Pre-marital Counselling In a Multicultural Society

By Dr. Joseph Adebayo Awoyemi

Pre-marital counselling in a multicultural society is a toolkit for premarital counsellors, marital and family counsellors. It contains premarital assessment instruments, inventories and questionnaires for marital skill building and case studies. It is useful in dealing with potential marital hurts and as a channel of Gods healing through Christ Jesus. It also presents the biblical and theoretical backgrounds of the work. It explores the family and how each member relates to the family and their combined contributions to the functioning of the family as an organism. It explores activities that take place during the counselling session: activities of the couple in the presence of the counsellor and some home work. It presents tips for daily marital walk and explores live related cases studies encountered in premarital counselling. These are instruments that can be used as in counsellor training, practicum, premarital or marital counselling sessions and marital education and premarital preparations classes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781291835779

Book preview

Pre-marital Counselling In a Multicultural Society

PRE-MARITAL COUNSELLING IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2018 Joseph Adebayo Awoyemi. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN:Ebook:978-1-291-83577-9

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owners.

This book was printed in the United Kingdom

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the glory God: the creator of the heavens and the earth who by divine providence established the first human institution-Marriage – for the homeostasis of the human race

And to

My savior Christ Jesus, The author and perfector of my faith; who by divine agenda has made the publication of this book possible.

APPRECIATION

I would like to Show My Appreciation to My Dad; Prophet Cornelius Akolapo Awoyemi Who’s Prophetic Counselling Ministry and Family Leadership has Sown the Seed for My Interest in Counselling In General and Family Counselling In Particular.

And to

My Mum: Comfort Adeduntan Awoyemi who’s Ministry to Families and Children Have sensitized me to interventive Strategies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Joseph Adebayo Awoyemi is a guidance counsellor by profession and a Pastor by calling. His counselling experience roots in schools and church settings.

He holds an Honors Baccalaureate degree with major in Guidance and Counselling, a Master’s Degree in Theology with a focus on Pastoral Counselling and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree with a focus on Christian Counselling.

He has a wide teaching experience within public and private schools including faith based schools, his teaching portfolio includes secondary, adult, primary, special education and vocational training and church learning centres. He is the president of Crown Bible College.

His parents: The Reverend Cornelius Akolapo Awoyemi and Comfort Adeduntan Awoyemi are both Christians of the Prophetic Counselling Tradition in Christ Apostolic Church Nigeria.

Having been raised in that setting, the author naturally responded to God’s call into Pastoral Ministry when the time came. He is an ordained Pastor of the Pentecostal and Apostolic tradition.

Awoyemi uses Western counselling processes in conjunction with a multicultural and prophetic tradition in the helping process.

His training in Co-operative education, business, and accounting, entrepreneurship and extension methods facilitated his understanding of how people in small and large groups can co-operate and empower themselves working to better their socio-economic, mental and spiritual health. After co-operative education, he pioneered and co-founded three co-operative societies two of which are credit co-operatives and the third, an agricultural co-operative.

Joseph is also a professionally trained agriculturist and by his enriched insights in the taxonomy of flora and fauna imports knowledge from food and nutrition to bear on concepts of the holistic health for individuals and family.

Apart from this book, Dr. Awoyemi also has the following publications.

OTHER BOOKS:

i. Ethical Code for Church and Para Church Organizations. 2010.

ii. Ethical Code for Church and Para Church Organizations in a Multicultural Society. 2011, 2012.

iii. Ethical Code for Counselling in Education in a Multicultural Society. 2012.

iv. Premarital Counselling in a Multicultural Society.2014, 2015.

iv. Pregnancy: Good Health for Mother, Baby and Dad. Co-Authored BY Dr. David A Salako 2012.

v. The Spirit and Psychosomatic Therapy.2013.

vii. Strategic Food Poverty Eradication in Kwara State, Nigeria. 2015.

MUSIC ALBUMS:

1. Love Tracks. English. 2009.

2. Calvary English. 2009.

3. Kalfari: Yoruba. 2009.

4. Hello Nigeria. 2009.

5. The Law of Love (single). 2010.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Pre-marital counselling in a multicultural society is a toolkit for Premarital Counsellors, Marital and Family Counsellors and Pastoral and Christian counsellors serving in a multicultural society.

The book is a resource toolkit that contains questionnaires, assessment instruments and insights for couple’s marital skill building. It is a repertoire of knowledge that equips counsellors as they confer on persons in their life destiny on the marriage covenant. It helps the counsellor to equip persons aspiring into the marriage covenant skills that enable them to identify their situations, settings, experiences, aspirations and goals in life, which may bear on their life together after marriage. 

