The Sunday Mail
With Soko Wezhira
It has been said again. Divorce is on the rise. The learned judge who sounded the warning knell did so in Bulawayo and was referring to statistics from Bulawayo.
But then again, what happens in Bulawayo is a reflection of what is happening in Zimbabwe. This is not the first time that your dear Soko has heard something this disturbing.
This daughter of the Vavhitori who come from that dry land called Gutu in Masvingo Province remembers yet another learned judge also expressing concern over divorce a few years back.
Thus when she watched the main news bulletin on Zimbabwe’s only television station a few nights ago only to hear the same news of a rise in divorce being repeated, Soko Wezhira was perplexed.
This, coming a few weeks after a wife allegedly murdered her own husband using three kitchen knives in Chitungwiza made it even more disturbing.
This, happening after Soko Wezhira has seen many men being taken to court by their wives and being asked to cough up some maintenance money to look after their own families left Soko Wezhira in shock. What is happening to the family unit?
These statistics coming after several reports of cheating between married couples left Soko with more questions than answers. After all, it has become common to wake up to headlines about someone cheating on their spouse than it is to see a real job vacancy being advertised.
Several people were interviewed on ZTV following the divorce report and they expressed their opinions on why divorce is on the increase. Most of them said the reason is that people are marrying for the wrong reasons while others blamed all manner of things like premarital sex and lack of counselling.
But Soko has a different take on all this. Is divorce not a more honourable thing than to live in a loveless, unhappy, or a violent marriage? Are these people not more honourable than those who cheat on each other and continue to live together? There was a recent programme on Star FM where the station’s Lee Kay and Bee invited callers to talk about what is going wrong with marriages today. The majority of callers said the reason why there is so much cheating in marriages today is because men and women are living together for many other reasons which are certainly not love.
Some mentioned children, shared investments and property and keeping up appearances as the reasons behind their staying in unhappy homes.
One male caller said one hardly ever marries for themselves but for the family. Hence to divorce would be out of the question as family members would put them to task over such a decision.
What will people say; becomes the upper most question, hence they would rather stay together and find their love and joy outside.
Some women also claimed love had since flown out of the window and husbands and wives in many instances have become housemates, rather than soul mates.
In such cases the two become comfortable with how their lives run, children in top schools, fees and bills shared while intimacy is far and between.
So what is the point, then? Why please people who do not like you in the first place (society) while you are burning inside. Is this not why people are not working on their marriages, opting to settle for the unhappy situations?
A certain traditionalist who is a fan of the show even said he had gone the polygamy route and married two wives with the consent of the first one.
He said he had fallen in love with someone outside the home. Respect for his first wife and her contributions made him marry the second wife rather than divorce the older one, he said.
He was asked if he was able to keep both wives happy and he said he was certain of it. Soko hopes the wives feel the same.
What Soko Wezhira knows, however, is that she would never knowingly share her man with anyone.
But it seems sharing is the new caring and not knowing about it does not mean one is not sharing. It seems it has become the norm that people stay in marriages because it is the right thing to do by society’s standards while the two of them may not necessarily be happy. They also do not seem to work hard to keep the spark as they should, but opt to cheat instead.
Soko Wezhira will then ask: if this is the case, is divorce not better? Is divorce not more honest? Does it not allow those who realise that they can no longer walk together to walk with those they would rather walk with? In the end would it not cut down on cheating and consequently HIV? Why should society be concerned that divorce is on the rise without being worried about the state of marriages in the country. The marriage institution seems to be under an attack.
Soko being a born-again Christian would say it is a spiritual attack. Others say it is a sign of the times and blame technology and permissiveness for what is going on.
Yes, some say it is because of Whatsapp and Facebook and all these social media tools. Soko does not buy into that. Whatsapp does not think or make a decision. A person does.
So why blame a phone when a person is the one who commands it to perform a task?
Should people not take responsibility for the bad marriages we seem to have and work on them rather than blame technology? Some blame women’s emancipation saying women are struggling to cope with their new-found freedom while men are even having a harder time with it as women no longer behave as they did in the past; provide sex when it is wanted, feed the man when he wants and never ask after his whereabouts? But what type of love is that when Soko does not ask where her man is? If he does not do the same too, Soko would chuck him out.
These cases where couples end up butchering each other; should they not tell us the danger of not working things out or leaving each other when being together has failed? If all a couple does is fight, surely they should separate.
