How far can a stepfather go?

country for almost 10 years and it was such a pleasure to meet again.
We went down memory lane, and as we were talking I asked her about her brother’s daughter whom I had last seen when she was one-year-old.
The father died before she was born.

Tears welled in her eyes and she told me that her niece was now married and was in town for her wedding. Truly, the wedding must have brought memories of her brother and she wished the brother had been present to witness his daughter getting married.
“I wanted to write you an e-mail for a long time, about a lot of issues, which I think you can write in your column.”

She had seen my e-mail in the Press as she has been following this column.
“When I came back from my niece’s wedding I wanted to write to you so that we could meet and talk, asi zvinowanda. Seeing my brother’s daughter brought mixed feelings, but . . . ” she choked.
Is the girl alright, I thought maybe something had happened to her niece, but she told me that she was fine.

Then what was the problem?
The wedding had not only brought back memories of her brother, but a whole lot of other things.
The bride’s grandmother (my friend mother) boycotted the wedding although a ticket had been bought for her to attend the wedding in South Africa.

My friend’s mother and some members of the family did not want to attend the wedding as they were going to cause chaos.
“Amai vangu vakati vakaendako unokanzurwa muchato iwowo, zvinhu zvese zvotangwa panyowani. (My mother said if she was to go to the wedding, it was going to be cancelled and started all over again)”.
But why would she want to do that?

My friend explained: “When my niece got married, I mean when lobola was paid we were not informed, we were only invited to the wedding.
“I decided to go because I did not want to seem to be sulking. We were sent invites like ordinary people and yet this is our child. We were supposed to be involved in the paying of lobola.”
I intercepted, “How did this happen”, she took me back to events that happened in the ’70s when her niece was born. The brother died when the wife was pregnant and when the child was a year old the mother remarried.

The man loved the child and treated her like his biological child. He even gave her his surname.
When the child got married the stepfather and mother charged lobola and organised her wedding.
The partenal family was just invited.
This did no go down well with most of the family members, nevertheless my friend decided to attend the wedding.

When the wedding was over, she voiced her family’s concerns.
“I told them that this is also our child and we would have wanted to be part of the whole process, the lobola and the preparation of the wedding. My sister-in-law’s answer was that, ‘takanga tisingade kukupai basa nekuti makanga muri kure zvakare amai vachembera takanga tisingade kuvanetsa. Takanga taronga kuti amai pavanouya pamuchato, tovapa mari yakaroorwa mwana.’ (We did not want to worry you since you were far away, and mother is old we did not want to bother her, and we had decided that when she comes to the wedding we would give her money, which was paid for lobola).

This infuriated me because it was not about money.
“What is it that you wanted? To be part of the whole process. For your information, if they had given us the money for lobola, we were just going to take maybe US$100 yechirango. We know we did not raise the child but she is ours biologically. Now it is like all we are after is money.
“The way we were not recognised as part of the child’s family worries me. For the past 15 years that the parents have been in South Africa my niece comes to Harare but she rarely visits our family.”
She was very unhappy.

What did the stepfather say when you raised your concerns?
“This one was very straight with me. He did not beat about the bush.”

He said: “Pandakaroora mukadzi wangu ndakanzi ndidhonze zvese nemasanzu, which meant nditore zvese nemwana, ndikadhonzaka sanzu rangu, mwana ndewangu wandinoda zvikuru. (When I got married I was told to pull the tree with its branches and leaves. The tree being his wife and the branches and leaves the daughter her wife had from another marriage, I did that I pulled the tree and the branches.)
“This meant that she is my daughter and I am the one who has a final say, I don’t want her confused by not having a proper sense of belonging. The lobola money we were going to handover to you in total before the wedding ceremony,” he said.

“Again, he sounded as if it is the issue of money and yet it is not. Although I must say the girl has been raised very well, with love.”
I think when he was told to pull the tree and the branch he did not know how far he was supposed to go.
She agreed with me, but she also blamed the parents of her sister-in-law who when they made that decision they did not consult her family.

She said she understood that the parents might not have been happy that we were not fully supporting the child, but during that time, that was all we could afford and we did our best.
“We see our brother through her, that is all our brother left us and memories of him,” she said in grief.
I encouraged her to find a way to go forward and see what is best for her niece and not to end up confusing her. She felt the child has been removed from them and they do not know how to solve the problem.

I decided to seek other opinions and those that I have spoken to regarding this issue had this to say: A woman who is in her late 60s whom I see as a traditionalist, gave her own views on the issue: “I would like to congratulate the man who looked after this child, the man who was so loving that he took the tree and pulled its branch.
“It was unfortunate that the biological father died but she was lucky that she got a father who looked after her and loved her like his own.

“This is very commendable; many children are becoming street kids because of lack of parents. I wonder were the family of the father of this child were when she was growing up, did they ever look for her or try to have her in their lives?
“However, in the Shona culture the stepfather should give part of the lobola to the biological family.

He should not give them everything but the jacket, hat, all the clothes that are for the father they should go to the biological family and they can share part of the lobola as agreed, he must not give them all the money out of anger.

The two families should sit down and do what is best for the child, because if they start fighting it will confuse the child and she will not have a happy home. The woman said the niece might end up feeling guilt that she is the one who has caused misunderstanding between the two families.

“The father and mother of this child did nothing wrong by organising a wedding without involving the biological family, what is important is that they invited them and they are also willing to give them money for lobola.”

A veteran journalist did not have kind words for the biological relatives and did not mince his words.
“These people should be dismissed with the contempt they deserve, they did not raise this child and now they want to be involved when lobola is discussed, what for?

“Being invited to the wedding is just out of courtesy and they should actually be grateful as biological relatives that the mother and her husband looked after the child so well and organised a wedding for her. Let us not try to make right things that are not right.

An elderly woman in her 70s seemed to agree with the biological aunt, she said: “The father and mother of the girl, should have invited the biological family to be part of the lobola negotiations.
“They would just take a token and give the rest of the money to the parents who looked after the child.

An elderly man said, “Hapana chakaipa kudzosera sanzu kwarakabva. Kwakabva mbeu, mobatsirana kuti muroodze sei. Vanhu vanenge vasina nhafu chaivo vanoziva zvekuita. Vanongotora mari yechirango. Vakarera vanofanira kukudzwa, kwakabva mbeuwo kunofanira kufungwa. Vanhu vakashandira pamwe chete zvinobatsira mwana.”

(There is nothing wrong taking back the branch to where the seed came from, and everyone be part of the negotiations, those who did not raise the child will not be greedy, and about the wedding, the biological parents should have gone to bless their daughter and thank the man and also her mother who raised her).

I emailed my friend what people thought about the matter and she said, what she liked about everyone who was interviewed is that they all had one thing in common: “To do what is best for the child who is now a woman.

“We are all entitled to our opinion, people out there represent how our families are also divided in this matter, but we will do what is best for the child.”
Joyce Jenje-Makwenda is a researcher, archivist, author, producer and freelance journalist. She can be contacted on: [email protected]