DOES IT A HAPPY MARRIAGE OR A RAPE MARRIAGE?

DOES IT A HAPPY MARRIAGE OR A RAPE MARRIAGE?

By Mbibi Longinus Chinagorom(PAA)/09124601622

Among our forefathers marriage was regarded as a sacred institution. There was a lot of ceremonial and ritual obligations that always accompanied or preceded any marriage that took place in those good old days. Right from the day a man caught sight of his would-be wife he and his people had to pursue both the girl and her parents vigorously for some years by way of carrying their favour in different ways - presenting gifts at very frequent intervals to the girl and her parents as well as offering free services to the girl's parents. 

In fact one may look at love affairs that resulted in marriage as the biblical hidden treasure which when a man finds he must appreciate and handle carefully. The girl, and later wife, on her part realised all troubles the man had taken before they became husband and wife; no wonder she strove to do everything possible to reciprocate. 

Consequently, both the husband and the wife did everything to uphold the moral sanctions that worked towards the stability of marriage. Those were the good old days when the man saw his wife as the weaker vessel, the "hidden treasure" and mistress of his home who deserve every respect, protection and care. On her part the woman saw her man as the Lord of the house and to whom absolute sub-mission was obligatory. Each reposed faith in in the other.

Nowadays the sacredness and chastity of marriage have been desecrated, violated and raped. Many factors can be portrayed as the causes of this violation or prostitution of the otherwise sacred institution of marriage.

First, it will be reasonable to assert that the infiltration of foreign, especially western, culture into our own culture has pernicious effects in some respects. With to the institution of marriage one of the effects the western civilization is the bye-passing of our traditional processes towards marriage. To defile the basis of this institution, the factors that used to make for stability are now defied with impunity; namely consent of both parents, sufficient by long period of time for both parties to the bargaining to study and if possible remedy any obstacle that may upset the marriage in future, the exposure of juvenile to modern but immoral agencies of science: cinema, television and obscene literatures. 

The above are some of the factors that bedevil modern marriage. No less pernicious to the stability in marriage is alien idea of one man one wife. By nature she prefers, she becomes frustrated on discovering the act of gross insincerity on the part of her man seeing that there are several other wives hidden to her.

Finally, both the body and the institution have been cheapened and devalued. With our forefathers sex before marriage and marriage by proxy was more or less a taboo and frowned at by the society. Nowadays the reverse is the rule and not the exception.

The result of most of the modern types of marriage whose foundations are made on 'sand' is the increasing incidence of divorce. Divorces result in broken families and the children of such marriage that collapse exposed to untold sufferings- the parental care, moral depravity and the consequent development to become delinquent, are the fruits the modern society is reaping.

It is my candid view that it is high time the government and the society at large began to wage wars against the increasing wave of divorces either by legislating against the evil and trying to remove the causes of divorces. Husbands and wives should be made to be alive to their obligations to each and to their children.