Marriage and divorce

By Helena Selby
How lovely it is for one to see two people really in love and taking vows in the church. “We shall stick together through thick or thin, for better for worse, for richer and for poorer, sickness and in health, till death do us part.”
How willing are both of them, from the very onset of the marriage, to adhere to these vows. Marriage is a good thing; it is a way that God has made to bind two of the opposite sex, who are in love, together and not the same sex. It is a sacred union, brought about by God, and so has been accepted worldwide.
Though the union marriage is sacred, many people do not see it that way. Many people do not put into consideration the statement, “What God has put together, let no man put asunder”. It is important for married couple to be able to face the sweet and bitter parts, of their love together, when the need calls for it.
Young people in love are eager to get married and how frustrating it is for some people, already married, to get out of it when they think they have had enough, but have no earthly reason to break the marriage.
There is a popular saying in the Akan language that interprets, “If you want to enter into marriage, first ask what is involved,” this is due to the fact that there are a lot of things entailed in the union called marriage, and also one needs to investigate deeply into the family one is about marry from.
Looking for a Partner for Marriage
It is also pathetic that some people marry just because of infatuation and others because of lust. Most times one gets easily attracted to the opposite sex due to physical attraction. It can either be the hips, buttocks, eyes, hair or anything, which the person might find attractive. Whenever people get into marriage because of these mere physical attractions, the possibility of the marriage landing on the rocks at an early stage is high.
For a marriage relationship to last, it depends more on understanding each other than mere love and attraction. It is this lack of understanding that makes divorce cases common. In Ghana, a good number of people believe it is a good thing to get a partner from a family with a good background.
A cultured woman is believed to be of good character traits and can be able to take care of the home, as well as the children. A man who is really cultured is always considered to be man who can take care of the responsibilities of the home.
Though no one is perfect, there is the need to know the flaws of one’s partner in order to know whether one can cope with it in marriage or not. It is necessary to know the weaknesses and strengths of a future marriage partner, in view of the fact that it could be a sort of stumbling block in the marriage, when not handled properly.
Who can get a good partner? Their value is priceless and cannot be bought with any amount of money. It is pointless to get ones self into a relationship or marriage where both sex have different interests, the possibility of the union getting grounded at an early stage is high. A relationship leading to marriage where the head, that is the man has no vision for the future, then the marriage itself has no future.
Why do some Marriages end up in Divorce
Marriage is a spectacular relationship between two people who agree to share all the colours of lives together, whether positive or harsh. But the number of divorce cases is increasing day by day in every part of the world. No one wishes to have a marriage with its future spelt out as catastrophe. It is the dream of every newly married couple to live together, have children and live a long life to celebrate the anniversary of their marriage. It is believed that, for a man to really be successful in life there is the need for him to get a woman by his side. As the saying goes “beside every successful man there is a woman”, meaning women more often serve as a backbone for men.
Most marriages break up without the intention of the couple, occasionally the objective of responsible married couple is to live together and cater for the children they give birth to.
It is very startling that whereas people live their marital home because of issues that they cannot contain, people divorce because of just a trivial issue, which can easily be resolved.
In a good number of times when two people are in love and things are not working the way they both want, it comes to a point that the both of them take the decision that ‘enough is enough.’
For a marriage to be secured, it needs a tough groundwork, which includes having a sort of willingness to communicate frequently and committed to each other.
It is important for communication to prevail in marriages, so as to enable problems to be solved easily through cooperation without anger or argument. It must be noted that regular communication between married couples brings about a habitual thought of each other hence preventing any obstacle from coming between them.
In Ghana and many parts of Africa, many marriages end up on rocks due to infertility. Majority of people especially men enter into marriage making child bearing their priority, the purpose is that, these children will take care of them when they are of age, inherit their property and give them befitting burial when they die. Owing to this, people find it pointless still living in a marriage where there is no hope of having children.
