hile it is common knowledge that domestic violence is pervasive among Nigerians in the US; and that many men are facing serious charges for offenses related to it, each case of matrimonial murder evokes understandable outrage. The recent murder in Missouri of a Nigerian woman, Anthonia Iheme, 28, by her estranged husband, Michael Iheme, 50, has not been any different. This tragedy, as well as the related report that over 500 Nigerian men in the US might be facing charges for taking the lives of their wives, underscores the enormity and complexity of the crisis in the Nigerian immigrant family.

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Sadly, however, even with clear evidence to the contrary, we Nigerians have the tendency to wish away the extreme but predictable corollaries of domestic violence like serious psychological and bodily harm, and death. The conditions that cause marital instability and violence do not abate on their own. We have to understand the nature and causes of the elephant of instability that we wittingly or unwittingly bring into our own homes. In doing this, we must be prepared to move beyond stereotypes, platitudes, and victim blaming.

Unfortunately, the Iheme murder will not be the last in the Nigerian community, not as long as domestic violence remains a taboo subject that we refuse to tackle frontally. Each home plagued by domestic violence, like those of the following men who killed their wives in the last five years alone: Johnny Omorogieva, John Onwuka, Kelechi Charles Emeruwa, Theophilus Ojukwu, Benjamin Unachukwu, and Ebenezer Akeredolu, is a potential slaughter house.

In the matrimonial murders involving the aforementioned Nigerian men, the following were some of the issues: the husband brought the wife from Nigeria; the wife attained financial independence and demanded some egalitarian consideration from the usually less acculturated husband; the presence of symptoms of at least one serious mental illness, especially depression; the perception of being used and abandoned, and resultant hopelessness and rage; the presence of children or the parents of either of the marital partners in the home; one or both spouses being in professions or jobs characterized by nonstandard hours and opportunity for ample overtime; and the presence of premeditation. Understanding why the above conditions lead to murder and mayhem in some families and not in others will help us to devise strategies to help families in crisis.

A couple suffering from marital instability experiences communication and problem-solving difficulties, find it difficult to work together, or to accept each other's differences. Killing is the final tragic point of marital instability, or the sad end of a series of destructive actions and inactions of a couple in a tumultuous relationship. In addition to death, marital woes may bring divorce, destitution, deportation, disability, dispossession, detention, depression, dislocation, disgrace, and other disasters as well.

What do Nigerians themselves believe causes marital instability and what do they think should be done about it. Are the causal beliefs Nigerians hold related to the types of help they would seek for this problem? Why are Nigerians not seeking professional help for their marital difficulties? What can we do to ameliorate marital instability and concomitant violence in the Nigerian community?

Many commentators have attempted to answer the questions above from different perspectives. Here I will discuss the findings of a dissertation research study that I conducted in 2006/2007, which investigated the relationship between the causal beliefs of Nigerian immigrants about mental illness and marital instability and their help-seeking preferences. Specifically, I had attempted to explore whether the patterns of the causal beliefs of Nigerian immigrants (e.g., endorsing supernatural, intrapersonal, interpersonal and personal-circumstantial causes of mental illness and marital instability) were related to their professed help seeking preferences (i.e., whether they would suggest help-seeking from formal mental health service providers like psychiatrists, marriage counselors, psychologists, and social workers; or from informal help providers or aid like religious leaders, traditional healers, and family members.

To collect data for this study, I used the 'Survey on Nigerian Immigrants' Attitudes' (SNIA), a 153 item questionnaire that I had developed. The sample was comprised of 326 Nigerian immigrants (59.3% male and 40.7% female aged 20 to 76 years) who were resident in the New York Metropolitan area. Study participants were married (80.5%), single (12.6%), divorced (4.6%), and separated (1.2 %). The rest were in civil unions, common law marriages, or were widowed. Participants were Christians (83.4%); Muslims (11.9%); African Traditional Believers (1.9%); adherents of other religions (2.5%); and no religion (0.3%); and had resided in the US for 1 to 5 years (18.4%); 6 to 10 years (21.2%); 11 to 20 years (29.7%); 21 to 25 years (16.5%); and 26 to 50 years (14.2%). Regarding the highest levels of education they had attained, 88.9% earned at least an undergraduate degree; 48.3% completed graduate studies; 7.9% attended but did not complete graduate studies; and 14.2% earned a post-graduate degree.

