Volunteering as an Instrument for Preparing Young People for Christian Marriage and Family Life

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a thoughtful and need contribution to the Marriage & Family AND faith community literature.  You have made a solid argument for volunteering/service as a foundation preparation for relational roles in marriage and family.  The weakest sections, and one that needs more academic rigor, are sections 1 and 2.   The concerns for both of these sections is that you make many foundational statements without rigorous literature/academic support.  Please cite the places where you are stating things are 'truth.'

Section 1.   Support your assumptions.  Here are some examples

Line 9-11 "For example, in Poland, it was only after 1989 that volunteering gained political and cultural conditions for successful development ..."  How do we know this to be true?  Where is this cited from?

Line 11 change "the aim of this study ..." to "The aim of this work..."  it is not a research study, as you highlight in the next sentence

Line 27 "deep crisis" who is saying that the current condition is a deep crisis ... cite it please

Line 35/36  Many observers in Euro-Atlantic countries believe the decay of traditional monogamous married life can no longer be stopped.  (Again, who is saying it.  Where has this been studied and published.  Please cite it).  This is an important presupposition in support of your argument, you need to support it in from the literature.

Section 2.  Similar critique.   In this section on the current state of marriage and family in Europe and the US.   You are making a solid argument, however it needs to be grounded in the literature both in EU and USA.  You again make truth statement or presupposition without providing the research/scholarship (psychological/sociological as well as theological) to back it up. You must provide more literature support and rigor for the following sections to be considered.

Examples,

Line 52/53 Code of Hammurabi and Bible (cite the references to marriage).  Same with archaeologists finding artifacts supporting marriage ... who are the researchers and what did they find?

Line 54-56. marital love mentioned by poets, writers, etc.   Provide citations of these works as an example to give the reader the foundation you are building on.

Line 84 - 87. due to the emergence of new values, contemporary culture in undermining the impact of traditional values ... giving rise to family disintegration divorce, fewer marriages.     There are a lot of assumptions here that need to be grounded in literature and research. 

Line 104 Cite current research supporting the COVID-19 is a reason for decline in marriages.

Those are a few examples.  Please rigorously address scholarship in the introduction and first 2 sections. 

The rest of the paper and other sections were much better in the support.  This seems to be the strong area in your scholarship.

Thank you for this important work and contribution to family and faith literature.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your solid, critical and kind review of my article. I fully admit to you that my main point of interest is knowledge of caritas and volunteering. The area of interest in marriage and family is secondary in my professional work, but it is very important both to the authorities of the Catholic University, where I have employment, and to the Catholic Church, of which I am a member.

In recent days, I have worked hard to improve Sections 1 and 2 in terms of scientific rigor, especially the citation of more numerous references to research findings and the literature on the subject. This required reworking many parts of my manuscript in these sections. I cited 8 new source texts (see: References).

In addition, I omitted some statements - difficult to document - and not necessary for my argumentation. Among other things, I removed these statements from the manuscript:

Line 9-11: “For example, in Poland, it was only after 1989 that volunteering gained political and cultural conditions for successful development, and legal grounds in 2004.”

Line 26-27: “The current condition of marriages and families in countries belonging to the Western civilisation can be summarised by the dramatic phrase 'deep crisis'”

Line 35/36:  “Many observers in Euro-Atlantic countries believe the decay of traditional monogamous married life can no longer be stopped.” 

Line 52-56: “Its existence is confirmed not only by the oldest written documents, such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Bible, but also by ancient artefacts discovered by archaeologists. Marital love has been and continues to be a subject of interest for poets and writers, cultural and artistic creators, as well as many scholars in the legal, social, humanistic and theological sciences.”

In addition, according to your suggestion, I changed the wording:

Line 11: "the aim of this study ..." to "The aim of this work...".

In Sections 1 and 2, I have modified existing or added entirely new wording that more accurately reflects the state of marriage and families in Western countries:

“The current condition of marriages and families in countries belonging to the Western civilization is poor. Many young people are giving up on marriage, and marriages already made are affected by various crises (Francis, 2016, 231-240; Landwójtowicz, 2017; Dudziak 2022).”

