The Sunday Mail
Tendai Mbirimi
Dysfunctional marriages of today shape society’s behaviour of tomorrow. What parents are sowing and scattering in their various matrimonial fields before today’s youths, silhouettes conduct of the generation to come.
For long, the church has been regarded as pivotal in shaping society’s behaviour for the better in line with traditional reputable norms and values. Without taking anything from today’s church, some church systems and prophesies have paralysed the human fabric of the extended family, involving aunties which used to resolve simple marital disputes effectively.
Allegations of sorcery and witchcraft courtesy of fly-by-night prophets against other members of the family are among the major contributors of discord in most families, thereby forcing newly-weds to endure quietly tense unions.
Separation and divorce cases are fast becoming a cancerous phenomenon devouring a huge chunk of marital bliss, thereby exposing products of these unions like children to many dangers.
As a result, this has seen the surfacing of a number of individuals and organisations trying to fill in the gap left vacant by aunties and uncles of yesteryear through offering marital and family life coaching programmes for both married and single adults including widows, widowers and divorcees who intend to remarry.
Among them is the Marriage Centre, which was founded by Pastors Davison and Gwendoline Kanokanga, as well as The Family Ark founded by Mrs Molly Mwaruwa, which will be launching its maiden seminar in Harare this Saturday, under the theme, Before Saying I Do.
Whether these will be able to fill the gap left by traditional aunties and uncles of yesteryear will be determined in due course, particularly when 2016 divorce statistics will be published in December.
Nevertheless, the primary role of these programmes is to assist those people entering into marriage without an understanding of the institution of marriage and those going through divorce without fully appreciating the consequences of divorce on their children, friends and relatives, and on themselves.
When God says He hates divorce, He is not referring to the people involved in divorce, but the act of divorce. Divorce has many ripple effects particularly on the part of kids who in most cases live to tell the tale of a lifetime nightmare.
“Experience is the best teacher and to be foretold is to be forewarned,” remarked Mrs Molly Mwaruwa, founder of The Family Ark, as she narrated her marital ordeal.
“After surviving a divorce, which was influenced by migration, neglect and other previous disappointments in relationships with no emotional support, made me realise the need to share my experiences and help others avoid pitfalls like mine,” she said.
“My first marriage was a nightmare, I got married at a tender age for the wrong reasons. I have since seen that our young people are making the same mistakes. Some individuals enter into marriages just to have a better life or expecting their spouses to do what they have failed to do on their own, which is wrong,” she said.
Now happily married, Mrs Mwaruwa further noted that most marriages are at the brink of collapse not because the union is bad, but simply because the couple fails to accept each other in their ordinary form. Most people put a lot of pressure in trying to change behaviour or habits of their spouses but all in vain.
Like the formation of metamorphic rocks, a character of a person is formed over time. For someone 30 years old, it implies that his character is 30 years mature; therefore, likewise, his or her way of doing things may not be changed overnight through marital pressure or coercion. It requires exceptional patience, marriage is a journey.
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