Through a posteriori data analysis, I identified from the patterns of the beliefs expressed by study participants, the following conceptually meaningful causal dimensions of marital instability (i.e., the different angles from which Nigerian immigrants viewed the causes of marital instability): Personal choice, Intrapersonal, Personal-circumstantial, Intradyadic-interactional, Extradyadic-interactional, Structural determinist (e.g. societal/legal/policy), and Supernatural. Each of these is explained below.

The personal choice causal dimension of marital instability comprises of items related to choices that partners make that cause their marriages to falter. Indeed, the seeds of the tall sequoia trees of marital woes or bliss are sowed in the choice of a partner a person makes, as well as in the daily choices that partners make either individually or jointly. Respondents in the study endorsed the following personal choices as possible causes of marital instability: infidelity (94.7%); involving the courts in marital affairs (90.7%); bigamy or polygamy (88.4%); putting personal ambitions above the needs, interests, and well being of spouse (87.1%); misuse of hard substances (e.g., marijuana, cocaine, or heroin) (84.2%); police involvement in marital matters (81.5%); refusal to help with household chores and childcare (79.9%); couple migrating to the US in spite of a partner's unwillingness to leave Nigeria (75.9%); exogamy (e.g., a Yoruba married to an Igbo or a Nigerian married to an African American) (54.5%); marrying outside one's socio-economic background (53.7%); a woman going back to Nigeria to bring a husband to the US (52.0%); unwillingness of women to adapt to life in the United States (51.6%); a man going back to Nigeria to bring a wife to the U.S (51.4%); one partner having more formal education than the other (50.5%); a short courtship (48.3%); and partners living together before getting married (23.8%). Other personal choices not included in the final version of the questionnaire but also relevant are marrying too early or too late and a wide age disparity between spouses.

The Intrapersonal causal dimension comprises of presumptive causes related to individual partners' genetic, medical, psychological, and psychiatric predispositions or conditions that threaten the stability of a marriage. Participants endorsed some of the causal belief items in this dimension as follows: sexual problems (93.5%); mental disorders (83.7%); childlessness (82.0%); a woman not giving birth to a male child (48.8%); and a woman not giving birth to a female child (21.9%). Intrapersonal problems go a long way in causing or contributing to the other causal factors of marital woes. For instance, it is clear that untreated mental illness and sexual problems can have deleterious effects on interpersonal relations.

Mental disorders including psychotic (e.g., schizophrenia), emotional (e.g., depression), anxiety (e.g., obsessive-compulsive), dissociative (e.g., depersonalization), and personality disorders are very serious problems that impact on marital stability. While the symptoms of some of these disorders like schizophrenia may be overt, others may be less so even though their effects on a marriage are not less grave. For instance, while personality disorders (as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -Fourth edition -DSM IV) are not easily diagnosable, their presence poses a great danger to the stability of a marriage. In fact, saving a marriage between two people with opposing personality types is an extremely difficult task even for the most skillful marriage counselor.

Clearly, a person suffering from schizoid personality disorder, who exhibits a pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships; or a person exhibiting symptoms of paranoid personality disorder, who is distrustful and suspicious of others, would find it difficult to cohabit harmoniously with a person exhibiting the symptoms of borderline personality disorder (i.e., a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self image, affects, and marked impulsivity).

Also, it will be difficult for a person suffering from avoidant personality disorder (a pervasive pattern of inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation) to deal with a grandiose, self-absorbed person who lacks empathy (i.e., as in narcissistic personality disorder).

Further, a person with dependent personality disorder or traits who is submissive, fearful of separation, and has an excessive need to be taken care of by others will be a pawn in the chessboard of a person with antisocial personality disorder, who is exploitative and joys in the violation of the rights of others.

