CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
    Sacred vows of marriage according to Ripley, Everett, Worthington, Bromley and Kemper, (2005) are viewed as a permanent sacrifice for some, while others see them as alterable agreements. The word has both religious and secular meanings. Some cohorts (particularly younger ones) view marriage as an “old-fashioned” and outdated tradition, while others believe it to be a critical part of living a fulfilled life and are actively involved in political initiatives to protect the “sanctity of marriage” (Ripley, et.al 2005). Although the meaning assigned to marriage may vary from person-to-person and culture to culture, it is one of the sociocultural activities practiced in all part of the world.
    Irrespective of how romantic marriage might be, no marriage is freed from conflict. To worsen it Teachman, Tedrow, and Crowder (2000) claimed half of all first marriages will end in divorce, and one-fifth of those unions will do so within the first five years of marriage (Bramlett & Moshere, 2001). Second marriages according to National Center for Health Statistics, 2002) have even greater divorcing rates with roughly 60% ending their marriage within the first five years. Marital distress and divorce negatively affects adults, children, and the community (Gardiner, Giese, & Parrott, 2004), and the immediate and long-term personal and social consequences of divorce have been well documented in the literature (Amato, 2000; Amato & Cheadle, 2005; Waite & Gallagher, 2000; Wilson, 2005). Hence, more attention is given to factors resulting in divorce and how they can be prevented.
    A growing area of research regarding marital divorce has involved identifying risk factors for divorce and incorporating skills for coping with these risk factors into the content of premarital and marital education (Carroll & Doherty, 2003; Halford, Markman, Kline, & Stanley, 2003). At the same time, there has been increased advocacy for marriage preparation as a substantial measure for helping couples identify and potentially reduce risk factors associated with divorce and the important need for couples to participate in such educational services. As Bruhm and Hill (2004) have argued, professionals need to help couples become better prepared for the overwhelming task of creating a happy, healthy, beneficial relationship. Thus, attention needs to be paid to assisting couples in starting their marriage with the skills they need to foster successful relationships.
    With the continued attention given to causes of marital distress it was observed that one of the more significant premarital factors contributing to divorce is unrealistic expectations that individuals bring with them into marriage (Sharp & Ganong, 2000). Studies have demonstrated that what partners expect to receive from their relationships affects their assessments of those relationships (McNulty & Karney, 2002). According to Sharp and Ganong, (2000) research on unrealistically high marital expectations suggests that the content of marriage preparation programming should be reality-focused with a
special component on expectations (Risch, Riley, & Lawler, 2003), and how certain marital expectations can both negatively and positively impact couple relationships.
    This study is interested in the marital expectations of young female. Several factors have been attributed to shape couples marital expectations some of which include age, gender, parent, ethnicity, religion, peer group and the media among others. Children learn with age and their expectations may change as they grow since they are prone to gain insight into how things work. Gender also influences marital expectations as in most developing countries it was argued that the roles of men in the family are closely linked to the attributes of masculinity (Silvia, 1999) while ladies are expected to spend most of their time at home attending to their children, husband and domestic chores. Parent divorce has been found to influence their children marital expectations for instance Boyer-Pennington (2001) asserted that parental dynamics significantly impact children’s attitudes and beliefs about marriage. Researchers in this area have found that children who witnessed high levels of conflict and dissatisfaction in their parents’ marriage are more likely to become adolescents who report having doubts about their ability to feel satisfied and fully committed to their future marriages (Amato & Booth, 2001).
    More recently, the media has been affirmed to create a distorted illustration of real life marriage scenarios. Children often spend more time watching TV than before and most of these children make their movie characters their role model. These children often grow up still clinging to their TV stereotype as a promise of the ideal marriage and family. Not only are these unrealistic beliefs potentially destructive to future relationships, they are also incredibly difficult to alter. Johnson (2011) used a pre-post design to assess the effectiveness of a marital education program. She found that many of her young adult students held unrealistic beliefs about marriage. By presenting information and lectures designed to expose the students to the difficulties that commonly arise in most marriages (sexuality, building intimacy, communication among others), she was hoping to deflate their belief bubble, helping them to adopt a more realistic understanding of what marriage entails. Unfortunately, the individuals who endorsed inflated beliefs about marital bliss on the pre-test responded similarly on the post-test (Johnson, 2011).