Abstract:
The high rate of couple detachment with each other in the Kenyan Church and society at
large has become a real threat in married couple‟s health relationship. Based on attachment
theory, the purpose of the study was to identify how early parental child attachment style
influence married couple attachment style. The objectives of the study included such as;
exploring on how early parental child attachment style influences a married couple‟s
attachment style; examining the influence of attachment style perception construct in early
parental child attachment style on married couple‟s attachment style and; exploring on how
the father figure and the mother figure attachment style influences a married couple‟s
attachment style. Participants were drawn from Nairobi Christian Centre in Nairobi County
and consisted of 20 married couples in the Church. Of these, 20 participants were male and
20 other participants were female in their different stages of marital couple relationship. The
study adopted a correlational research design which sought to examine the relationship
between the variables. A questionnaire was used to collect data in the study. Respondents
were sampled using simple random sampling from the total population of all the married
couples in the Church. A Multiple Logistic Regression analysis was done to test for the
relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable simultaneously. A
Pearson Correlation Coefficient was done to measure the linear correlation between early
parental child attachment style and couple attachment style. The data was analysed
quantitatively and the results presented using charts, graphs and frequency tables. In the
findings, the descriptive statistics on the Multiple Logistic Regression analysis demonstrated
a positive relationship that was identified where an early parental child attachment style
influenced the couples‟ attachment style. The emotional availability of the parents was
significantly acknowledged by the couples as assumed by the research study. The Pearson
correlation coefficient of 0.857, with a P-Value of 0.000 indicated the significance of father
and/or mother figure early childhood attachment style influence on couple attachment style.
Since the research was conducted in a church setting and based on attachment theory,
religious and spiritual value influences can be factored in future researches.
