adminFreedom Mutanda
IN my instalment on crimes of passion last year, I intimated that the African proverb, “it takes a village to make a child” was relevant today as much as it was in the pre-colonial era.
Recently, the country woke up to news that an education inspector stabbed his wife, an MSU lecturer, on suspicion that she cheated on him. Prior to the tragic incident, the jealous man had hired hit men to kill the suspected lover. He was however, duped into believing that the task had been executed after the hit men presented before him goat’s eyes as proof.
The best way of dealing with a cheating partner is walking away from their life, but pride and inflated egos prevent many from taking the bold decision. Arrogance does not allow a person to say “sorry” when one has done something bad.
Zimbabweans want to be love heroes and heroines.
The national television reported that the family of the victim was unwilling to face reality, opting to bury its face in the proverbial sand.
The family must have known that crimes of passion are a microcosm of society. Gone are the days when people settled differences amicably under baobab tree.
In a cruel twist of fate, some people regard cheats as heroines or heroes. That kind of thinking leads to denial of basic humanism. What you want done unto you, do unto others.
If you feel the bitter pangs after your spouse cheated on you, it goes without saying that you mustn’t cheat also.
We have to confront our demons head on. Only then can we move mountains. Families have to meet to exorcise the ghost of murder and deceit that would have ignited the killing.
Is our society mired in immorality so much that when cheating occurs, we look at other side and when tempers flare we add fuel to fire instead of solving matters amicably? We should be mindful of the fact that when cheating occurs, the innocent partner is the last one to know. One becomes furious when they realise that many people knew about the illicit and sordid affair but chose to see, hear and talk no evil. That fury may be regretted later.
Society has become a carbon copy of the old Sodom and Gomorrah where lust and immorality reigns. Scholar Eric Kahari observed that “the city is the death bed of African morality”.
In December 2015, a Gweru teenager, callously murdered his mother and concealed her in the house before going out on a joy ride with his girlfriend. Another teenager killed a maid in cold blood in January 2016 over a petty issue.
Our society has been invaded by the spirit of callousness. Crimes of passion seem to be a normal thing. May the good Lord help us return to the Way as AyiKwei Armah says, in Two Thousand Seasons.
Africans have been known as a people that respect the sanctity of life. We have to go back to the true African roots. Businesspeople now kill people, gouge their eyes or other body parts and mixing them with other concoctions in a desperate bid to become rich.
Crimes of passion are a microcosm of the society indeed.
Kahari is right but slowly, because of the technological revolution, the country- side is catching up in immorality. Thus, you see friends bedding each other’s wives without winking an eye.
The writer knows of a family whose daughter cheated on her husband and the matter was never fully discussed; instead, it was hushed over as if nothing had happened. In such a scenario, members of both families live in a world of mistrust. Left to fester, the wounds destroy the ex-spouses.
Our traditional ways of settling disputes have gone with the wind and very soon, the role of the tetes will be read in Shona novels without any discernible practicalities.
Some people say the reason why wives cheat was because their husbands do not adequate cater for their material needs. In other words, it’s all right for a wife to cheat if her husband can’t provide for all her needs or wants.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is so wide that very few people reach the highest stage for one reason or another. Does that give a wife the licence to be a plaything of every person who comes knocking on her body?
God forbid.
Our grandmothers stayed behind while our grandfathers went to work in Wenela. For decades, they never returned but there were few incidents of cheating that went on. Today, a woman falls pregnant hardly six months after the spouse has left for Diaspora.
The Injivhas regularly come home.
Will these crimes of passion ever end? There must be a paradigm shift in the way cheating is handled in the extended family. At times, an apology from the guilty party will solve what hitherto was seen as an insurmountable problem.
That does not mean that the man is immune from chastisement in as far as cheating is concerned. God has never said it is good for man to engage in extra marital affairs. King David, reputed to be God’s favoured one, in ancient Israel, was rebuked heavily by Prophet Nathan for snatching and bedding Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. Consequently, the child born out of that sinful intercourse was not spared. He died notwithstanding David’s fasting.
How many children in urban areas are aware of where they come from and their aunts? Do they respect the traditional roles of aunts and uncles? Aunts and grandmothers are frowned upon as women who always poke noses where they are not wanted.
It is a craze to ignore elders’ advice in matters regarding dressing when someone is married. The women say this is the modern world in which one must dress as they please. Here comes the problem. Workmates may think a woman is on the market but one good question is: why is it that men always blame women when infidelity occurs? We should also blame the man who went ahead to approach a married woman or seduce them.
When the church is filled with leaders who don’t think twice to divorce a wife of 33 years, do you think the young ones will bat an eyelid when exposed to cheating? No. Institutions that provided counselling and guidance to the married couples are themselves embroiled in sex scandals and you expect cheating to end.
People kill when all reasoning has ended. Bragging about infidelity could lead to temperamentalism. We need to teach our children right morals. Catch them young.
Families must have communication lines open for such eventualities. If couples communicate, it saves their marriage. Perhaps, when a couple marries, there must be a specific elderly couple from the paternal and maternal side tasked with settling disputes that arise at any given time.
If labour has arbitrators, what stops marriages from having arbiters as well? Strong family institutions make strong states.
The family institution is under siege. The number of people who engage in cheating is puzzling. Cheating has become the buzz-word. In the social networks, men and women take delight in writing about how they had sex with a lodger when the husband was away or how the husband slept with the wife’s younger sister. Cheating is being put on a pedestal and young men and women don’t get correct guidance on how to go about sexuality.
Tabloids are having a field day. They expose sex orgies of married people caught in the act daily. They find these juicy materials.
Some aunts may not dispense the right advice for fear that the marriage would become a model for the society. It could be because their very own families are not enjoying marital bliss and they take it upon the unfortunate young couples.
It is good for both the man and the woman to work but there should be a remembrance of our African-ness and the Bible is clear about separation of powers.
We have three pillars of governance namely, executive, legislature and judiciary. The three are equally important and they don’t usurp each other. In a democracy like ours, those three pillars of government complement each other.
In the family as well, there should be pillars of governance that come in to douse the fire which could have been caused by cheating. Many times, friends or family members claim they knew about the infidelity but were afraid of busting it as it would destroy a picture of perfect family. That is similar to the legislature paying a blind eye to the judiciary’s failure to dispense justice or the executive allowing the judiciary to fail to apply the law correctly and without fear or favour.
We have development partners that preach women rights. There is nothing wrong with that. NGOs must dig deep and extract indigenous knowledge systems related to conflict resolutions within the African and cultural contexts that capture traditional sensibilities. We rely much on Western concepts of resolving conflicts yet our indigenous systems can help us weed out the cancer that grab headlines daily.
Sociologist, Rekerai Tiriwekufa said what we see today of men and women throwing counter-accusations about the causes of cheating is actually a microcosm of a society in decay.
As society hurtles towards moral oblivion, should we be part of it? We ought to take the bull by the horns and shun domestic violence.
Domestic violence is archaic and must remain in the pre-historic age where it belongs. Crimes of passion need a concerted effort from everyone concerned citizen. It’s high time we inculcate tolerance among our children.
We must have a new mind-set with regards to how the sexes treat each other when there is a misunderstanding. Mahatma Ghandi was a champion of non-violence. An eye for an eye makes the world blind. Is it worth it?
Online Reporter