ABSTRACT
The
rate of family instability and divorce has become a serious problem which
interferes with couples output at work, emotional, educational and social balance.
Premarital counselling is a program which exposes intending couples in Owerri
municipality, Imo state, to exploring their dreams, fears, and differences
before marriage. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of
premarital counselling on family stability in Owerri municipality. The study
identified and used three research questions and two hypotheses which provided
direction for the study. The study adopted ex-post facto design which was used
to elicit information from 200 respondents comprising of (100) married men and
(100) married women in Owerri. Population of the study was 720. Proportionate stratified sampling technique was utilized to select 200
married couples out of 720 married men and women. Instrument for data collection
was a questionnaire that was developed by the researcher which contained twenty
eight (28) items. It was face validated. cronbach alpha statistics was used.
Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation and t-test.
Results showed that among others, Recommendations were made and suggestions for
further studies proferred.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
Premarital Counselling came into prominence in the twentieth century.it
means a therapy that prepares couple who intends to be married before agreeing
to officiate at a wedding (Naylor 2014). It constitutes services that are made
available by professional counsellors to individuals who are intending to or
desiring to venture into marriage relationship. The categories of citizens that
mostly appear for premarital counselling in the society are the unmarried
youths who are just at the verge of preparing for marriage. They are already
young adults who are to be assisted with useful information about what obtains
in the marriage institution, how to prepare for it and enter into marital
relationship with a desired mate. Premarital counselling is when a professional
works with an intending couple to enhance their relationship before they get
married and helps them acquire skills and realistic expectations (Gladding
2007). For the purpose of this study, premarital counselling means counselling
that seeks to help individuals, couples or group of couple to prepare for and
build a successful marriage without a mixed feeling.
Premarital Counselling being a marital intervention program came into
prominence in the twentieth century and was first documented in 1924 when Ernest
Groves taught the premarital course in preparation for family life at
Boston University. The first mention of Premarital Counselling as a
significant process or valuable service in building emotional and physical
health was in a 1928 article in the American Journal of obstetrics and
Gyneacology (Stahmman &
Hiebert,
1997). Formal Premarital Counselling programs have been practiced from as early
as the 1930’s with the first program developed by Merill-Palmer Institute in
1932. In 1941, the philadephia marriage council established a standardized
program with the stated purpose to help young married and premarital couples
gain “a better understanding of what companionship in married life involves and
thus help them avoid some of the causes of marital difficulties” (Mudd,
Freeman, & Rose, 1941, p.98).
Despite these early beginnings, Premarital Counselling was still
relatively uncommon until the 1970s. While the clergy have had a long history
of meeting with couples prior to their wedding, it is only in the last three
decades that the focus of these meetings have shifted from education about the
nature and meaning of the marriage rite itself toward education geared at
preparing couples for marriage (Stahmann & Hiebert, 1977). Similarly, because
interactional theories were still in their infancy in the 1950s and 1960s,
professional Counsellors tended to conceptualize marital problems as the
problem of one individual in the relationship. Therefore, premarital
counselling, as is understood today was not a regular part of professional
clinical practice.
With the declining influence of the extended family
around the turn of the twentieth century, premarital preparation began with the
Clergy along with the physicians, mental health workers and a few college
classes growing into more systematic pastoral, instruction and enrichment
counselling. Both clergy and other family professionals held meetings to
address marital problems because they had contact with family members at
significant stressful times in the life cycle of families and had the advantage
of ongoing rapport with the family before problems arose. (Stahmann &
Hiebert, 1987).
Today, as in the past, there are three main groups that provide
premarital education namely: the Clergy, professional counsellors or therapist
and physicians. The clergy provide the greatest amount of formal premarital
education as a mandatory marriage preparation programs before church wedding
(Stahmann and Hiebert 1997; Stahmann and Salts, 1993). Professional counsellors
or therapist provide premarital education often for those who have been
divorced and are preparing to marry again. Physicians do some premarital
education as well but that is usually limited to one meeting where they give
contraceptive and sexual information (Stahmann and Hiebert, 1997).
Premarital counselling as described by Markman & Halweg (1993) as an
intervention program and a requirement for all couples before entering into a
marriage or after marriage. They added that premarital counseling has several
definitions with the major difference being in what the reasoning is behind the need for such intervention. Premarital Counselling generally refers to a
process designed to enhance and enrich premarital relationships leading to more
satisfactory and stable marriages with the intended consequence being to
prevent divorce” (Stahmann 2002, 205). In other words, the process of
premarital counselling can address possible sources of conflict before they
have time to escalate into more serious situations that could threaten the
health and longevity of a marriage.
Marriage institution is said to be as old as the history of man and his
creation. According to Ggbenga and Akume (2002), marriage is a divine situation
which should be a special relationship for life and harmoniously integrate the
husband and wife into becoming “one flesh”. Undiyaundeye and Ugal (2006)
described marriage to be the cohabitation of heterosexual adults who engage in
socially approved sexual relationship having children, engaging in economic
co-operation and sharing a common residence.
In African setting, successful marriage is a highly valued goal for
Nigerians, in that man is in charge of the family welfare and the woman takes
care of the children and also in charge of the kitchen as they are being called
“Oriaku”, meaning that married couples must work together to create stability
in their families. According to Adesanya (2002), family stability is the
relationship in which couples live together in marriage enjoying the closest
possible loving and fulfilling relationship without any intention to break up......
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