The Need for Marital Education in Macedonia

Abstract

In the past decades, the way marriage, marital life and intimate relationships function have considerably changed. Couples often choose to live in a non-marital community, delaying marriage and childbearing, and an increasing number of marriages are ending in divorce. Also, many relationships and marriages do not meet the needs and expectations of partners and tend to end up unhappily. Numerous personal and social consequences arise from stress in relationships, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and divorce and they influence partners, their children and ultimately the whole family and society on multiple levels. Hence, the growing interest of researchers on topics related to marriage, divorce and intimate relationships and on the way to prevent the above mentioned consequences. In order to preserve relationships and marriages, partners need to learn how to be happy in that community, and the challenges to raise healthy and happy children. A possible strategy could be premarital and/or marital education, which as educational programs are increasingly introduced worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to explore the advantages of this kind of education and to consider possibilities for its introduction in the Republic of Macedonia.