We need a generation of marriage counsellors that will tutor young men and women before delving into marriage, nikkah in Islam. Talaq or divorce is odious in the sight of Allah
In many cases some couples still live in their past and give scant preference to building their new homes. Usually, money is a big factor on crumbling of marriages. Who brings what to the table? Who funds what? But when a wife is the bread winner what should be the attitude? When the husband and wife earn equal pay, Should they be competitors or joint planners? Surfacing of an ex, rumour of another wife in the offing or bringing home of the product of a past fling can also cause frictions at home.
These are some of the issues that lead to troubled marriages and crumbling homes. So, the hearts once thought to be one and same in love therefore begin the search for new bliss, in most instances, elsewhere, and not in the home that they swore to build together. The house creaks; the marriage lapses into a mess or is in shambles with arguments, abuses and assault over even a trifling thing as where to press the toothpaste tube. Divorce is in the air. In the worst or extreme case, depression or disorientation sets in for either of the couple, leading to suicide or murder, is obvious in the home that was once thought to be built on love.
Such an unfortunate development, no doubt, could not have risen if intentions of the couple were pure and the correct choices made. In essence, marriage ought to be built on sincerity and compatibility, two conditions for love and companionship. These are just two of the many prescriptions for the sustainability of marriage and most importantly for the attainment of the vision of the marital partners. For it is in a happy and peaceful home that the couple, the husband and the wife, can pursue their purpose or dream in life and raise the family, oh the children, to be responsible members of the society. Most homes lack these.
Building on a premise of a successful or happy matrimony, I isolated some five or six fundamental errors men and women commit that rob the larger society of the deserved peace through peace in the family. The first of the errors most partners commit is what I call error of intention. When the colour or the shape of a person, the size of his or her purse, the eminence of his or her pedigree and the height of education or the loftiness of office and career are what most suitors look out for in the partners they want to marry, such couple already fall short on the benchmark of sincerity or purity of intention. In marriage, your intention must always be correct. You are marrying not just for the sake of the flesh or satisfying carnal desire but to fulfil a religious obligation of serving Allah.
Most couples soon find out why some suitors are after them. Not their character or faith, not their hearts or inner beauty but for certain ephemerals that lack assurance of permanence, things the gathering of friends and well-wishers who have come to celebrate their ‘holy’ matrimony, leaving them stupefied and disappointment. This could be averted if the intention and choice were pure and right.
Also, spouses make the error of assumption. When it comes to matters of the heart, some people lose their heads. Some go for mates that are far beyond their control, level, experience and emotion. Yet, they assume that they would change or that ‘things would change’. Unfortunately, the leopard never changes its spots. Before marriage, most individuals have been cast as iron on who they want to be, what company they want to belong, and how they want to be perceived in the society. They are already dried bonga fish that cannot be bent again. Marriage, can’t change them. As Fati Yakan postulates, choice of partner must be correct.