EXORCISING GAMETOPHOBIA AMONG THE YOUTH IN GHANA BY : OPPONG-NKANSAH SAMUEL

1. EXORCISING GAMETOPHOBIA AMONG THE YOUTH IN GHANABY:OPPONG-NKANSAH SAMUEL

2. THE PROBLEMATIC • To expose the fear of marriage among contemporary Ghanaian youth. • Thesis: • Fear of marriage is a complex manifestation of traditional thought. • Assumption: • The analogy for marriage in some Ghanaian cultures creates a ghostly fear.

3. OUTLINE - What to expect: • The workshop is designed to loosen the strong holds of the myth of marriage and strengthen the awareness on the effects of baptism through engaging presentations. Fr. Samuel will share many humorous stories and role plays. • During the first hour, you will learn how the myth about marriage induces gametophobia. In the second hour, we will work on how Baptism expels all forms of fears while learning new insights about Akan tradition. • The workshop is designed to address real-life challenges regarding the fear of marriage. There will be group discussion.This is psycho-educational workshop for the youth, but it is not therapy. • At the end of the workshop you will gain greater understanding and important communication skills about Akan systems of marriage.

4. Who Should Attend: • This marriage workshop is appropriate for premarital, engaged, married, cohabiting, happy or struggling couples. • The workshop is designed to exorcise the fear of marriage. If you have a strong relationship, this workshop will provide you with insights and tools to make it a great one. What Is the Workshop Schedule? • The workshop is organized for the unmarried youth, engaged, newlywed and seriously dating couples whose time is at a premium. We will meet at the Church of Pentecost, Oakland Assembly on Friday evening from 7:00 – 10:00 PM with refreshments served. What You Can Expect To Learn • 1. Affirm the strengths in marriage.2. Clarify the expectations people have as wives and husbands.3. Assess one’s level of fear for marriage.4. Understand the role of myth in the institution of marriage.5. Identify areas needing change.6. Learn more effective relationship skills.7. Avoid the traps of destructive interactions.8. Enhance your emotional balance for marital life.9. Create a marriage bond that instills resilience

5. Objectives: At the end of the session, participants will gain understanding on: • How to identify one of the intrinsic sources of fear for marriage among the youth • How to exorcise fear among the Ghanaian youth • How to delineate the link between some cultural analogies and the fear for marriage • How the sacrament of Baptism and its implications can aid in exorcise the ghostly fear of marriage.

6. THE CONTEXT OF PRESENTATION • The community is the context within which marriage actualizes itself. • The Ghanaian context specifically refers to Akan culture in this presentation.

7. INTRODUCTION Marriage is time-honored institution that cannot be feared, but tying the marital knot intimidates many people. This is because: • Fear of marriage prevents them from acting. • Today, marriage is in crisis: Christianity as well as the Family life is in crisis. • Many celebrities of our time chose to be unmarried. • Fear of divorce due to the current divorce rate and remarried due to potential failure. • From known and unknown reasons as well as intended and unintended reasons. BUT • The fear of marriage among many Ghanaian youth is traceable to the very myths surrounding the marriage institution. • The myth presents the skeletal imagery of marriage. The scary nature of the myth promotes gametophobia.

8. THE REALITY OF GAMETOPHOBIA IN THE GHANAIAN CONSCIOUNESS • There are visible expressions “gametophobia,” (fear of being married) among Ghanaian youth. • Etymology: • “gametophobia,” from the Greek terms “gamete,” (wife) and “gamein,” (to marry). • Technical meaning: • the term “gamete” refers to either of two types of cells that unite in reproduction to begin formation of an embryo (sperm/female eggs). • As a notion: • it delineates the abnormal and persistent fear of being married. • Implications: • sufferers of this phobia experience undue anxiety as they see marital life as a threat. • Thus, gametophobia emphasizes the progression of being afraid of the challenge of living with another person. • However, Gametophobia in Akan cosmology is fully anchored on the fact of religion and the social life. AKANS WORLD VIEW: • Life in the traditional (African) setting is a religious journey and the various stages in this journey are marked by religious ceremonies to make transition from one stage to the next smooth so that no breaks occur. This is that individual’s journey proceeds from birth to childhood and preparation through puberty for marriage and procreation, and finally to, old age and death, which ushers the individual into the land of the ancestors, to be reborn partially into one’s lineage. (cf..John Pobee, Religion, Morality and Population Dynamics, (Legon: University Of Ghana, 1977), p.105. NOTE: • Thus far, marriage has a value in and of itself. It explains Akans’ attitude towards procreation which makes it imperative that girls who reach their marital stage ought to be ritually prepared through the Bragorכ initiation rite, which enables them to be fertile and active in their procreation. In this way, Akans would say: Awufoכmpopεdodoכntesεateasefoכmeaning “Even the dead wants the majority, how about the living?” This means that in barrenness, sterility and the unmarried state, the Akan society experiences a threat to human existence and that the individual person faces sure extinction. Therefore, the inability to reproduce children is one of the greatest calamities and a man without a child is a waste. • Bragorכ is the rite of initiation for girls. It involves seclusion of the initiates for six days, in order to be brought closer to the Supernatural Beings. Thereafter, the initiate is given to sexual life, with its marital implications, social rights and duties.

