The church is sacrosanct, but one woman recently went against the grain by questioning the place of the teachings it gives couples before marriage, commonly known as premarital counselling.
“Christians [say] premarital counselling is so important. The whole time it’s a course on how to please your husband and self-erasure,” she wrote in a TikTok post.
It came as no surprise that reactions swirled in from people of different persuasions. Christian Puritans saw no problem with what the Church offers. Conversely, those a bit detached from the pulpit argued how much of a point she had.
Before saying “I do”, couples are advised to spend some time, which can go up to six months, attending training together. These sessions are meant to prepare them for spending the rest of their lives together. Churches often make these sessions mandatory before they can officiate weddings.
A generic course outline we came across contains topics like marital expectations, roles, responsibilities, and decision making; relating with in-laws; resolving conflict; finances; divorce and remarriage, among others.
So, is the content that the Church is training stuck in a scripture time warp? The debate continued when we contacted...
Rev Dr Simon Oriedo, who believes the scriptures shouldn’t be read rigidly: “The Bible was written within a context.”
Rev Oriedo, an Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) minister serving at St. Veronica Parish in South B, in the Diocese of Nairobi, said some scriptures were written to address the societies of their time.
“When Paul uses some of those words in the 1st and 2nd Century, he’s addressing his context then, which was quite patriarchal, in which men were like kings,” said Rev Oriedo.
One of the most frequently cited verses in the Bible during premarital counselling is the passage where the Apostle Paul advises the Ephesians that men should love their wives as Christ loves the Church, whereas women should submit to their husbands.
Another one by the disciple Peter advises women to submit themselves to their husbands unconditionally.
“The Bible was written within a context, addressing a particular people at their time,” said Rev Oriedo, who added that if such contexts are drawn directly to today, they will “fall flat”.
“Any pastor or counsellor today who is using biblical counselling but is using a literal interpretation will be making a big mistake,” he added.
Some Christian-based couple counselling programmes have been accused of promoting subservience among women.
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“If one has an experience of going through premarital counselling through a pastor who believes in just ‘the Bible says’, but does not interpret what the Bible says and relate it to today’s context, it will really make a woman not attend any other counselling. She will feel like a victim, like a sheep taken to a slaughter. And the man will come out the victor: ‘Didn’t you hear the pastor saying you obey me and submit to me?’ That should not be the goal of premarital counselling. First, it should be to debunk and correct the whole patriarchal interpretation and bring inclusivity,” the preacher said.
In late 2025, Dr Oriedo released the book Marriage in Dynamic Cultural Societies: An African-Christian Perspective. It explores the various ways Christianity and tradition can melt in the pot of modernity.
In Rev Oriedo’s view, marriage is an engagement of equals.
“Dating is that time of negotiation, which shows they are equal partners. So, when they enter a marriage, nobody is coming in less than the other.”
The preacher routinely invites couples to reflect on how much they know about their partners and tells them of the sacrifices they will have to make in their married life.
The ACK Nairobi Diocese, he said, has designed a premarital counselling curriculum that takes six months.
“It is not something that is going to be rushed,” he said, noting that every diocese has its own training schedule.
While explaining the importance of premarital counselling, Rev Oriedo said: “One, you have never been married before. That’s why you need it. You cannot go into football without learning the techniques, the rules, the dos and don’ts of the game. And so, premarital counselling prepares you for a new life you’re going to live; new responsibilities you’re going to have.”
He added, “As a marriage goes through dynamics and changes and challenges come in, if I didn’t give you a grounding that will make you also flexible to be able to adapt to the change that will be coming, you will fail.”
Not-so-rosy days of their marriage
Even matters of sex are discussed at the sessions. For a good reason: when it comes to virgins, some things can be messy.
“There are those who think sex should be done when the lights are off. He has never seen a woman naked. She has never seen a man naked. So, such kinds of talks during premarital counselling are most crucial. You don’t go into marriage naive. You go prepared,” he explained.
Elizabeth Maghanga, a businesswoman, says the counselling she got in 2012 has helped her marriage a great deal: “When you build your foundations well, you won’t struggle a lot in the course of the marriage.”
The mother of three is proud of the premarital counselling she got at the ACK Church in Mombasa in 2012. It lasted three months.
“I never even knew that everybody has temperament,” added the Nairobi-based trader who runs a salon. “I had to research to get to know what kind of a person I was marrying.”
“There are things you get to learn and you start a marriage knowing them, like perhaps your partner wants to be domineering, or is a person who has to be pushed. So, I can say that in a way, the counselling helped us. The foundation was good,” Ms Maghanga went on.
“We were told that by that time, if your partner steps on you, you wouldn’t see it as an issue. But a time will come when something very small will irritate you,” she said. “So, at least we know knew even when children come, things would change this or that way.”
Regarding whether the training is designed to disempower women, she replied: “I won’t speak much about the person who thinks it favours men. But as for me, I can say it helps both sides.”
Due to the good grounding they got, she says her husband is often called upon to solve problems in other marriages.
