On daily basis men and women fall in love and likewise fall out of love. It is now a thing of deliberation among the young and the old. A lot of people get into marriage without going through dating while many get married after long time of dating. Now the question is: is there any need for dating before getting married to someone?

Before I continue in this article, I want to give a recent incident that just happened as a result of the above topic. A friend of mine by name Christiana an Igbo girl from Imo State in Nigeria. One time last year she called me on phone and was telling me about  men coming for her hand in marriage and who her aunty who she was living with having being seeing multiples of suitors that troops their house asking for her hand in marriage. There was so much pressure on her to get married to any one of the people coming for her hand in marriage.  It continues like that for months, the pressure by her aunty and some other members of the family was becoming unbearable to her that she decided to love one amongst others out of pity.  The man went to meet the family of the lady, thereafter, traditional marriage was fixed and celebrated, and a day after their white wedding also took place they became husband and wife.

After the wedding, they went to South Africa for their honey moon, but to the greatest surprise of every one, it was just during the honey moon of the just wedded couple that the just baby marriage was terminated, reason best known to them. The essence of dating before getting married, it is so obvious to understand but thousands finds it difficult to believe in it. On several occasion open interview has been conducted were many spoke their individual minds on the importance of courtship before getting married. At the end of the interview the record shown was 75% to 25% agreed to disagree respectively. Thousand has felled victim and many hurt as a result of this dating issue.

In courtship, that is where you get to study and know about who you intend getting married to, in courtship you learn what to tolerate in your fiancée and what not to tolerate. In courtship you give adequate time to groom your spouse to the standard in which you want her to operate so that if she does not want to operate within such level with you, you can take a decisive decision on whether to manage it for the rest of your life or quite it. Marriage as I was meant to understand is an institution of life time.

Many young men and women jump into it without adequate knowledge about it and jump out within couple of months while because there are no proper examination and study between themselves. If men and women of nowadays, will give adequate attention to this very aspect of life, honestly speaking there must be a turn around in lasting marriages. It is high time young men and women read books about marriage, read books about courtship and relationship as to be grounded in the knowledge of life partner and what it is all about. 

Innocent Iyke

Abuja Nigeria

innocentmsn@yahoo.com