It seeks to equip potential couples with preventative skills in dealing with potential marital hurts and as a channel of Gods healing and liberation through Christ Jesus.

As a theoretical background the book incurs into horizons of understanding such as: counselling, psychology, philosophy, education, teaching, sociology, social work, psychiatry, medicine, religion, theology, scripture/Bible, and spirituality, economics, science, culture, and history.

Chapter One: presents the background to the study. It enlists the vision and concerns antecedent to the publication of the book. This section introduces the reader to the roots of the author’s interest in bringing about a resource book and toolkit for marriage counsellors and potential husbands and wives living in a multicultural society. It looks at marriage as a covenant rather than as contract and presents the Divine formula for marriage. It explores the need for complementarity of the spouses, looks at how Christian men and women fall for bad spouses, defines premarital counselling and enumerates its advantages over other therapies.

Chapter Two: focuses on the family, the types of families common in western cultures with a description of each type. It enumerates various functions of families, how each member relates to the institution and their combined contributions to the functioning of the family as an organism. The chapter also explores the phenomenon of blended families and the dynamics of their workings that assures family homeostasis.

Chapter Three: presents the theoretical and philosophical horizons of understanding that inform marriage and family. Here, the author excursed into the nature of man, archetypal configurations, therapy and intervention, human genealogy and relatedness, consanguinity, incest, inbreeding and the implications and applications of these in pre-marital counselling as they interact with Christian, biblical and  secular ordinances and regulations that shape the marriage institutions of nations.

Chapter Four: focuses on premarital questionnaires and other instruments that counsellors could use in premarital and family therapy. It also explores the activities that take place during the counselling sessions, which equips couples with marital skills.

Chapter Five: enlists skills, tips and essays drawn from experiences in daily living that are useful insights for counsellors and couples aspiring to get married and married couples, as well.

Chapter Six: incurs into some psycho-spiritual considerations. It explores possible origins of marital maladjustments, possible stressors, behaviors, and habits that cause marital problems and couple’s motifs, which are antecedents to relational ill health. It also explores the dynamics in courting and fiancé relating,

Chapter Seven: presents Live-Related case studies as instruments that can be used in premarital preparation classes, Counsellor training, in drama and skits, in counselor trainee practicum, in premarital and marital counselling sessions and in marital education, as well.

At the end of chapter seven, the author presents a summary, challenge and conclusions.

KEYWORDS: Pre-Marital, Counselling, Multicultural, Marriage, Covenant, Husband, Wife, Spouse, Matrimony, Family, Love, Health, Courtship, Homeostasis, Christian, Genealogy, Consanguinity, Relatedness, Religion, Theology, Spirituality, Philosophy, Intervention, Therapy, Psychology, Sociology.

FORWARD

This book is a toolkit; a resource manual envisioned to serve as a tool for marital and pre-marital counsellors. It is also of direct utility to couples aspiring to get married and those that are already married in en-skilling their life together to achieve a dynamic homeostasis. So, even if a counselling service is available to a couple, the possession and use of this book will make the counselling encounter a more understanding and comfortable one for the couple and also save a considerable amount of counselling time or sessions that the counsellor would need to engage the couple. For these reasons, the book is also recommended as a family resource book for married couples and marriage aspirants as well, that is, to guide singles that intend to or are planning to enter married life.

The book’s schema is particularly situated in the Christian faith and may have application and utility in part or in whole-in a wide variety of cultures and traditions including education.

In order to achieve success in marriage, a couple must work hard at it. In every known marriage, there are vicissitudes no matter how little they may be. Moreover, with many a marriage solemnized, rough roads lie on their paths. This is why the Bible teaches us in 1st Corinthians:

Love is long suffering and is kind; love has no envy, love is not boastful, does not behave itself inappropriately, seeks not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in injustice but rejoices in the truth; love bears all things, believes everything, endures everything.(1st Corinthians 13:4-7: Holy Bible).

The Premarital toolkit is not a magic wand for marriage: Rather, it is a resource book to give skills to potential and aspiring marital candidates. It enables couples to work out their way through life together with a good understanding of potential problems they may encounter along the way and how to deal with them whenever they arise for a true and lasting marriage covenant.

