Abstract:
Cultural diversity exists in many communities of the world. Cross cultural
marriage becomes more painful when everyone who is important
to you in your family or your partner’s family rejects you or your partner.
The purpose of this study was to explore and compare marriage relationship
in terms of the racial origin of respondents, parental acceptance of
matrimony, religion, HIV status and other factors that are likely to increase
marriage instability. For the purpose of the research, 131 married
respondents (male and female) out of 1,084 were sampled. The sampled
population was specifically selected from clients who had sought HIV
testing services at the Mary Immaculate Center, Nairobi. A case study
method with semi-structural questionnaire: Open and closed ended
questions was used to gather the data. The collated data was analyzed and
presented in graphs and tables.
The findings from the study showed that majority of marriages within the
same ethnic community tend to live up to their expectation due to shared
cultural value and beliefs though there could be a few case of misunderstanding
among the couples unlike the marriages from different ethnic
communities or race which in most cases easily end up in separation or
divorce. The findings further indicate that many people hide in religion
as ceremonial believers but do not subscribe to religious values to uphold
the institution of marriage.
Therefore, I believe that retrospective cultural beliefs and individual values
should not be dragged into marriage thereby destroying it, later leading
to moral decline of the institution of marriage. It is upon courting
couples to share their cultural values in advance in order to make marital
adjustments before committing into marriage.