“God's eternal plan for human life in happiness, fulfilment and love (cf. Ps. 128:1-6) is a proposal still open to young people. Today, they need strong support from clergy and lay family ministers - both at the stage of preparation for life in marriage and during the implementation of this divine project. The task of practical theology, on the other hand, is to seek new methods and ways to prepare young people for the difficulties and challenges of life in the marriage and family community.”

“The concept of marriage is found in all historical eras and civilisations that we know of. An important confirmation of the institution of marriage in the Judeo-Christian civilization are the words of the Bible: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. After which God blessed them, saying to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, so that you may populate the earth and make it subject to yourselves.'" (Genesis 1:27-28).”

“Modern culture, through the emergence of new values such as freedom, consumerism, individualism, self-realization, assertiveness, devoting most of one's time to making a career in life, promotes family disintegration, reflected by an increase in divorce rates, fewer marriages (see: the statistical analysis below). The cause of deconstruction of marriages and families is also social pathologies, especially various addictions. A person addicted to alcohol, drugs, the Internet, computer games automatically transfers his problem to marital and family life, causing its destruction sooner or later (Bieleń 2018).”

 

“The growing acceptance of relationship alternatives is one indicator that marriage is undergoing a “deinstitutionalization,” described as “a weakening of the social norms that define partners’ behavior.” This theme is also seen on individualism, the post-material valuation of self-actualization over conformity, the second modernity’s “institutionalization of individualization” and “normalization of diversity,” and the insistence in “pure relationships” on satisfying emotional needs (Treas, Lui and Gubernskaya, 2014).”

 

“In addition, let's not forget the group of singles who never intend to marry or enter into a partnership. Lifelong singlehood is a comparatively rare demographic phenomenon, averaging about 5% across the European Union. High levels of singlehood are concentrated very much within those societies where traditional gender values have waned but gender egalitarianism remains poorly diffused. (Bellani, Esping-Andersen and Nedoluzhko, 2017). However, levels of lifelong singlehood vary greatly between countries in Europe. Both short-term and long-term solo-living pathways are the highest in Northern Europe (Klímová 2023). Other researchers (Schwanitz, Mulder, and Toulemon, 2017) emphasize the importance of the country context in shaping young adults’ leaving home and how it is affected by educational attainment, enrollment, and parental education. For example, the positive educational gradient in leaving home to live without a partner was found to be stronger in most of the Western European countries (except Austria) and less strong in Sweden and Norway and in most of the Eastern European countries (except the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland).”

“Heterosexual marriage was once regarded as the only option for people who wanted to achieve emotional and sexual intimacy. As a result, such variants of relationships as unmarried cohabitation of partners, same-sex couples, open relationships were unacceptable in accordance to traditional morality. Today, also in the Catholic Church, there is a discussion about the position of LGBT+ people in the faith community. In September 2021, more than 750 leading U.S. Catholic theologians and educators issued a joint statement expressing a call for non-discrimination against them in the Catholic Church (Chibbaro, 2021). The above discussion has not yet found a concrete translation into official Catholic Church teaching.”

 

“The condition of marriages and families is well illustrated by the statistics that will now be presented for Europe, the US and, separately, Poland.”

In the review you wrote:

“Line 104 Cite current research supporting the COVID-19 is a reason for decline in marriages.”

I reply that my very careful statement: “The unprecedented decline in marriages in 2020 can be attributed to some extent to the COVID-19 containment efforts” – it was a conclusion based on statistical analysis, and especially on a comparison of the number of marriages throughout Europe in 2019 and 2020. It's hard to cast doubt on the fact that COVID-19 and the drastic pandemic restrictions - including, among other things, pastoral activities in churches - had an impact on the radical decline in the number of marriages in Europe.

Thank you again for all the comments in your review. I am sure they proved useful and allowed me to improve my manuscript.

