Marriage is a recognised social institution, not only for establishing and maintaining the family, but also for creating and sustaining the tiles of kinship. However, marital instability has become an issue of concern in Nigeria. It was against this background that the study investigated cultural factors and marital instability among named women in southwest, Nigeria. It explored the prevalence of marital instability and also determined the relationship between cultural factors and marital instability. The study adopted descriptive research design of the survey type. The population consisted of all married women in Government Ministries and Departments in Southwest, Nigeria while 1703 respondents were selected to form the sample of the study through multi stage sampling procedure. Cultural Factors and Marital Instability Questionnaire (CFMIQ) was self-designed by the researcher and used to collect data for the study. The instrument was validated by experts in the fields of Tests and Measurement. The reliability of the instrument was determined by conducting a pilot study to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and reliability value of 0.833 was obtained. The findings of this study revealed that the most prevalent forms of marital instability experienced by married women included unfaithfulness, disagreement, fighting, views not respected, communication gap, lack of sexual satisfaction, parental interference, lack of respect to parents and lack of care for the children. Furthermore, in-law interference and childlessness were associated with marital instability while cultural belief and religion were not associated with marital instability among married women. It was recommended among others that health educators should give more sensitization talk on sexual education and family life education.

Keywords: Cultural Factors, Marital Instability, Married Women,

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