Family's Function and Religious Orientation; Presenting Models of Attitude towards Pre-marriage Relationship and Its Consequences on University Students with and without Relationship with Opposite Sex

The present paper seeks to provide a model of pre-marriage relationship in relation to family's function and religious orientation among the students of Birjand Azad Islamic University. To this end, 500 students were selected, who completed Allport's religious orientation scale, Olson's scale of family's function, Kurdlu's scale of attitude towards pre-marriage relationship and the scale of consequences of pre-marriage relationship. The results of path analysis show that family member's cohesion indicates negative attitude towards pre-marriage relationship indirectly by decreasing external religious orientation and directly by increasing internal religious orientation. This cohesion also indicates positive attitude towards pre-marriage relationship only through increasing internal religious orientation. Furthermore, family member's cohesion indicates indirectly high score in anxiety relationship and low score in relationship with God by decreasing external religious orientation, and indicates anxiety caused by pre-marriage relationship only by increasing internal religious orientation. In addition, internal and external religious orientation increases anxiety caused by relationship with opposite sex.