SD = 4.50), followed by in-depth interviews to 40 participants (M_age = 33.14; SD = 4.04) demonstrated that, unlike in many Western countries where the religion seems to be losing its role, In Indonesia, engaging in a nurturing spiritual relationship may assist unmarried individuals, especially those wishing to get married, to cope with societal and personal challenges of being single.

KEYWORDS:

• Mixed-methods
• never married
• religiosity
• religious coping
• singleness
• social support

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the 1964 Helsinki declarations and its later amendments. The ethical aspect of this study was approved by the Institutional Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Queensland (no: 2017000826).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Indonesian Endowment Funds for Education. The first author was the recipient.