In the United States, which has been referred to as the “great melting pot” for generations, it should come as no surprise that with all these different kinds of people has come practically as many ways of believing in a higher power.

What may be surprising is that all those faiths have crossed lines, much like the ethnicities from which they sprang. And that presents both promise and problems.

Promise in what that means for society as a whole, problems in what that can do to an otherwise solid marriage/partnership.

In a groundbreaking interfaith marriage survey conducted in 2010, journalist Naomi Schaefer Riley surveyed 2,450 Americans and found an interfaith marriage rate of 42 percent. One of the reasons for the rise, she says in an interview, is that we are getting married later in life and making more considered choices.

Data from the national General Society Survey reported 15 percent of American households were mixed-faith in 1988. That rose to 26 percent by 2006.

When focusing on the institution of marriage itself, outside the specific faiths involved, Schaefer Riley found interfaith marriages tend to be “generally more unhappy, with lower rates of marital satisfaction.”

They also are often “more unstable, with particularly high divorce rates when certain religious combinations are involved,” she writes in “’Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America.” She is a conservative Jew and her husband is a former Jehovah’s Witness.

Her interviews, which included about 200 members of the clergy, as well as marriage counselors and interfaith couples, also suggested few Americans are aware of the potential problems regarding interfaith marriage.