THE INFLUENCE OF PRONENESS TO SPOUSAL RAPE ON MARITAL STABILITY AMONG COUPLES

THE INFLUENCE OF PRONENESS TO SPOUSAL RAPE ON MARITAL STABILITY AMONG COUPLES

ABSTRACT

The study investigated the influence of spousal rape on marital stability among couples in Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State. The study employed the descriptive research survey for the assessment of the opinions of the respondents. The questionnaire was used to collect vital information for this study. A total of 120 (one hundred and twenty) respondents were sampled for this study to represent the entire population of the study. Four null hypotheses were tested and the following results emerged at the end of the analysis of data:

1.       Hypothesis one found that there is a significant influence of spousal rape on marital stability among couples.

2.       Hypothesis two found that there is no significant influence of socio-economic status on spousal rape among couples

3.       Hypothesis three found that religious impact spousal rape on marital stability was significant

4.       Hypothesis four found that there is a significant ethnic impact in spousal rape on marital stability among couples.

Based on the above results, it could be concluded that spousal rape influences marital stability among couples. Also, it could be concluded that religion, ethnicity and socio-economic status are one of the important factors that determine stability in marriage.

Based on the conclusions, it is recommended that for marriages to work well, couples should ensure that they abstain from those things that would make them to face marital conflicts, separation or divorce. Such things as rape, should not be mentioned amongst couples, because it is capable of derailing the marital tie between man and woman in a conjugal union, called marriage. Rape is evil, and therefore, no sane human being, man or woman should think or nurse the idea of going into it.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1    Introduction/Background to the Study 

When people hear the word ‘rape’, it often conjures a mental image; perhaps a stranger with a knife jumping out of the bushes at night, and forcing a woman to engage in sexual intercourse. Defining rape is not an easy task. Definitions come from various perspectives: from the law, the media, research, and political activism. Even within one of these domains, definitions vary (Arsworth, 2004). Mundidi (2005) sees rape as a crime which affects all members of society both as its victims, and as those close to them. Rape, according to him, is the threat, or use of force to compel one individual to engage in a sexual act with another. It is any sexual intercourse with a person by forcible compulsion or threat of forcible compulsion. It is a sexual intercourse with a person who is incapable of giving consent.

Marital dissolution, though not quite ubiquitous has become common place in many societies. Over the course of the past decades, the rate of desertions, separations or even divorce in Nigeria alone, has risen up tremendously. The number of children affected with the disruption had kept on increasing (Social Welfare Record and Data, 2000). There is need to take into account that in a marital relationship, two separate personalities are interacting, two relatively heterogeneous values and need systems confront each other and that two different behavioural systems are present (Hassan and Sotonade, 1993).

Research carried out by Sotonade (2001), has indicated that the greater the discrepancy between individual characteristics in marriage, the less stability the marital dyad is likely to have. Whether the differences between the parties have to do with age, socio-economic backgrounds, education, sexual compatibility and so on, they portend a lower degree of dyadic adjustment prior to marriage and a greater instability in the marital relationship itself. According to Zartman (2003), marital conflict is an inevitable and at least sometimes valuable component of intimate relationships. Interpersonal relationships require a continual process of negotiation and exchange which permits spouses to maximize their individual outcomes and maintain an equilibrium that satisfies both spouses. Most times, Hassan (2002) and Adeleke (2004) observed that, sexual activity solidifies marital union, and a situation where sexual activity between man and his wife is done by force and without consent, tends to yield conflict, separation and divorce among couples in marriage.

In many cultures the stigma associated with rape is extremely damaging to victims. In some cultures, women are driven to suicide or are killed by family members in order to relieve the family of their shame (Heise et al, 2004).

THE INFLUENCE OF PRONENESS TO SPOUSAL RAPE ON MARITAL STABILITY AMONG COUPLES