What are the effects of marriage and religion on African Americans in urban America? The past three decades have witnessed a “retreat from marriage” in the United States, marked by high rates of nonmarital births, lower rates of marriage and divorce. Although a growing body of research on marital abandonment has focused on its social and economic causes, little attention has been paid to the role that cultural institutions play in promoting or counteracting marital abandonment. This article focuses on the role that religious institutions—and the cultural norms and behaviors they promote—play in resisting this retreat of new parents in urban America. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we found that urban mothers who attend church regularly are significantly more likely to be married at the time of birth than urban mothers who do not attend church frequently, and that urban mothers who Nonmarital births are much more likely to marry within a year of birth if they attend church frequently. These religious effects are mediated in part by the relationship-related beliefs and behaviors promoted by churches. Urban, church-going mothers express higher levels of normative commitment to the institution of marriage. They are also more likely to benefit from higher levels of supportive behavior (e.g., affection) from their children's father and lower levels of conflict with the father over sexual fidelity. Thus, by promoting beliefs and behaviors that support marriage, religious institutions help urban mothers make the transition to marriage in communities where marriage has become increasingly rare. Recently, there has been a huge decline in marriage… half the paper. .....they also help explain the distinctive class, racial, and ethnic patterns of marriage. Works Cited Furstenberg, Frank. 2001. “The Faded Dream: Marriage Prospects in the Inner City.” In the problem of the century, edited by E. Anderson and D. Massey. New York, NY: Russell Sage FoundationAllison, Paul D. 1995. Survival Analysis Using the SAS System: A Practical Guide. Cary, NC: SAS Institute, Inc..Anderson, Katherine, Don Browning, and Brian Boyer. 2002. Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper? Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.Axinn, William G. and Arland Thornton. 2000. “The Transformation in the Meaning of Marriage.” In The Ties That Bind, edited by L. Waite. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Thornton, Arland, William G. Axinn, and Daniel H. Hill. 1992. “Reciprocal Effects of Religiosity, Cohabitation, and Marriage.” American Journal of Sociology 98:628-651.