The author is of the persuasion that a well-nurtured marriage has the benefit of sustaining the physical, mental, psychological and spiritual health of individuals and the community in which they belong. Stable families are the foundation of stable nations and can directly translate to the human achievement of a stable world.

CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

This chapter presents the background to the study, enlists visions and concerns antecedent to the publication of the book. It introduces the reader to the roots of the author’s interest in bringing about a resource book and toolkit for marriage counsellors, pastoral counsellors, Christian counsellors and potential husbands and wives living in a multicultural society.

It looks at marriage as a covenant rather than a contract and presents the divine formula for marriage. It explores the need for Complementarity of the spouses: Looks at how Christian men and women fall for bad spouses and suggests ways of readjustment.

It also defines premarital counselling and enumerates its advantages over other therapies.

1.1. INTRODUCTION

In the celebrity world, marriage is nothing but a contract and a union of convenience populated by the likes of wealth hunters, popularity hunters, stardom hungry minds and entertainers. To many in that persuasion, marriage is but a tool to get noticed. It is all about public image. Here, image is everything.

In order to be successful at the contracted marriage, you must enter into an agreement often called prenuptial agreement; which in the event of the almost always inevitable, (separation or divorce) you will break even or even arrogate some more wealth, prestige or popularity to your estate. Many ordinary people erroneously subscribe to this schema and then wonder how their marriage fell apart despite their sincerity of mind.

True marriage is a covenant and not a contract. It is a covenanted intimate communion of a man and a woman that images the union and communion of the three persons in the Trinity (Godhead) – the triune God. It is subsumed in the formula propounded by the Divine Creator- God. The formula is stated thus: 1+1=1 or 2=1. It is a fusion of a whole human being and another whole human being with all the rights and privileges of being an image of God at their individual levels, fusing together as one unit- inseparable under the blessing and providence of God.

Marriage as a covenant does not need a prenuptial agreement because it is not aimed at wealth acquisition, popularity or power but on love that is subsumed in the divine agenda- with God in it.

In fact, prenuptial agreement is an antithesis to the marriage covenant and a sign that one party or both doubt or expect the relationship not to last a lifetime. Prenuptial agreement is a pointer to distrust; to potential rapacious exploitation and to a motif of putting one party in one down position. On the contrary, the marriage covenant sees both parties as co-equals in the eyes of God and so; their earthly resources are also immersed in the covenant in the same way as their spirit, psyche and soma (body).

In focusing on marriage as covenant; the question could be asked; why do couples who love each other need premarital counselling? It is the conviction of this author that no one should get married unless he/she first goes for pre-marital counselling. There may be genuine exceptions particularly punctuating human history and cultures for instance in the book of Hosea where The Lord said to Hosea, Go, take  unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim which conceived and bare him a son. (Hosea 1:2 - 3 AKJV). 

Also in the Scripture; When Mary, the mother of Jesus got pregnant of the Holy Ghost while engaged (espoused) to Joseph, it was recorded that: "¹⁹Joseph her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. ²⁰But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. (Matthew 1:19-20).

Apart from such rare occasions from the Divine, everyone should go for counselling. After Jesus’ ascension, he has sent us the Holy Ghost who gives as a gift to the church- counsellors, pastors and prophets among others. Premarital counselling has utility in the open discussion of issues that couples will face in marriage but are kept only in the subconscious during dating, romance and courtship periods. Premarital counselling brings these seemingly untouchable issues out for open discussion.

Many happily engaged couples are of the assumption that they have overcome the possibility of contributing to divorce statistics. Many assume that living together, engaging in boyfriend/girlfriend relationship or knowing a person for a long time will prepare them for marriage. The truth is almost always; they are in for surprises: boyfriend and girlfriend relationships, cohabiting, visiting union, friending or any other variation of these unions have no correlation whatsoever to marriage success. In fact, they contribute more to separation and divorce. 

What more can we say: such unions are seen in Biblical eyes as forms of concubinage. They are adultery and fornication christened as potential roads to, or alternatives to marriage.

It is always banker sure that modern couples going into marital or pseudo marital unions without proper counselling also fall into self abuse in addition to partner abuse. Such abuse is primarily spiritual abuse - the separation of oneself from the divine and the maladjustment of one’s psychic configuration. Pseudo marital unions like boyfriend/girlfriend relationships deadens the voice of conscience-the voice of God- in the human being and sets one up for psycho-emotional turbulence in the years to come.

