Impact of girl-child early marriage on the level of divorce among some northerners in Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the impact of girl-child early marriage on the level of divorce among some Northerners in Kano State, Nigeria. Two research hypotheses guided the study. The study was limited to underaged married women from four local government areas of Kano State namely Nasarawa, Dawakin Tofa, Sumaila and Takai. Descriptive survey research design was used in the study. Two hundred (200) underaged married women were sampled using simple random sampling technique. A 20 item Researcher constructed questionnaire titled Impact of Early Marriage on Level of Divorce Questionnaire (IEMLDQ) was used for data collection. The questionnaire has a reliability coefficient of 0.76. The data collected were analysed using t-test statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the analysis showed that there is a significant impact of girl-child early marriage on the level of divorce and there is a significant impact of maturity on the level of divorce among some northerners. Counselling implications based on the findings were discussed among them is that counsellors should campaign against girl-child early marriage by creating awareness about negative impact of girl-child early marriage. Based on these findings, the study recommends among others that people from northern states should be counselled on the dangers of girl-child early marriage and their impact on level of divorce. Again, parents should be encouraged to send their girl-child to school because education is the key.

Keywords: Girl-child, marriage, early marriage, Divorce