The Childless Couple Efforts to Harmonize Their Marital Relationships (original) (raw)

Constructing the Meaning of Childlessness within the Luo Community of Western Kenya

Ochieng, E. (2019). Constructing the Meaning of Childlessness within the Luo Community of Western Kenya. Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies. 3 (3), 14 – 35., 2019

The aim of this article is to examine the issue of childlessness among the Luo people of western Kenya through the prism of the Church and indigenous culture. Generally, the knowledge people have of certain things is always as a result of what the society attributes to the phenomena in question. The society gives names and meaning to various things. Sometimes the meaning of a particular phenomenon varies from one community to another. There are certain things that one can only understand the meaning if the person belongs or perceives the meaning within the context of that particular society. Childlessness is one terminology that may seem quite obvious to many people, however, according to the Luo community, this term goes deeper than just having no child. The findings are part of a larger study that was done in Western Kenya, through a cross-sectional field research. The study targeted Catholic childless couples, Priests, Catechists and Small Christian Community (SCC) leaders. Samples for the study were drawn from these target groups using snowball sampling for childless couples, purposive sampling for priests and catechists, and, systematic sampling for SCC leaders. Primary data was collected through in-depth oral interviews and Focus Group Discussions. The secondary data was obtained from the published articles, textbooks, Church records, diocesan archives, pastoral letters and papal encyclicals. The data was coded and analyzed thematically and presented in a descriptive form using narratives. The findings of this study were that, childlessness has a deeper meaning than having no offspring. The study recommends that when approaching issues of childlessness among the Luo people, it is important to consider their worldview to avoid misunderstanding.