Pseudo marital unions cheapen sex. It places the human into the category of toys, which are used for occasions of convenience and dumped or recycled to whoever might see the need. It is a market where humans voluntarily trade themselves with potential users or abusers who may categorize them as new, second hand, recyclable or scrap worthy items comparable to second hand goods or junk yards garbage.

To aspire to be a bride entering matrimony is a holy endeavor in life because it follows the pattern of the church as the bride of Christ. So also is aspiring to be a bridegroom in matrimony because it represents Christ as husband of the church.

Marriage is the first institution established and ordained by God Himself and so, it is sacred and should be held in high esteem. However, many things in the current amoral world plague its functioning and short-change humanity of its benefits. Here, Christians are not exempted. One of the threats to the Christian marriage institution is that many a Christian have bought wholesale into the worldly materialistic dungeons. Many a Christian woman is falling in their numbers for bad men and Christian men for bad women.

In light of the above, it is best to get premarital counselling before engaging in any conjugal union.

1.2. THE NEED AND FOCUS OF THE BOOK

The relevance of an informed guidebook for premarital counselling in today’s multicultural and multi ethnic society cannot be overemphasized.

The world is now a global village and people move at ease into new cultures so frequently than never before in human history.

Each culture has differing yardsticks, hopes and aspirations for conjugal unions. With this diversity, traditional pastoral training seem to be growing less and less important in the minds of marriage aspirants and so consultation with the clergy becomes a matter of for your (pastor’s) information rather than for your counsel, advice and guidance.

Bye and large, majority of marriages occur before the age of 45 years. At this time, most of the individual’s goals if single and the couples goals if married are short and medium term. Long-term goals are yet to be concretized let alone accomplished. At this point, there are high expectations and hopes of high achievements later in life. Without a plan, such expectations can become as unrealistic like fiery tales.

Many a couple also fall into the trap of using media, celebrity,  television characters, video and motion picture and secular conjugal unions as a model on which they build their life together. This is pathetic because such foundations are wrought with maladjustments that plunge genuine marriage partners into pathology. Because of the above unwholesome psycho-spiritual pathways that many modern couples trod, no sooner than a marriage is covenanted, it shakes and in over 40% of the time, it hits the rocks in less than two years.

This condition is prevalent in Europe and more so in the United Kingdom where a multicultural, multi religious and multi-denominational lebenswelt encourages a contractual rather than a covenantal conjugal union. It is worth of note also that, in the core of western civilization notably, the USA and the Britain over 50% of marriages fall apart into separation or even outright divorce between 1-5 years after the covenant. For this reason, individuals aspiring to marry need to plan to ensure that the aspirations of their potential spouses are compatible with theirs. Maintenance of family stability (covenant homeostasis) and dynamic happiness in marriage is a learnable skill.

It is in light of these that this Book is structured for general application in the contemporary Christian world as it considers the cultures of most parts of the world in dialogue with the canonized Judeo-Christian scriptures and the accepted customs and traditions of the Christian faith.

The discussion of future goals between the dyad while attending premarital counselling sessions can equip the couple in skills to prevent or overcome degenerative situations as they present themselves in the couple’s life together.

Of particular importance, here is a handbook that will equip the counsellor to lead the marital dyad to focus on their covenant: their past, present and their future aspirations and hopes. 

Such a book as this serves to equip the help-seeker in reconciling their individual pasts with the current and ongoing present and prepare them for the situations they must necessarily encounter from now, into, and through their life together.

1.3. COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN

Early in human history where people lived as hunters and gatherers, the male evolved as a hunter and the general problem solver for provisions including food, shelter and security.

The female was the homemaker who turned all raw materials into value added products and who prepared the home nest for family homeostasis. She was the bridge between the male and his offspring, the extended family and social life in the community.

Modern science especially with the advent of the brain scan and neuroscience has revealed that the male brain functions slightly differently to the female. Partly by hormonal differences and partly by socialization, the male have the preponderance for a dead ahead focus while the female’s biological system and socialization lends them to home making with the multifarious skills needed to sustain the family, integrate, and socialize within the community.

While modern society attempts to force each gender to same roles, the differential skills remain glaring. It is undisputable that the naturally imbued talents and orientation of skills are all good for the human family/society and competition is not the schema that can harness these skills. It is the principle of complementarity that can bring skills for the benefit of the family. While it is true that one gender or the other can perform all skills, the natural effectiveness, efficiency and economy of particular skills vary widely between the genders. If therefore, a couple settles on the principle of complementarity early in their relationship and each support the other in home and family making - family homeostasis will be achieved.

