Influence of Premarital Counselling on Family Stability in Owerri Municipality.
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.
INTRODUCTION
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 xi 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).
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