Kumasi (Ashanti
Region) 03 December 2002- Married couples have been advised to avoid resorting to
the use of divorce as a solution to their marital problems since such an
approach only goes to compound the state of affairs in the marital home.
Mrs Thedosia Jackson,
a marriage counsellor, who gave the advice, said instead, couples should make
use of dialogue and counsel from marriage experts to seek solutions to any
misunderstandings that they may be faced with in their marriage lives.
She was launching a
42-page book entitled "Marriage, Prison or Paradise" authored by Mr
Vincent K.A. Acquaah, a family life counsellor, in Kumasi on Sunday. The book,
which is in five chapters, is designed to enlighten married couples more on the
relevance of marriage and the need for its sustenance and also provides counsel
and guidance to those young people intending to enter into marriage.
The books were
dedicated by the Reverend Ransford Obeng of the Calvary Charismatic Centre (CCC)
with the first copy being auctioned at one million cedis.
Speaking at the
ceremony, Mr Acquaah, the author and a lecturer at the School of Engineering,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), said he was
motivated to write the book after a survey he conducted showed clearly that
most marriages that had collapsed were the result of the lack of adequate
knowledge about the essence of marriage.
He observed that even
though marriage as an institution "is for support and companionship, most
people in our part of the world go into it with the wrong perception that it is
only for child-bearing, thereby failing to develop any affection or genuine
friendship for their partners".
Mr. Acquaah stressed,
"Such a perception about couples coming together in marriage only for
children must change and until people fully appreciate that marriage is just
not for only child bearing but more importantly for companionship, we may
continue to witness many divorce cases and broken families".
Mrs Judith Agyemang,
Managing Director of Kapital Radio, a Kumasi-based FM station, stated that,
"no one is an authority in marriage as marriage is a mysterious
institution whose success depends on only the guidance of God and learning from
the experience of those already in it".
GRi…/
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