1.4. WHY CHRISTIAN WOMEN LOVE BAD BOYS

Here we focus on Christian women who end up with unsavory men: women who are attracted to wild men and bad boys. We summarize the bait for churched women who are yet to be close to the Lord bite - to be hooked by bad men. These baits include:

i. Excitement: A lifestyle needing excitement, action, partying, erotics and romantics and fun loving is co-terminus with being a bird at flight.  A Christian man would be ordinarily desirous of a bird that is ready to nest or roost. Most Christian men know full well that most women who pursue fun and energetic pleasures also use performance, body stimulation drugs and male hormones-(prescription and non-prescription). The unchristianised male goes all out to catch the fish or bird – if just to catch, use for a few months or years and then dump for a more homely chicken.

ii. (Women by the well syndrome): When a deep longing for love has to be addressed and a woman always feel she cannot wait, such see a need for someone now. Here, it is best to start at the foundation and get it in Christ on a daily basis, be grounded in Christ- He will help to make the right choices.

iii. Going for attractions/ Body Chemistry:  What are women attracted to in men? Most women who go for attractions or attractiveness in men go into cycles and habits that lead to not being loved, controlling relationships and inferior love relations. Here, the best way is to take time out, get help, look into those patterns and change them.

Having a pattern does not mean you are not in God’s good book- or that you have been written off in God’s salvation; it means you have another area that you need to give to God to be healed.  If you are attracted to certain types of men regardless of their unholy walk with God, ask God to heal you.

iv. Power: there may be need to feel being powerful or influential.  Women who seek power and influence are potentially domineering. Men in relationship with such women will eventually feel under the threat of being marginalized and so might shy off from such relationships. A power-loving woman is an antithesis to the biblical stance of a submissive wife.

v Manliness/ Handsomeness/ beauty/stamina depicted by phrases such as - knight in shining armor- tall and handsome –real man : connote the  need to have a partner that can satisfy their egoism; be shown off – displayed to friends, can assure them that  the manhood is physically endowed.  The physic of a man and the size of his endowment is not what can give a woman lasting joy- but the character and caring, the sacrificial loving attitude and commitment to the covenant.

vi. Money and Materials: The material girl syndrome is a sure hunger that bad men often use successfully to catch all women alike. The false notion that a man with lots of money and materials will make me happy: This is an invitation for drug dealers and criminals to sweep many a Christian woman off her feet- only to be used, abused, subjected and manipulated later in life - ending in separation and divorce and in more sorry situations, homicide.

vii. Status Hunting: A new spousal search criterion in modern Britain is hunting for the status of the potential husband or wife. Both genders are equally felled into this trap. Since most churches now relegate Holy Spirit direction (Holy Ghost manifestation now very rare) people secure themselves by looking for those with stable status even if there is no love or commitment. Here, good men and women alike are sidelined and bad boys who have desired status have sway. Here, bad boys or girls do not shy to come into churches and enmesh in membership over long periods until they hook their catch knowing full well that most churches are spiritually blindfolded.

viii. Addictions: Here, we explore the need for booze/alcohol/ wine/spirits, cigarettes et cetera. Many British and the immigrant European women are ardent boozers and smokers as well. An addicted woman will readily take on a man who signifies that it is OK for a female to booze and or smoke. There is a wide rooted deception that alcohol and cigarettes are social things and women are free as men to load their bodies with these. Wrong. They are addictive drugs that are as dangerous to individual’s health and societal health as class A drugs - classification notwithstanding.

A woman’s body that is used to drugs like alcohol and tobacco is more likely to produce disabled babies and complications in pregnancy- apart from the carcinogenic and neurological perils associated with these. A woman would be most likely engaged in extramarital fling under alcohol than when not drunk. Social drinking is actually an addiction and an avenue to extramarital relationships that could lead to separation or divorce.

Real Christian men know that marrying a woman smoker is a danger to their offspring and their own personal health- for secondary smoke is even more dangerous to the inhaling partner/child than to the smoker and alcohol in mother’s body has caused disability in many children.

ix. Women get defensive and do not admit there is a part that needs healing in their lives. Often times, the argument that by right a woman has control over her own body appears.

Such notions come from the left wing feminists fuelled by lesbians - it overlooks the fact that the partner/potential partner-the man- has the same rights also - not considering the fact that mutual submission of both partners to themselves in body, emotions, behavior, psyche and spirit is necessary for a true lasting relationship to be achieved.

x. The need to sample: Modern Europe and