Knowledge is the Power behind Marriage

The husband has one clear and unavoidable primary obligation: to provide his wife with the necessities of life. However, there are some basic characteristics and facts that every effective and efficient husband must know and possess.

One of the greatest differentials between successful and unsuccessful marriages is the amount of adequate knowledge that the husband possess. Some people would think that money would be the most important factor for the success of marriages, but with my over 10 years of teaching on the subjects of sex and marriage, I have come to know the truth that having money alone does not make marriages successful.

Disaster and misunderstanding strikes in marriages when husbands run the marriage life on limited knowledge. Not understanding the possible obstacles and dangers facing the marriage due to ignorance. Besides, the Holy Scriptures says lack of knowledge makes every establishment like the marriage institution perishes, and also instructs husband to have knowledge and understanding when dealing with their wives.

‘…Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.’ (1 Peter 3:7)

Husbands are not wise when they succumb to the casual and common way of joking about how difficult it is to ‘understanding females.’ Any human being (male or female) is complex in personality and behaviour. So no one is easy to understand. The Bible does not say it will be easy to understand a marriage partner, but specifically commands a husband to have an extensive, practical knowledge of his wife and her ways, and to live with her in light of that knowledge.

It is important for every husband to make sure that he gets enough information to carry out the tasks that he desires to make the marriage successful. Although, our generation is a generation of abundance knowledge, there seems to be inequalities between husbands when it comes to getting good results from the information that they acquire to build their marriages. This seems to be because, many husbands do not know that they need more than just the mere acquisition of knowledge, they need adequate knowledge. For example;

In authority wise, the husband is the first among equals in every marriage. The power of the husband evolves from their wives. Without their wives, they are no husbands. Children do not make husbands, but wives do.

The above statement can only be understood and comprehended by husbands who are in tune with adequate knowledge of the times. It is only through knowledge that a married man will understand his new duties, responsibilities and function as a husband.

A husband may be able to acquire adequate knowledge from several sources like;

©      Books and magazines

©      His own experience and that of others

©      Counsellors

©      Marriage seminars

©      Music, movies, sports, games and paintings

©      Internet

©      Television and radio talk shows.

Knowledge is indeed power. Without knowledge, marriages will always be unsuccessful. Knowledge feeds our desires with an awareness of alternative choices. Husbands with adequate information on how the 21^st centaury marriage works are able to gain advantages in life that the ignorant often miss out.

Great opportunities that can heal and advance our marriages do come knocking on our doors often, but when a husband lacks certain information, the marriage relationship misses the chance to seize these new opportunities forever.

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Securing marriages in Ghana

Looking at the growing rate of divorces, court cases for alimony, physical abuses and single parents; it does seem as if handling a relationship can be a tricky and often a taxing issue. Yet, critical analyses of recent contracted marriages in Ghana as against the increasing rate of divorce indicate that our attachment to marriage as our basic social institution is weakening.

For example, in the Central Region of Ghana alone, the contracted marriages of 2007, 2006 and 2005 were 85, 113, 91 respectively, but the average number of divorce in the same region is 4 in every week. This means that, an average of 16 marriages break-up in every month and a total average of 192 registered marriages break-up in the Central Region of Ghana each year.   This figure of 192 divorces as against 85, 113 or 91 contracted marriages in a particular year in truly alarming, and this calls for a stricter look at the marriage institution once again.

People marry for many reasons, like love, happiness, money, companionship, physical attraction, desire to escape from an unhappy situation and the desire to have children. But marriage goes beyond these interests. It is a commitment with love and responsibility for peace, happiness and development of strong family relationships. It is the sacrificing of your freedom to attain the ultimate happiness for your partner. It involves emotional and legal commitment that is quite important in any adult life.

In the eyes of the law, marriage is a contract whereby a man and a woman agree to enter into a union for life for their mutual benefit, to provide each other with companionship, sexual gratification and economic help and to procreate and raise children.

The role of husband and wife to each other is a matter more of custom and tradition than of law. Marital role can be defined as set of attitudes and behaviours a spouse is expected to demonstrate in the content of the marriage relationship.

Marriage, although it merits being called romantic, passionate, strong, resonant, robust, hardy, solid, indestructible, indissoluble institution, is actually full of hard times and hard lessons that no one can ever prepare you for. But in the end, those are the things that give richness to your relationship, and make your love life even deeper and stronger than when it began. It’s more delicate and unsteady than you think. You co-habit with your spouse 365 days a year. Of those 365 days, how many were good days? How many were bad?

When you get married, you think that as long as you have picked the right man, you’ll be happy together until death do you part. Then you wake up one day and realize that no matter how great he is, he doesn’t make you happy every moment of every day. In fact, some days you might wonder why you were in such a hurry to get married in the first place. You think to yourself, ‘This is not what I really want in life’.

Human beings, you may have noticed, are not simple creatures. Your man has mysterious, unplumbed depths, and from where he sits, you’re pretty complicated, too. You have to learn each other the same way that you once learned earth science or world geography. And getting married doesn’t mean you’re done, it just means you’ve advanced to graduate-level studies. That’s because every time you think you’ve mastered the material, he’ll change a bit. And so will you. As two people grow and evolve, the real work of marriage is finding a way to relate to and nurture each other in the process. Therefore, in marriage, two universes come close together.

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