A strategy to solve traditional marital issues affecting marriage relationships in the Gusii Community, Nyamira Conference, Kenya

Abstract

When Christianity came to Gusii land for the very first time in the early 1900s, people were living primitively and practicing plural marriages. Besides one wife a man would have several others. Divorce was rampant, particularly when a woman was suspected to be barren or had only daughters and no sons. Women were beneath men. Women were there only to be seen but not to be heard. Even after conversion into Christianity, many still continue with these traditional tendencies. This has led to the researcher as a church leader to develop a strategy to sensitize the church members to the need for living faithfully to their marriage vow in accordance with biblical principles and guidelines. A series of lessons on moral patterns and Christian societal norms were developed and employed in the training sessions. After the training, the responses from both the leaders and general assembly were majorly positive. Many were remorseful about having abused God’s gift of sex and promised to recommit their lives to Christ and to their spouses. They requested that such educational programmes be implemented regularly.