Yours sincerely…

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of article: Volunteering as an Instrument for Preparing Young People for 2 Christian Marriage and Family Life

Brief Summary

The paper reviews the current condition of marriage across countries in Europe by presenting data indicating a dramatically declined marriage rate, increased divorce rate, and various other measures. The authors provide evidence that the new values of contemporary culture, including a decrease in religiosity, has contributed to these indicators of family dysfunction. The authors then review research on the positive impact of volunteering and make the case that volunteering may introduce young people to a culture of love, allowing them to better prepare for Christian marriage and family life. Specifically, the authors review sociological evidence and philosophical perspectives suggesting that volunteering is linked to these positive outcomes strengthening preparation for marriage: a relational spirituality in which individuals value family relationships and seek to enhance positive family functioning, a common point of connection for young adults who choose to marry, personal growth contributing to stronger relationship capacities, and the capacity to experience relational reciprocity.

General concept comments

The article addresses a very important question – that is, how can we strengthen the capacity of young adults to enter and maintain healthy marriages given substantial evidence that the weakening of marriage may have very significant implications for societal wellbeing. The conclusion reached by the authors is an interesting one. Volunteering might be a valuable tool for facilitating young adult capacity for Christian marriage and family. This is a valuable link to consider. But the paper remains almost exclusively philosophical because it does not provide its own research to explore the possibility of the link, nor is it able to review other research making this connection. Some research studies are reviewed, but they focus only on evidence that volunteering is enjoyed and valued by young adults, not research that can provide evidence for a potential link between volunteering and the capacity to enter and sustain a healthy Christian marriage. In order to make the link, the authors largely rely on philosophical arguments for positive social outcomes associated with volunteering and intuitive understandings about what volunteering could help develop in someone.

Several important things would need to be done for this to be considered for publication.

1)      The paper is currently too broad in focus to provide a coherent argument for a direct link between volunteering and marriage preparation. Focus the report more directly on the potential link between volunteering and outcomes that could strengthen marital capacity. This would be done by reducing the sociological descriptions on the state of marriage some, but mostly by separating out research studies from philosophical arguments, and identifying more research studies that point to a measurable increase in relational capacities associated with healthy marriage. For example, is there a research study ever done that explored quantitively a link between volunteering and increased reciprocity, social understanding, social commitment, etc.?

2)      Divide this review of research into sections that address the specific mechanisms through which volunteering may prepare an individual for marriage. For example, one section might focus on “altruism” by summarizing a couple of studies linking altruism to healthy marriage, and then identifying and research that specifically explores the link between volunteering and the development of altruism. (Or any other capacities associated with marital preparation – including reciprocity).

3)      The review of these studies could incorporate philosophical underpinnings as to why there would be a link, but it would largely focus on evidence for the reality of a link. The philosophical perspective would then be strongly substantiated by evidence from research, and there would be an obvious organization to the report that recognized the value of the research evidence, in the light of the philosophical underpinnings. As the report currently stands it incorporates a wide range of intellectual thought sources – sociology, psychology, religious pedagogy, and Catholic theology – all thrown together without a clear sense of which intellectual source is most valuable for which conclusion being made. A clearer approach would be to provide religious theology and philosophy as a framework for exploring the link, then use sociological and psychological scientific research to substantiate the presence of a link.

4)      The authors would attempt to show clear MECHANISMS, substantiated by research evidence, indicating a potential link between volunteering and marriage preparation. That is how the review would be structured – by the specific mechanisms.

5)      In addition, it would be important to recognize the types of volunteering that would best contribute to the outcomes. Volunteering is so immeasurable broad – surely some volunteer activities are more likely to be linked to the outcomes associated with marriage preparation. Yet there was no discussion of this at all or the amount to which volunteering happens nor type of volunteering.

6)      This would also mean some discussion of the traits/characteristics that have emerged as important to marriage preparation. What does research indicate about those most essential traits? And could any of those be identified in research on the positive outcomes associated with volunteering? Essentially the report would need to review current state of marriage (briefly), what research indicates about the most important traits for being inclined to and prepared for marriage, and what research indicates about how volunteering promotes the development of those essential characteristics.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your solid, critical and kind review of my article. I completely agree with your suggestions for my manuscript. I have spent a lot of time in recent days applying them to my work. Not everything could be done in such a short time and within the narrow confines of the article. I realize the limitations of my argument. In order to make a coherent argument for a direct link between youth volunteerism and preparation for marriage and family life, one would need to conduct empirical research. I am a practical theologian, so I did not conduct such research personally, as noted in the abstract. Rather, I set out to do a secondary analysis of available social research findings, something we often do as part of our theological specialization. Despite a lengthy search of scientific databases worldwide, it was not possible to find research results showing direct correlations between involvement in volunteerism and young people's preparation for marriage and family life. That is why I decided to conduct a secondary analysis of the available empirical research results on various aspects of youth involvement in volunteerism. I am convinced that, despite the scarcity of empirical sources, it is worth initiating a discussion on the relationship of young people's experience of volunteering to their preparation for life in marriage and family. From the point of view of practical theology as well as religious education, this connection between the experience of volunteering and preparation for marriage and family life could yield promising results. I hope that this very article will inspire sociologists and psychologists to conduct such research in the near future.