9. THE MYTH SURROUNDING MARRIAGE • As an ethical principle, the notion of marriage permeates “all the moods of thought and behavior, all the experiences, the entire social heritage which are handed down from one generation to the other through communication, interaction and learning.” (reference??)

10. The Myth cont’d • The Akan culture compares marital life to the art of crossing a deep and wide flooded river. Accordingly, the river can only be crossed at a time, but it takes a male and a female to do so. REASONS: • Social norm requires that single individuals cannot cross the river. • This social norm is anchored on the principle that marriage is possible only through the partnership of shared commitments and living arrangements with the potential for offspring.

11. CORE POINTS OF THE MYTH • Necessary condition of living: • a man at a marriageable age automatically stands at the river bank, where ready-to-cross individual females are waiting for partners to cross with. • Bragoro rites delineates the nature of the readiness on the part of young maidens. • Ready-to-cross female individuals at the river bank can only do so with the help of a partner. • After mutual agreement, the man and the woman partner to cross the river. • As a result, the man bends down and carries the woman on his shoulder to cross the river. • Akans articulate this gesture as: “Berima no kuntun ho naobaa no forokotenanabatire so.” • The female partner firmly grips the man while sitting shoulder high. • This is expressed as “Obaa no were no dendenden.”

12. Linguistic strands of the myth • The term for husband and wife is “Okunu”, and “oyere” • “Okonu” is a derived word from “kuntun” meaning “to stoop/ to bend” • “oyere” is derived from the verb “yere” meaning, “to grip firmly.” • “Okunu” depicts what the husband does before, during and after marriage • “Oyere” epitomizes the role of a married woman. • By stooping to allow a woman to climb on his shoulders; and grippingly holding firm onto the seat of shoulders that she sits, a male and a female tacitly bond up to cross the marital river. • In this way, the community considers the “one who sits” and the “one who carries” as partners who willfully enter into an institution where both gain a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family. • Thus, crossing the mythological river presupposes the capacity to enter into a firm sexual union with changing structures through a permanent physical and spiritual companionship. • “osugyanii” Describes any marriageable person who remains either a bachelor or a spinsters. • “asugyafo” (plural of “osugyanii”) refers to the group of people who have not crossed the mythological river from the single state to marital state. • Ideally, such groups of persons are free from legal disabilities that prohibit marriage and so they remain marriageable. But what prevents them from marriage?

13. PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THE MYTH ON THE YOUTH Whenever we abandon ourselves to the imaginative forces of the myth, the programming results is sensually unpleasing. This is because: • The indoctrination that the myth creates is detrimental to our psychological well-being. • It prevents spiritual awakening. • It traps the minds with consciousness of the unfiltered knowledge of marriage. • It creates fear of uneasiness. • It portrays systemic mechanism of emotional entrapment • It psychologically induces anxiety in the minds of the youth.

