The Relationship Between Social Intelligence And Marital Harmony Among Married Catholics In Edo And Delta States, Nigeria.

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue III, March 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

The Relationship Between Social Intelligence And Marital Harmony Among Married Catholics In Edo And Delta States, Nigeria.

Obiemeka, Eucharia Nkechi, Ph.D¹, Prof. Ugoji, Florence Ngozi², Agboola, James Odunayo Ph.D³

¹Department of Educational Evaluation and Counselling Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Benin, Edo State, Nigeria

²Department of Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Delta State University, Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria

³Department of Education, Benson Idahosa University, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT
This study examined the relationship between social intelligence and marital harmony among married Catholics in Edo and Delta States. Using the multi-stage sampling procedure, the study investigated the relationship between social Intelligence and marital harmony among 606 married Catholics from 43 catholic parishes in Edo and Delta State Nigeria. Two instruments were used. These include the Social Intelligence Scale and Marital Harmony Scale. Data were analysed using simple regression and multiple regression analysis. The result suggested that social intelligence, moderating variables of duration of marriage and educational status have a positive correlation with marital harmony of the married Catholics. It was however, recommended that marriage counsellors should organize workshops, seminars for intending couples and married persons on how to spend quality time and instil the skills of social intelligence in their relationship.

Keywords: Marital Harmony, Social Intelligence, Married Catholics

Introduction

A socially intelligent individual is equipped for creating satisfactory conduct for the benefit of accomplishing needed social objectives. It indicates to what extent an individual possesses capabilities like social aptitudes, social data processing, social awareness, and social desirability and it examines the ability to use communication skills, friendly relationships with others, social behaviour and empathy with others (Mohammadian, 2006). People with high social intelligence have the ability to produce the proper behaviour for reaching and achieving their desired social goals (Saffarinia, Solgi & Tavakkoli, 2011). Also they use all of their psychological and physical quality so as to have powerful relationship with others (Rezaei & Khalilzadeh, 2009). However, marital harmony is the dream of every couple around the world, including Nigeria and many religious groups, especially the Catholic Church, holds in high esteem the sanctity of the married life (Rezaei, & Khalilzadeh, 2009).
Harmony in marriage entails agreement in feelings, actions, ideas, interests, peaceable or friendly relations between husband and wife which subsequently extends to their children and people around them. Although it appears that, despite this expectations brought about by marital harmony in society, documented and undocumented evidences point to the fact that many married persons are facing different challenges arising from incompatibility, disagreement, lack of understanding, intrusion from third party, amongst others (Aminpoor, 2013). It could be believable that once the harmony between married persons becomes strained, the entirety of the marital relationship may be heading for a crash. In the Nigerian society, there could be instances where newly wedded couples and those who had been married for long just suddenly do not have reasons why they should remain in the union. It is also possible to see couples engaging in unresolved conflicts, abandoning their marriages, experiencing threat of divorce and eventual divorce among other incidents. All these incidents pose a lot of concern to the caring individuals and the children seem to be at the receiving end as they bear the resultant effects. Children reared in such atmosphere laden with negative experiences may be a threat to the society. In addition, the alarming rate of divorce in Nigeria, the number of broken homes and stories of wife abuse are some of the indicators which are increasingly raising lots of questions concerning the harmony between couples. Adding to this is the fact that these incidents are no longer occasional incidents but frequent one in most communities (Doğan & Eryılmaz). In this study, the moderating variables of duration of marriage and educational status were thought to have the capacity of affecting the study outcomes and that was why they were studied alongside the independent variable (social intelligence) and the dependent variable (marital harmony) to know their level of interactions among them. It appears therefore, that the difficulties involved in achieving marital harmony may be connected with poor social intelligence for this determinant occupy a pivotal role in marital harmony and fulfilment.

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