NJSWE Paper

Most sub-Saharan African countries including Nigeria, encourage marital stability, however, the rate of marital dissolution keeps increasing. Previous studies have focused majorly on the effects of marital instability on children and society with little attention paid to personal factors as correlates of marital stability (MS) among the Igbos who have very low rate of divorce and whose culture frowns at divorce. This study, therefore, was designed to examine personal factors (commitment to marital vows-CMVs, and economy-EC) as correlates of marital stability among Igbo couples in Ibadan, Oyo-State, Nigeria. Social exchange and economic model based theories served as the anchor, while the descriptive survey design was adopted. A multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted for this study which included: cluster, purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques. The cluster sampling technique was used to identify various Igbo associations and settlements while the purposive sampling technique was used to select the three urban Local Government Areas namely: Ibadan North, Ibadan North-West and Ibadan North-East. The stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 600 Igbo couples (IC) who were 50 years and above and had been married for at least 20 years. Instruments used were Personal Factors Questionnaire with two sub-scales (r=0.93) and marital stability (MS) (r=0.76). Quantitative data were analysed using percentages, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis. Findings showed that commitment to marital vows (CMVs) r=0.610 and economy (EC) r=0.578 had correlation with marital stability. Furthermore, commitment to marital vow was a more significant predictor of marital stability (β= 0.483, t =3.146, p < 0.05), followed by economy (β = 0.432, t = 2.813, p < 0.05) with coefficient of determination of R2 = 0.220. The study, therefore, recommended among other things, that young couples should remain committed to their marital vows in order to achieve lasting fulfillment in their marriages.