Family Conciliation Office Visitors Are Less Aware of Compatibility Factors

Family
Conciliation Office Visitors Are Less Aware of Compatibility Factors

Proposal to
Require Obtaining A “Marital Life Permit” Before Marriage

 

5 August 2020

A scientific study at the University of Bahrain (UOB) showed
that those visit the Family Conciliation Office in the Kingdom of Bahrain are
less aware of the factors that contribute to marital compatibility than those
who do not visit it, calling for the provision of awareness programs to those
who are about to get married and giving them a “license” to lead marital
life.

The study was prepared by the student in Master of
Counseling Psychology program at UOB, Mohammed Bader Hashem Al-Sayed, to meet
the requirements for obtaining a master’s degree in counseling psychology.

According to the researcher, Al-Sayed, the study aims to
identify the factors that contribute to marital compatibility, as the visitors
and non-visitors of the Family Conciliation Office in the Kingdom of Bahrain
may realize.

The researcher defined marital compatibility as “the
ability to communicate and establish dialogue between spouses, compromise and
resolving conflicts that may arise between them, which is the mixing,
assimilation, containment and integration between spouses in all psychological,
physical, sexual and social aspects, in addition to the ability to express
feelings and emotions and social participation, and the ability to love and
give”.

The researcher relied on the descriptive and comparative
approach as the study’s methodology, as he selected the study sample from the
visitors and non-visitors of the Family Conciliation Office in the Kingdom of
Bahrain.

It’s worth noting that the Ministry of Justice established
the Family Conciliation Office in 2015 in accordance with a law requiring the
transfer of Sharia cases in which reconciliation is permissible to the Family
Conciliation Office before they mandatorily reach the Sharia courts.

The Family Conciliation Office aims at amicable settlement
to address marital disputes, consider marital disagreements and disputes from a
social and psychological perspective and try to resolve them with the consent
of the parties and their agreement.

The researcher relied on the marital compatibility scale
that he prepared to measure compatibility in the organizational, personal,
emotional, cultural, social, health and physical dimensions.

Moreover, the researcher Mohammed Al-Sayed indicated that
marital compatibility “indicates the psychological health of marital life,
which means the ability of both spouses to change their behavior and form a
satisfactory relationship with a life partner, and it is achieved to a high
degree among couples who have the ability to reconcile personal
differences,” explaining that “an interconnected family can achieves
greater family safety for its children, which positively impact their enjoyment
of psychological health and well-being.”

The findings showed that the non-visitors to the Family
Conciliation Office are more aware of the factors that affect marital
compatibility than its visitors. Also, the study did not show any differences
between the two samples of males and females visiting the Family Conciliation
Office in being aware of the factors contributing to marital compatibility.

Furthermore, the study called for granting a
“license” to lead marital life for those who are about to get married
and making it a necessary condition for the completion of the marriage
contract, just like the pre-marriage medical examination, by holding training
courses all about marital life for those who are about to get married, and
after completing the courses, they shall be given a “marital life license.”

Also, it called for providing awareness programs for those
who are about to get married, for their effective impact on achieving marital
and family happiness and working on developing training programs for spouses in
all marital stages to help them deal with stressful marital life situations
with wisdom and in good measure.

Stressing the importance of setting a free hotline for
family counseling to reduce spouses’ resource to courts and police stations,
and to design an awareness program to increase the awareness of those who visit
the Family Conciliation Office that instructs them on the factors contributing
to marital harmony.

The study suggested adding the service of “Know your
partner” within the “Happiness Laboratory” project of the Ministry of Health in
health centers, which is a test to get acquainted with the life partner for
those who are about to get married and are taking a pre-marriage medical examination.

The examination committee discussed the researcher Mohammed
Al-Sayed in his thesis, and it consisted of the member of the faculty in the
Department of Psychology at UOB Dr. Amani Abdulrahman Al-Shirawi as a first supervisor,
the member of the faculty in the same department Dr. Tawfiq Abdulmoneim as a
second supervisor, the faculty member in the Psychology Department Dr. Sheikha
Ahmed Al-Junaid as an internal examiner, and the faculty member at Ain Shams
University in the Arab Republic of Egypt Prof. Mohamed El-Beheiry as an
external examiner.

 

Sustainable Development Goals

4 Quality Education

 17 Partnerships for
the goals.

 

Key Words

Family Conciliation Office in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Happiness
Laboratory, marital life license, those who are about to get married, pre-marriage
medical examination, family counseling, family safety.