The Personal-circumstantial causal dimension of marital instability encompasses items related to the circumstances (station in life) of marital partners (e.g., their socio-economic status, legal status, housing situation, job situation, and so on). Respondents in the study endorsed the following items in the questionnaire that were related to the personal-circumstantial dimension as thus: job loss (85.4%); spousal incarceration (80.8%); stressful life events (78.3%); having grown up in a home with parents experiencing marital instability (75.3%); a wife becoming the breadwinner of the family (70.4%); poverty (54.5%); and one or both partners not having legal residency papers or 'green card' (44.1%). Another possible cause of marital instability not included in the final version of the questionnaire but also relevant is a situation where marital partners are not legally separated or divorced but are living apart from each other (e.g., if a spouse has to work in another town or country, is in military service; or undergoing a long term hospitalization).

Intradyadic-interactional causal dimension comprises causes of marital instability that are related to the patterns of interaction between marital partners. It takes at least two people to make or break a marriage. Respondents endorsed the items related to this causal belief dimension as follows: controlling behavior (94.1%); physical aggressiveness (93.5%); lack of romance (93.5%); vindictiveness (93.5%); disrespectful behavior (92.3%); poor communication (92.2%); acts/words that arouse emotions like guilt, anger, rage, jealousy or envy (91%); not spending enough time together (89.4%); conflicting opinions about child rearing (83%); and the perception that a partner has become too "Americanized in thoughts, attitudes, and behavior (78.2%).

Extradyadic-interactional causal dimension refers to causes of marital instability that arise from the interaction of the couple with other people, including their children, members of their extended families or families of orientation, and others. The percentages of respondents that endorsed some of the causal beliefs in this dimension were: friends and associates interfering in the affairs of the family (88.8%); one partner sending more money to his/her extended family back home (78.4%); either or both parents of a marital couple living with them (72.6%); having children of one's marital partner living in the home (59.3%); not having the support of the extended family (44%); marital partners not having good relationships with their mothers in their childhood (40.5%); and marital partners not having good relationships with their fathers in their childhood (37.7%).

The structural determinist causal dimension of marital instability refers to causes related to the extraneous cultural, social, religious, economic, and legal structures of the societies into which marital partners were born, raised, or to which they have migrated. For instance, while the traditional Nigerian cultural norms emphasize the extended family system and patriarchy; polygamy is not illegal; and respect, duty, and deference of wives to their husbands are encouraged, the American system emphasizes monogamy, the nuclear family, and gender equality. Here Nigerians are confronted with new cultural paradigms and socio-economic realities that often challenge their templates of viewing reality, and overburden their traditional tools of responding to stress and crises.

Nigerians generally believe that even though seriously flawed with apparent iniquities and contradictions, the extended family system provides some measure of stability to marriages and families. With immigration to an egalitarian and individualistic Western society like the US, however, just like any other new immigrant group from a collectivist culture, Nigerians have to struggle to maintain their dignity, self-respect, identity, and temperament at the face of constant socioeconomic pressures and the structural contradictions of the individualistic American society without the support of the extended family system that they had relied on back home. With a longer length of stay, higher education, economic prosperity, and acculturation, the domestic power pendulum often swings ominously, or shifts and gets stuck in one direction. Personalities mutate in ways capable of weakening a marriage and destabilizing the family, leading to the need for change at more levels than one. At this stage, utmost wisdom, circumspection, and restraint, which are pivotal to marital stability, often give way to rashness and rage, leading to disastrous consequences for both the victims and victimizers alike. The structural deterministic items in the questionnaire were endorsed as follows; a social welfare system that makes men less relevant as providers (54.3%); a legal system that favors women over men (50.9%); and a legal system that favors men over women (31.6%).

The supernatural dimension of marital instability causation comprises factors related to real or perceived spiritual phenomena and supernatural causal agents (e.g., sins, voodoo, and curses). The relevant items were endorsed by respondents as follows: marital partners not believing in God (61.3%);evil spirits or the devil possessing one or both partners (57%); witches/sorcerers (53.9%), magical spells/hex/voodoo (47.8%); being cursed (46.1%); destiny/fate (31.2%); and God's will (21.7%). The higher the Nigerian immigrants' educational levels, the less they accepted these supernatural causal ideas for marital instability. Even then, none of these supernatural causes should be dismissed derisively as mere superstition. The causal beliefs a person holds partly determine the types of help he or she is likely to seek. A person is entitled to his or her own causal ideas for any affliction that he or she is confronting. We cannot help a person unless we understand fully what he or she believes causes his or her problems. In fact, the respondents' endorsing supernatural causation of psychosis, as well as personal-circumstantial causation of marital instability, was positively related to their preference for informal help-seeking.

