The Sunday Mail
Veronica Gwaze
When Mbuya Lydia Chibwe Tsvangirai was born all those decades ago, she likely had no inkling of the brewing technology revolution that would at the turn of the millennium spawn social media.
Now in a tragic week in which she buried her son, she suddenly found herself the butt of social media jokes and memes mocking her grief.
As she mourned her son’s death, she declared she would commit suicide if her widowed daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Macheka, and one Nelson Chamisa attended the burial.
The Tsvangirai family rounded on Macheka and froze her out of her late husband’s final journey. They said Morgan Tsvangirai was a polygamist and as such she was not his only wife.
Here we have two women: one a mother who has lost her son and whose grief is the fodder for social media ridicule; the other a woman who has lost her husband and who is treated like a pariah by the family.
There are no winners. Just bad jokes and horrible treatment of women. It’s tough being a woman, whether in a monogamous or polygamous union, as Mbuya Tsvangirai and Macheka both recently discovered.
Traditionalist Sekuru Elisha Mutanga says, “Serial monogamy or polygamy is not new in our society. It has been practiced since time immemorial with the blessing of the first wife’s family in the event that the first wife had died.
“This was not a game of ambush like many do these days instead the husband or his family would ask for the family of first wife’s blessing although many a times it would even be that family’ s decision for the son in law to remarry.
“The key thing was and remains payment of bride price, and so once the man paid bride price and formally introduced her to the family, automatically she acquired rights equal to the first wife.
“Although she still owes the family of the first wife respect, they also had to respect her for taking care of the household and the deceased’s children.”
Sekuru Mutanga further says that in the event that the husband dies, all widows have a role to play at the funeral. Traditionally, rituals known as kukamura or ukuhlukanisa should be conducted for the remaining wives.
“Be it the fifth wife or the second or whatever position one is, when the husband dies there are rituals that should be conducted as a way of separating souls because by virtue of marriage these become soul mates.
“These rituals are done so that the spirit of the dead does not come back to haunt the surviving spouse. In polygamy, all the wives are entitled to this ritual whether they bore children with this man or not.
“When we have an incident where a widow is chased away from her husband‘s funeral, we call this kunangwa huroi (being accused of witchcraft) and muroora anofanira kuripwa (the widow must be compensated).”
Traditionalist Mbuya Calister Magorimbo speaks of the challenges women face in polygamous arrangements.
“Traditionally, when the husband dies, whether you are the second wife or whatever number a separation ritual should be performed.
“From the day the husband dies, the wife should wear her undergarments inside out as a sign of grieving and from this day until the burial she should not bath,” she says.
Mbuya Magorimbo says the widow should be led to her husband’s grave before sunrise by the mother-in-law to have a brief glance of where he will be interred – but she should not witness the actual lowering of the coffin.
“After all this, the wife is then taken for a cleansing bath whereby the deceased’s sister pours water on the widow believably as a manner of washing off the deceased’s shadow and in a rural setup this is done at a stream. The sister who performs this ritual can either be a biological sister or any other family sister who shares the same totem with the deceased. If then the widow is chased away from her husband’s funeral, how are all these rituals going to be performed?”
Mbuya Magorimbo says it is widow’s role to unpack the clothes of the deceased in preparation for distribution (kugova nhumbi) after burial.
She says if such rituals are not performed, a bad omen will stalk the widow.
“If there are issues between the two parties, mediation should quickly take place and rituals be done because failure to that, a bad omen will befall the widow.
“It is usually advisable that at this time differences be set aside until after burial and all rituals have been performed then the parties resolve their issues so that at least there are no future consequences.”
She says where the parties fail to resolve their issues, mediation of other family members should come in, and if they also fail, then the traditional chief steps in.
“Situations usually remain tense in an urban set up whereby if the extended family members fail to resolve the issues because there are no chiefs and village elders these family divisions may then live forever,” says Mbuya Magorimbo.
