Lawyer Anthony Osei-Poku, the Registrar of Marriages and Divorces of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has urged in depth - pre-marriage counselling by the different religious faiths to expose the youth to the stark realities of marriage.

He also advised religious leaders to avoid match-making whiles also calling on young couples to exercise restraint and seek wise counselling when they encountered marital problems.

This he said would go a long way to reduce the increasing dissolution of marriages among youthful couples- a phenomenon which has dire consequence on women, children and the economy of the entire nation.

Lawyer Osei-Poku, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said victims that suffer most from blighted love relationships are women and children and they go through traumas leading to mental disorders, child delinquencies, and low productivity at work places.

He blamed the situation on widely-held misconceptions of marriage among the youth who erroneously think that the institution is a “bed of roses “ and are thus fascinated only by the fanfare accompanying weddings as viewed in soap operas and movies.

The KMA Boss mentioned issues of child birth, lack of communication and tolerance, sexual harassment, maltreatment and adultery as the general causes of divorce, adding that, the absence of good sexual relationship in marriage is a latent but a major cause of most divorces”.

Quoting figures to buttress his point, he said out of a total of 1,189 customary marriages registered at the KMA during the year 2013, 2014 and the first quarter of this year, 25 were dissolved and that those in the 18-40 age bracket constituted the highest percentage.

He could however not readily give the percentage figure.