By Ezekiel Oloriegbe
The rate at which marieages are crumbling these days gives cause for concern.
High profile marriages, low profile marriages, middle profile marriages, and even no profile marriages ( is there something like that ? ) Are crumbling right, left and centre before our astonished eyes.
And it looks as if everyone is just helpless to stem the rushing tide. Conservative, good natured people of goodwill and sincerity are distressed, and perplexed at the trend, while mockers, social radicals, and malicious persons laugh, and assert boldly that marriage as a social institution is on its last legs, and would soon disappear from society.
We have now arrived at a point where many approach marriage with trepidation and a foreboding of something disastrous about to happen….
Scholars, clerics. Philosophers, governments and social workers are searching everywhere for a solution, or at least, a tenable explanation. But to no avail.
Experts and lay men are searching ancient and modern texts to get a handle on how the marriage failure conundrum is to be understood, addressed, and corrected.
But they are all drawing a blank, so far.
What is the solution ?
Or, is there even a solution somewhere? If yes, where is that solution, where can it be found, and why is it hidden from a searching humanity?
There, indeed. is a solution. .There is no problem, or a distortion in Creation that can not, or does not have a solution.
The journey of Creation is a series of decisions made by man which leaves him, by its results, either worse off, and degrades him; leaves his situation unchanged (rarely) or elevates and improves him.
This is a result of the operation of a rigid Law: Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap. All decisions are seen by Nature as SOWING.
Regardless of what man thinks, whenever you take a course of action, you are sowing a seed for YOURSELF, which you MUST reap, unconditionally, at a point in time, longer or shorter time.
This point is so fundamental that it should be repeated: Whenever a person thinks, speaks ot acts, he or she is planting exactly as a farmer sows seeds during the planting season.
And exactly as a farmer who plants seeds at the planting season MUST reap at harvest time, anything we plant with our thoughts, words and actions must be harvested by us, unconditionally. The time lag between sowing and harvesting differs, just like when we plant different seeds that mature for harvest at different times.
This situation applies to individuals, groups, societies, vountries, and finally to the entire planet.
But we are talking about marriages! So, let us return.
The situation of our planet, and our society, and general state of things, including environmental pollution, diseases, illnesses, social dislocation, also, state of marriages in the world, can be logically traced to the series of decisions that individuals on the planet have taken over the years. They are the harvest of seeds we planted, as individuals, and as a collective.
What we see today is the aggregate effect of all decisions we have taken before now.
So, why are marriages crumbling ?
Based on the foregoing. We have to also accept that the state of marriages today, is a direct result of our thinking, our words and our actions concerning the institution of marriage.
Possibly everyone reading this will know of a failed marriage or more, in their larger circles of friends and acquitances. Not even the high profile publicly known failed marriages, but marriages closer to home.
Probably some readers’ own marriage have failed, or are failing.
What is the way out of failed marriages?
The first step towards finding a solution is to be humble enough to accept the unpalatable fact that all failed marriages are the results of series of decisions by both parties. That is, first accept self -responsibility.
Once we have arrived at this point of acceptance of self responsibility about failed marriages. then we can move forward in our thinking about marriage. Even if other parties contributed to failed marriages, the principal contribution to any failed marriage is made by the marriage partners themselves. Anyone who is unable or unwilling to accept this fact may stop reading now, and go his way, because further reading may not benefit him.
We have to be bold enough to accept unpalatable truths such as the above, before we can move forward.
Therefore we repeat : Marriages are principally broken by the marriage partners themselves. With more or lesser contributions from others. But the main contributions are from the partners themselves.
Our wrong thoughts about marriage is responsible for what marriages have become.
We are thinking, and therefore also acting wrong about what marriage is, what it should be, and what should be the criteria for going into marriage.
Marriage should be based entirely on LOVE 
. Not selfish love that is now common among men. But a giving love, that wishes to help, and give, to the other person who is loved. And this giving is not just referring to money.
Marriage partners should have genuine affection, love, beyond the physical appearance, and beyond the state of finances, for each other.
Money is important in marriage, yes. But it should never be the main basis for taking the marriage decision.
Secondly, the society as a whole has to change some of her perceptions about marriage.