“I have seen him help a lot of people in marriage. A lot of people seek his advice in our church, and even at his workplace, people come to him when they have issues in their marriages. There were times I would tell him, ‘You should just start an office to offer marriage counselling,’” Ms Maghanga said, laughing.
Grace Kariuki, a marriage and family therapist, thinks the Church should be more practical:
Ms Kariuki agrees that in church-based counselling, “there can be an overemphasis on the role of the woman to be submissive due to interpretations of the holy scriptures”.
“An example is the doctrine about men loving their wives, and women submitting to the man because he is the head,” she noted.
To balance the scriptural directions and the practicalities of marriage, she urges wisdom.
“Adding information on the psychological and emotional needs of male and female in the marital relationship can go a long way in increasing understanding and mutual respect as the couple builds the relationship,” said Ms Kairuki.
There is a consensus that it is good to get some guidance before starting to live with someone under one roof.
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Purity Nyanchama, a teacher, wishes she got counselling before she went into a ‘situationship’ in 2019: “We broke up because I had too many expectations.”
Ms Nyanchama got into a “situationship” with a man at the age of 24 in 2019 because she fell pregnant. She wishes they had some level of counselling before they began their life together.
“I got into a situationship marriage, the kind where you don’t plan. It just happened. We were like: ‘The baby is here, what do we do? Just get married,” she said. “We were both young and green.”
When the rubber met the road, she was disappointed.
“Nobody was aware what marriage was all about,” she said. “I got into marriage with the expectations, but none of it got to happen... I had a marriage in my head, which doesn’t happen in the real world. When we started living together, everything that happened was the total opposite of my expectations.”
They went their separate ways in June 2024. The child who brought them together has since died, but they have two more. Ms Nyanchama said that despite the 2024 break-up, they are “back together, but...”
She believes that with counselling, their marriage would have fared better.
“I didn’t have people to talk to. I didn’t have people to give me knowledge about what marriage is, what is doable and what isn’t,” she said. “That’s why I wish I had somebody to talk to me about what real marriage is, the right expectations so I don’t over-expect. It was like I was expecting miracles.”
Counsellor Nicoleta Mungai brings up scriptures at the tail end of her premarital sessions with couples: “When you are done, this is the time you integrate Christianity with psychology.”
Ms Mungai, who has been a counsellor since 2012 and has a master’s in marriage and family therapy, spent a few minutes explaining what premarital counselling should entail.
In her world, the period before marriage should be the time to ask all the hard questions.
The place of friends in a marriage
She prefers to have partners rise above the emotions and engage their minds. She advocates for family background checks, such as a history of chronic diseases.
“Some people will not disclose that. But at this particular time, go deep,” said the psychologist.
“Get deep to know: was there another life before so and so came into the picture? Sometimes you’ll find, at the time you talk about what is happening, someone could be having other relationships and they are not faithful. You’ll get to know in the premarital [counselling] stage,” said Ms Mungai.
For her, it is better for people to break up at that stage rather than proceed and hit roadblocks soon.
“I’ve done that many times,” she said. “I’ve done several, where you do pre-marriage counselling, and then someone stands up and tells me, ‘Nicoleta, I don’t feel like it’s the right time to do my wedding. There are things I didn’t know’.”
She also brings up issues of intimacy and attitudes towards polygamy, among other topics. She makes sure the two discuss how many children each would want.
Regarding children, she also poses the question: “What if they don’t come? What if you get a special one? What if death comes?”
They also discuss the place of friends in a marriage and the boundaries to set for them. Equally, she ensures one is familiar with the ways of the tribe they are marrying into, in the case of cross-cultural unions.
In Ms Mugai’s opinion, society does little to prepare men for their duties as husbands, unlike women, who always have people ready to teach them.
“We [women] are very generous with the information,” she said.
When all has been said and done, she then brings up the matter of faith.
“You do not bring faith into this, because there are people who are not even getting married in the context of Christianity. Some are Muslims,” she said.
Marriage and family therapist Joan Kamere makes couples write vision statements: “When couples leave premarital counselling, they depart with a vision.”
Ms Kamere, a licensed marriage and family therapist, prefers to keep her premarital counselling sessions grounded in “evidence-based psychological and relational research”. As such, religious sentiment has little to do with her engagements with people in love.
One of the activities she ensures couples on premarital counselling go through is creating a relationship vision statement.
“Drafted in the first session, this becomes a reference point throughout the entire premarital programme. Research into marital stability suggests that couples who create ‘shared meaning’ early on are significantly more resilient in the face of conflict,” she said.
“After completing the rigorous 8-week programme, the couple is asked to review their vision with fresh eyes to determine if it still aligns with how they feel after weeks of counselling. Often, the vision is refined and updated to reflect the growth and new tools they have acquired,” added Ms Kamere, the founder of JK Therapy KE.
The debate still rages, but the consensus seems to have been reached already: that it is good to get some guidance before starting to live with someone under one roof. With or without scriptures.