Adultery is considered to be one of the main causes of divorce especially among Christians. Every married couple who truly love each other would not like any one with sexual intention to come closer to the partner. Infidelity in marriage brings a sort of insecurity in the union. The trust both couple have for each other fades away gradually when uncertainty begin to set in the matrimonial home. Once this instance begins to crawl in a marriage, divorce setting in the minds of both couple is a surety.
Most times, due to the nature of the economy one sometimes finds it difficult to get a job to keep oneself and family going. Though the love and attraction might be there, it is believed that love without money or good living easily fades away no matter how strong it is. There comes certain times in a marriage, a three square meal is difficult to come by more or less providing the material need of the wife. Most women always want to be taken care of materially, thus in terms of clothes, shoes and jewelry so that they dress good at all occasion. Normally when these things do not exist in the marriage the woman gradually loses interest in the marriage.
Every now and then wives become victims of brutality as a result of the husband’s attitude. Husbands who more often are under the influence of alcohol seem to maltreat their wives at the slightest provocation. The high standard of living occasionally causes frustration on the part of the men since they are the head of the home and have to take care of every need in the home. Due to this they easily get irritated at any trivial provocation. Such incidence in marriage can easily crumple a marriage.
What does our religion say about divorce?
Though Christianity discourages divorce, the Bible gives instance where one can willingly leave the marriage without any accusation from observers. According to the Bible one cannot leave his or her marital home except for marital unfaithfulness and must stay single until he or she reflect on the decision to go back to the matrimonial home. Apart from that, there is no ground on which one can leave their marital home be it financial problem, sexual impotence or any other unbearable situation.
The Islamic religion also put off the act of divorce, a woman can choose to get a divorce when she has convincing reasons for her action. A woman can only divorce when she is able to provide concrete evidence about his husband being unable to sustain her financially, ill treatment, has sexual impotence. When the woman is able to provide these evidence, the family members also investigate before dissolving the marriage.
In the traditional aspect, one can also go for a divorce when one cannot cope anymore with the situation in the matrimonial home.
Divorce in Ghana
In Ghana there are two ways through which one can get married. It could either be marriage by ordinance or traditional marriage. In the traditional marriage when a man wants to get married he will be given some list of items to provide for the woman and her family as a form of dowry, have in his possession a bottle of schnapps, accompanied by his family to the woman’s family house for the ceremony to take place.
In dissolving a traditional marriage, the man once again takes drinks to the woman’s family announcing that he cannot leave with her anymore. On the other hand if the woman cannot stay with the man, the woman’s family also sends drinks to the man’s family as a form of returning the drinks that the man brought when he was coming to marry her.
In the case of the marriage by ordinance, it only involves signing of documents by both couples with the presence of a witness who will also sign to indicate that a marriage agreement has taken place.
In dissolving of an ordinance marriage, the couple go through the same process of signing with the presence of a witness.
Consequences of Divorce
Though divorce sometimes serves as a way of disappearing from a frustrating marriage, and also gives the couples a sort of peace of mind, its outcome is more often drastic to bear. Divorcing a marriage with children has a lot of crisis which affect the children in one way or the other. A country with the frequent incidence of divorce has the possibility of having a lot of street children and a lot foster homes, since the child might not get a home to be cultured.
The incidence of street children as time goes on can bring into the society all forms of social vices. When the children are of age and realize they have no profession to live with, the only profession most of them opt for is engaging themselves in all forms social vices. These vices end up tarnishing the image of the nation.
Apart from the existence of street children and social vices in the society, the future leaders of the nation are also lost. Majority of these children have dreams of being great people in future even to the extent of being the head of state of the nation. However due to problem which the parent could not solve amicably has rendered them visionless. It must be noted that, as the vision of these children have disappeared the same applies to the vision of the nation since these children are the future leaders of this nation.
Conclusion
Though divorce is a way of preventing couples from killing themselves in marriage, it however destroys lives of innocent people and the nation as a whole. It is therefore very necessary to take heart and solve issues concerning divorce in order to have a divorce free generation.