FACTORS INFLUENCING MARITAL HARMONY MARRIED COUPLES (A CASE STUDY OF BABCOCK UNIVERSITY STAFF, OGUN STATE) (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Marriage, an institution as old as man, it is a crucial and fundamental human relationship because it provides ten primary structure for establishing a family and rearing children. Biblical, it stared as soon as man was created and posted in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 4:1-3). The first human beings on earth; Adam and Eve desired themselves so much that they ended up in procreation and having a family. While marriage as a union of man and women, emerging literature in present days, indicates that marital harmony is not easily achieved especially in recent times (Bruker & Kimberly, 1993). This suggests that a greater proportion of marriages are associated with uncertainty, instability and lack of trust between the man and the woman. The danger of uncertainty associated with the problem of disharmony in marriage has therefore created serious challenges to marriage counselors. To this end ;(Owuamanam and Osankinta, 2005) asserted that some marriage even breakdown before their first anniversaries. Marital harmony is a complex process that has over the period been thought to be influenced by many factors, including education, socio-economic status, love, commitment, marital communication, conflict, gender, length of marriage, the presence of children, sexual relations and the division of labour amongst other factors(Hendrick & Hendrick, 1992:194).
If marriage is healthy and stable, and the couples are satisfied and living in harmony the society in which the family is the bedrock would be strongly built. One of the major tasks of modern marriages is to achieve a state of marital harmony and have a high level of marital satisfaction in the home. Marital harmony therefore can be referred to as individual’s subjective experience of marriage in terms of when their needs are met, and when the individual’s expectations and desires are being satisfied. Factors which contribute to marital harmony include the way and manner of communication between couples at home, presence of children, influence of in-law, marriage relationship, satisfaction of sexual desires and occupational differences. Others are financial misunderstanding, physical violence, lack of love and moral commitment (Target, 1980).
