The Sunday Mail
For 20 years, a Harare-based couple has been sleeping in the same bed without being intimate.
In one of the stranger cases that have been brought before the Murambinda Magistrates Court, Billy Madzokere, insisted that an “invisible man sleeps” between him and his wife, Edith Emmaculate Rwambiwa, each time the couple tries to be intimate.
Madzokere is adamant that his wife is possessed by some spirit, which he said “forbids” him from bedding her.
After years of being “beaten to her wife by the invisible man”, Madzokere tried to make a plan.
He drove to Murambinda, Buhera District in Manicaland Province – a distance of about 243 kilometres – with the intention of secretly marrying his girlfriend Shuvai Gona of Mabika Village under chief Makumbe.
Madzokere’s wife, who is married under the Marriages Act (Chapter 5:11), which prohibits a man from marrying two wives, received a tip-off about the impending nuptials and dashed to the Murambinda Magistrates Courts.
Arriving moments before the happy pair was joined in holy matrimony, Edith raised her objections, resulting in cancelation of the proceedings.
Edith also stated in court papers that although she shares the same bed with her husband, the pair was last intimate in 1998.
“Although we are not having sex, we are staying together as husband and wife. I was never given a divorce token. My husband refuses to have sex with me, alleging that I am possessed by an avenging spirit,” Edith said.
In response, Madzokere maintained that he consulted a traditional healer after he “felt” the presence of another man sleeping in-between him and his wife.
“Each time I tried to have sex with her, I could feel the presence of another men in between us.
‘‘As a result, I could not have sexual intercourse with her or anyone else,” Madzokere said.
According to Madzokere, traditional healers told him that the “avenging spirit” would only stop bothering him after a young girl would have been offered to the family of the person who was believed to have been killed by one of his wife’s relatives.
Asked by magistrate Mr Henry Sande how he managed to sire five children with Edith, Madzokere became emotional.
“I am not crazy to make these allegations. Besides, I am old enough to know the truth,” he retorted.
Relatives and friends of the couple eagerly await how the magistrate would make a ruling basing on Madzokere’s claims of the “invisible man” and Edith’s admission that she was last intimate with her husband in 1998.
