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Vaidah Mashangwa
The issue of maintenance has suddenly taken a twist as more men seem to also claim maintenance from their former wives or partners.
Traditionally if the father was unwilling to support his family the mother usually took legal action against him to get maintenance. Due to a wider cross section of working-class divorces, both men and women now claim for the maintenance of children due to separation or divorce.
Due to improvements and lowering of barriers to formal legal procedures divorce and separation are now more accessible to most people. There is also a growing acceptance by society and individual couples of divorce as a “solution” to marital problems.
Research has indicated that almost 99 percent of all petitions for divorce allege adultery, desertion, cruelty, violence or a combination of these matrimonial offences. Women interviewed highlighted that the rate of dishonesty in marriages has soared to unacceptable levels.
On the other hand, grounds for separation are similar to those for divorce. Actions in terms of maintenance cannot be taken unless the husband can be found and served with a return of service to appear in court. If the husband is in arrears the wife goes to the same maintenance court and the husband will be called back to the court.
The court will then give a judgment depending on the reasons cited by the defaulting party. While legal procedures are known to most people, not all fathers and mothers receive maintenance from their spouses/partners. At times the father of the child is never found.
Quite a higher proportion of mothers of illegitimate children have never taken court action. It is unfortunate that at times the awards are quite small and have no significance in raising and maintaining the standard of living of the mother of the children. There are however some husbands who opt to pay voluntarily and in such an instance legal action becomes unnecessary.
At times women and men continue to support children on their own due to lack of knowledge of the law. It is important for women and men to be knowledgeable of these legal issues much sooner or during the course of the marriage.
Due to lack of information, many divorced or separated couples continue to bear the burden of looking after the children on their own without assistance from the other partner.
At times though women continue to cling often unrealistically to the possibility of reconciliation with the children’s father and feel that legal action might worsen the relationship with him. Some women opt to raise the children on their own because they cannot imagine seeing the same person who mistreated them in court. Some women might not be willing to reveal the identity of the father to the child and the family hence they just fend for the child on their own.
There is also a fear among the separated and divorced that court action may end up in the husband being granted custody or at least visiting rights to the children. For women who have experienced violence in their marriages they feel it is just better to keep away from their husbands.
Where paternity of an illegitimate child is sought it places such psychological stress on the mother of the child and she might opt to withdraw the case altogether. They may just disclose earnings from their main job. There are also men and women who buy houses and cars while their children go hungry.
They only resurface when the children are grown or when they are in need of support from the same children they neglected.
At times women also demand high awards depending on the income of their husband. Good examples are the amounts that were demanded by Phillip Chiyangwa’s wife in a recent press report.
Most single women who raise children on their own live in abject poverty without proper accommodation or basics such as food and clothing.
Vaidah Mashangwa is the Bulawayo provincial development officer, Ministry of Women Affairs Gender and Community Development. She can be contacted on: 0772111592 or email [email protected]
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