14. The Link between Marriage and the Myth • The analogy /myth of river unravels the phenomenon of self-transcendence in marriage. • It suggests that each couple goes beyond personal/egocentric boundaries in the service of the other. • The symbolic gesture of “carrying” and allowed “to be carried” on the part of the man and the respectively breaks selfishness for mutuality. • However, the analogy /myth creates problems for those who suffer from aquaphobia/hydrophobia It enable them to suffer from gametophobia because: *** It creates a ghostly fear for the institution of marriage. *** The institution of marriage is symbolically and graphically presented as carrying a lady on one’s shoulders or sitting upon a man’s shoulders while crossing a flooded river. ***Their emotional bodies give in to fear whenever the institution of marriage is pictured. ***Compromising the desire to marry as a result of one’s own imaginative reality about “oyere” and “okunu” is seen as an alternative landing. ***The cancerous growth of gametophobia displaces the love for family life as well as the compassion for marital bond.

15. Other Causes of Gametophobia • A Fearful Denial • Fear of Stepmothers • Personal observation • Fear of the opposite sex • A poor body image • A fear of being naked • A fear of sex/inability to attach emotionally

16. SIGNS OF GAMETOPHOBIA • The individual with the fear of marriage avoid becoming involved deeply in a relationship. • May respond to others in a superficial relationship. • Pushing away the other party as becoming uncomfortably serious / Air hunger • Nausea • Trembling • Self-loathing • Elevated heart rates • Elevated body temperatures • Crying • Panic attacks

17. EXORCISING GAMETOPHOBIA THROUGH ‘RICE’OF BAPTISM An understanding of the effect of baptism in the lives of people is one of the ways to exorcise gametophobia. This is because: • In time and priority, Baptism opens the door for other sacraments. • It demythologizes fear surrounding other sacraments. • It enables us to see beyond the persistent empty traps of gametophobia. • It grants freedom to elevate consciousness beyond the imposed myths.

18. The Analogy of ‘RICE’ explains this clearly: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; [and] he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (cf. Acts 10:37-38). • The moment of baptism is a moment of self-consecration and self-dedication. It initiates our commitment to do whatever is necessary to promote the cause of God’s kingdom. In this way, Jesus identifies with the human community at baptism; and that the Holy Spirit descends to strengthen and empowered us. We can utilize the four letters of the word RICE as a memory aid for the meaning of baptism. • “R stands for Rebirth: In baptism, we are born again by water and the Holy Spirit. We are also cleansed from original sin. This qualifies us to become children of God in a special way. • “I” stands for Initiation: At baptism we are initiated or admitted into full membership in the church, the community of the children of God in the world. • “C” is for Consecration: In baptism we consecrate and dedicate ourselves to seek and to spread the kingdom of God. We commit ourselves to be servants of God, to do God’s will and serve God with our whole lives. • “E” is for Empowerment: At baptism the Holy Spirit comes into our lives and empowers us, equips us, gives us the moral strength to say no to evil and to live as God’s children that we have become. • Marriage is not only a vocation, but also a God-given mission.

19. Role of Baptism cont’d “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” infuses • Sanctifying grace, • The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, • And the three theological virtues These three spiritual treasures do not only dispel fear, but inform: a). The passive effects of baptism or what we receive from God and the people of God: rebirth, initiation, and empowerment b). The active effects or what we give to God and the people of God are: our commitment and dedication to spread the kingdom. Thus: • The active and passive effects of Baptism confront our fears and expose them for the emptiness that they are.

20. HOW TO OVERCOME GAMETOPHOBIA With the effects of baptism, the individual has the intrinsic power to: • Plan his or her married life. • Discuss all concerns before committing one to marriage. : Issues about children, management of money etc. • Pay attention to the feelings of doubt regarding the person one wants to marry. • Decide on whether one has chosen the right partner or not. • Examine the general and or non-specific issues surrounding one’s fear of marriage. • Marry the person one cannot imagined living without than marrying the person one thinks he or she can live with for the rest of life. • Manage the tyranny of “you should marry” pressures that come from families and friends even when one is not ready for marriage. • Know that it takes a whole life to complete a perfect marriage life.

21. CONCLUSION • We can infer from the above presentation that whenever emotional fear is dispelled, people become free from their mental traps. • If the darkness of marital myth is dispelled, gametophobia will not wreck the lives of many people, especially the youth. • One of the ways to exorcize the ghost of gametophobia and dispel its darkness is by deepening the efficacy of the sacrament of baptism. • The effects of baptism on the individual, the community and its culture demythologize the false imaginative realities that certain cultures associate with marriage. • Healthy understanding of marriage is a required to exorcise the fear of marriage.

22. QUESTIONS?