Marriage in itself, being able to find a life partner, as society puts it is not a badge if Honour in itself. It is the quality of the marriage that should be seen, as a badge of honour if it is deserving of honour. It can not be said, for instance, that a marriage where spousal physical abuse takes place is a honor badge.
Marriages should not be seen as compulsory.
Societal views of unmarried people as loose and irresponsible is incorrect because it amounts to at least hasty generalisation. The fact that some unmarried people of both genders are morally irresponsible does not mean ALL unmarried people are irresponsible.
The societal pressure on people to get married at all costs after attaining a certain age is totally unnecessary, incorrect, and quite dangerous in its effects.
Nobody, male or female, should be emotionally bullied and harassed into marriage by the whole society, or any component thereof like parents, siblings, peer groups, friends or co-workers
Every individual is a free agent, and should be free to decide wether and how, and when to go into marriage, if at all .
If society can lift the emotional dead weight on young people of expecting, or demanding that everyone must marry, and at a certain age, a lot of good will be achieved, and many mistakes in going into marriage with the wrong partner would be reduced, or eliminated altogether.
Another aspect of wrong attitude to marriage by the society is the assumed role of in-laws.
Marriage should be a union of two people who should be allowed to manage their life together in love, and learn from their experiences, and grow through that.
The assumption by relatives of the couple that they have certain rights to determine how the marriage should be, what should happen in the marriage, and how each party MUST behave within the marriage is totally WRONG…
Invading the matrimonial home by brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers-in-law from both sides, to seek to exercise some assumed or supposed rights, is absurd, selfish and wrong.right.
The wishes of inlaws and relatives to determine what should happen or not happen in a marriage is all shades of WRONG, and a great contributor to failed marriages. This menace of inlaw entitlement is particularly rampant in Nigeria, and Africa. It is time to jettison the mindset.
When two people are married, the relatives including parents, immediately become third parties to the marriage, and should leave them alone, and let them make the best of their situation.
They should only interfere when they are called upon to do so, not on the basis of some supposed rights in a wilful and entitled manner. And even the intervention when sought must be given with wisdom, love, maturity and circumspection. With the best interests of both parties to the marriage as the over-riding consideration. And not perchance, the interest of the spouse that invites the intervention, or the interest of the interventionist.
If societal pressure to marry at a certain time, and to a certain person is removed, and inlaws stop their undue interference, and marriages are contracted freely between two mature and willing individuals who have love for each other, marriages would have a better chance of fulfilling its role as the component unit of Society that ensures a stable Society.
Within the marriage itself, if love is the basis, SINCERITY OF BOTH PARTIES are indispensable ingredients to success. But love and Sincerity do go together. If love is the basis, SINCERITY also follows as a natural accompaniment.
No one party should go into marriage with an ulterior motive, or a selfish, calculating agenda.
Both should be determined to go into marriage to achieve a joint project of material growth and spiritual advancement.
This means both parties should realise that the purpose of marriage transcends just mere material benefits, or social acceptance, and mutual sexual surrender.
Both parties should be counselled to know that spiritual purpose is the higher value to be derived from a successful marriage.
On the basis of the foregoing, we can say as follows:
For an improved marital success rate, the Society needs to understand the following:
1. Society should NEVER make anyone feel inferior for being single, or afraid of being single.
2. Society should not choose an age at which single people should start feeling inferior, or at which age they should begin to feel ashamed of not being married.
3. Society should stop seeing marriage as a duty or responsibility that MUST be performed by anyone at all costs.
4. All members of the society must learn to give marriage partners some measure of respect and privacy. Everyone, young or old, parents or siblings, friends or associates of married people should respect the institution and give the partners a chance to resolve their issues. Expectations and demands and advices, especially unsolicited, should be kept at a minimum.
If these are observed, then marriages that are contracted for the wrong reason would be drastically reduced, and the ones that are thereafter contracted on a sound basis, would have a better chance of success.
All the above suggestions should not be difficult to adhere to.
None of them requires payment of money, nor requires enduring any pain, or physical privation of any kind, just a little more self control on the part of all, and a little more serious mindedness on the part of those who go into marriage to do so on sound principles, and good intentions.
Not on the basis of many of the frivolous reasons we see today.