What, on the other hand, did I manage to improve in my manuscript?

I shortened section 3 describing the phenomenon of volunteering and its importance in the social and religious life of young people. Unfortunately, at the suggestion of the second reviewer, I had to more strongly document scientifically sections 1 and 2 of my manuscript. This requirement resulted in a slight quantitative expansion of section 2. It is important in my argument insofar as it justifies the need to search for new forms of preparing young people for life in Christian marriage and family that are more effective than the existing ones.

With the introduction of 8 new bibliographic items in the manuscript, the article has become more firmly grounded in the latest research findings on the current lifestyle preferences of young people. Today, young people on the threshold of adulthood do not always choose life in marriage and family. According to the results of studies conducted in the last few years especially in Europe, America and Australia - which was added to my manuscript ¬- about 5% of young people choose to live alone.

Following your suggestion, I divided the main section of my article into 3 points. In doing so, I have highlighted three thematic areas in which young people's volunteer experience contributes to the development of skills useful for future life in marriage and family. They are as follows:

1. volunteering of young people as an introduction to a culture of love
2. volunteering of young people as an introduction to relational spirituality
3. volunteering of young people as an introduction to the experience of altruism

It seems that this procedure contributed to a better structuring of this article. In line with what you wrote in the review, I think we can now better see the mechanisms pointing to a potential link between volunteering and marriage preparation. Of course, this is still an indirect argument, but one that refers to the results of research on volunteer involvement.

You ask if there has ever been a study that has quantitatively examined the relationship between volunteering and increased reciprocity, social understanding, community involvement. I have not found precise studies on this topic. They tend to be indirect evidence showing the output of volunteers focused in religious organizations to the broader society living in non-religious cultural contexts as well. Even more so, I have not encountered such studies that show correlations between types of volunteer involvement and the development of character traits useful in marriage and family. These are very pertinent suggestions for empirical research in the future.

Thank you again for all the comments in the review. I am confident that they proved useful and allowed me to improve my manuscript.

Yours sincerely…

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Author,

Thank you for the work you did to strengthen both your argument and the secondary source support.  I appreciate your dedication and care in this work.  May you continue to do this work at the intersection of relational science and faith.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I kindly thank you for your constructive cooperation and input in improving my manuscript. I wish you success in your own scientific research and publications in preparation.

Yours sincerely…

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors did not address the recommendations given to make possible acceptance of the paper. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you kindly for the comments made. I addressed them in the first round of our discussion, but probably at too high a level of generality. Despite the vacations and my stay abroad, I have reconsidered my article in view of your critical comments. The manuscript in the current version has been radically restructured. Some of the earlier reflections have been completely removed, since, at your suggestion, I found them unnecessary for this work. I left the section on the condition of marriages in Europe and the US as the background of my study, but I also heavily shortened it. I removed completely the section on the essence of volunteering. I felt it was necessary to separate out the section on methodology. I described it in much more detail than was done in the previous version of the manuscript. While, most importantly, I have strongly expanded section 4 presenting the mechanisms indicating the potential relationship of young people's volunteering experience with their preparation for marriage and family life. And now I will try to address your six comments in detail:

Ad 1) In the second attempt to revise the manuscript, following your suggestion, the section entitled: "The Essence and Social Value of Volunteering". In addition, the section titled: "The Current State of Marriage and Families in Europe and the USA" was heavily abridged. The initial presentation of the essence of Christian marriage and the various forms of relationships occurring in the world today was omitted, and the section presenting the situation of marriages in Poland was removed. I felt that in order to present the background of the study, it was sufficient to present the condition of marriages in the European Union and the United States. After all, Poland is part of the European Union, so there is no need to present the condition of marriages in Poland in detail for the world reader. In addition, I felt it was necessary to describe the methodology of the study in more detail, which is presented in a separate section titled: "Methodology of the Study." In accordance with your suggestion, I thus reduced the introductory sections and expanded the main section showing directly the potential links between young people's involvement in volunteering and their preparation for marriage and family life.