Of interpersonal, intrapersonal, personal-circumstantial, and supernatural causal dimensions of marital instability, study participants opined that the interpersonal dimension was more serious than any other dimension. They endorsed the personal-circumstantial cause only greater than the supernatural cause; and there was with no significant difference found between the level of their endorsement of the personal-circumstantial cause and the intrapersonal cause.

The fact that respondents in the current study believed that interpersonal problems (comprising largely of the choices that marital partners make in intradyadic and extradyadic interactions) were the most serious threats to marital stability is consistent with the dominant thinking in the theoretical and empirical literature about the causal attributions of marital instability among other population groups in the US. In fact, all but the supernatural causal dimension are consistent with the basic assumptions of the following theories that have been used to explain marital instability in other populations: the Freudian theory (the dynamics of marital relationships, including the choice of spouses one makes and the behaviors that promote stability or instability, are defined by unconscious mechanisms or motives emanating from relationships in childhood). Structural determinist theory (the behavior of marital partners is constrained or enhanced by the character of the system in which he or she happens to participate).

Family systems theory (the family is a cybernetic system of interconnected and interdependent individuals with the actions of members having reciprocal effects on one another; a change in the behavior of a marital partner or child has an effect on the other members of the family). Social-exchange theory (marital partners will always try to minimize costs and maximize rewards in their relationships. The outcome of a marital union is dependent on the level of rewards relative to the costs that each member is able to derive). Equity theory (when either partner in a relationship is getting back too much or too little relative to what he or she is contributing to it, the partner under-benefiting will attempt to restore equity. If inequity persists in a marital situation and attempts to redress it fail, and the under-benefiting partner cannot find a psychological justification to continue the relationship, he or she may decide to terminate the marriage. The asymmetric inequity hypothesis holds that a marriage is at a greater risk for disruption the more the wife feels under-benefited in the relationship.

It is important to note that the dimensions of causality discussed above are interrelated, with some items overlapping two or more dimensions. For instance, our intrapersonal characteristics may affect the types of personal choices that we make. Our individual choices may also affect the quality of our interpersonal relations with our spouses and others. Navigating the labyrinthine thought processes leading a person to murder his wife, or fully understanding the logic or the context of matrimonial murder well enough to fashion an effective preventive or redemptive response, therefore, requires a thorough understanding of intrapersonal, interpersonal, personal-circumstantial and supernatural ideas of causation. Redemptive strategies have to be based not just on the individual dysfunctions that engender marital instability but also the familial dysfunctions (nuclear, extended, and orientation) as well.

Just as the causes of marital instability are not simple and linear, the solutions to it are anything but simple or easy. For instance, it is not enough to say that because most of the victims of matrimonial murders have been Nigerian nurses, the solution is for men to stop marrying nurses, as one commentator curiously suggested. How far can we get with solving the problem of wife killing if men continue to claim that the economic independence of women in America and their consciousness of their rights and the resultant attenuation of the authority and power of husbands are the only causes; and women continue to claim that it is only the men's inability to adapt to the American society that causes marital woes?

While it is easy to blame the perpetrators of domestic violence and murderers, the implacable witches and sorcerers remotely attacking our marriages and minds from Nigeria, or the American social welfare and legal systems that give women more autonomy and protection and often tilt the power equations to their benefit, for all the woes bedeviling the Nigerian immigrant family, these can only be parts of the problems. For instance, studying the lives of people from the other ethnic groups in the US who do not believe in some of our supernatural causal ideas often suggests that our marital woes do not always have their origins in our faithlessness, fate, the mirrors of dibias, or in the cauldrons of some aggrieved witches. We also have to look at the demons in us that drive the choices we make.