Attitudes towards marital counselling and the Family Law Act (1996) in a British Asian community

People of South Asian origin represent one of the largest ethnic minority population in Britain. However, research into the marital beliefs and attitudes towards relationship dissolution of British South Asians has tended to conflate together different South Asian groups of different religious and geographic origins. This study focused on one large religious group originating from one region (Hindus from Gujarat) resident in one large British town. 70 married couples participated in detailed interviews describing their attitudes to the use of formal and informal support counselling services available in times of marital crisis, and their response to the provisions of the new Family Law Act (1996) in Britain. Findings indicate that, whilst most British Hindu-Gujaratis are willing in principle to use counselling services to save a failing marriage, there are age, occupational and caste differences in knowledge of, and attitudes towards, counselling provision. Furthermore, there were important reservations across the sample about the location of services and the ethnic background of the counsellor employed.