Ad 2) In accordance with your suggestion, the main section of the manuscript entitled: "The Usefulness of Volunteering Experience in Preparing for Life in Christian Marriage and Family: Discussion" has been expanded. Within this section, four mechanisms have been identified (the previous version of the manuscript had only three) showing the potential relationship of young people's volunteering experience to their preparation for life in marriage and family. These are: 1) introduction to a culture of love; 2) introduction to relational spirituality; 3) introduction to the experience of altruism; 4) introduction to attitude of service to neighbor. This section presents new arguments from the results of empirical research, but also new arguments from theology. Since the article is embedded in the methodology of practical theology, which is now more strongly emphasized in the methodology section, theological arguments could not be left out. I have added another new source to the existing empirical sources: (Grönlund, Henrietta, and Hanna Falk. 2019 Does it Make a Difference? The Effects of Volunteering from the Viewpoint of Recipients - A Literature Review. Diaconia, vol. 10, pp. 7-26, ISSN: 2196-9027). Of course, the argumentation presented is still indirect, but in my opinion, the indicated interconnections between the volunteering experience of young people and their preparation for life in marriage and family reach a fairly high degree of credibility. This section has been strongly developed and in the current version of the manuscript it occupies 323 lines (in the previous version it was only 179 lines).

Ad 3) You are right that the interrelation of theology, philosophy and social science is a difficult undertaking. I think some light is shed on these interrelationships by the methodology section of my manuscript. I referenced an article there: Osmer, Richard R. 2011 Practical theology: A current international perspective. HTS Theologiese Studies/Theological Studies 67(2). The article shows how in practical theology we link the results of empirical research with theological arguments in order to achieve the effect that practical theology is concerned with, namely, improving the quality of the existing religious life of a particular religious congregation and especially improving the pastoral activity undertaken.

Ad 4) In accordance with your request, the manuscript has been heavily revised to extract the above-mentioned four mechanisms, pointing most strongly to a potential link between voluntaring and marriage preparation. In addition to the fourth mechanism, which has been added in the current version of the manuscript, the argumentation in the other three mechanisms has been expanded.

Ad 5 and 6) Unfortunately, the database of publications on volunteering used in the secondary analysis did not allow a clear representation of the relationship between the different types of volunteering and the preparation of young people for marriage and family. Yes, the results of the social research analyzed mainly concerned involvement in long-term volunteering in the area of charitable assistance. I marked this in the current version of the manuscript, but this was not a differentiating factor in the empirical results. The characteristics of volunteers that indicate a potential relationship with their preparation for marriage are mentioned in the presentation of the various mechanisms of volunteering (sections 4.1 - 4.4). In contrast, there is no such research that clearly demonstrates the relationship between individual volunteer characteristics and their preparation for marriage. These are new questions and new areas of research that should be studied in the future, as I pointed out in the conclusion of my manuscript: “The relationship between volunteering experiences and the preparation of young people for marriage and family life necessitates further sociological and psychological research. The author of this paper acknowledges the limitations of their argumentation. To present a coherent case for a direct link between youth volunteering and preparation for marriage and family life, empirical studies would need to be undertaken. Despite an exhaustive search of worldwide scientific databases, no results from such studies were discovered. Consequently, the author of this work opted for a secondary analysis of available empirical study outcomes related to various facets of youth involvement in volunteering”.

 

Thank you kindly for your very substantive discussion and constructive cooperation in improving my manuscript. I trust that my article makes sense in its current version, points out to other researchers especially specialists in sociology and psychology a new research area, and will be directed to publication in "Religions". Of course, I will not be the one to decide this!

Yours sincerely…