adminbehind her.
With nowhere to go, the husband could be heard hurling obscenities at the closed door and sucking his teeth as he made his way back home.
“Wati zvinoenda nepi? Handiti uchadzoka? Ndichakubata chete. I will deal with you in the most ruthless of ways,” the junior doctor said as he wiped sweat from his furrowed brow.
Yours truly was later to learn that the husband had bottled up for far too long when his wife would deny him conjugal rights and shout at him willy nilly.
As if that was not enough, he had become no stranger to walking home to be greeted by empty pots even when the fridge and pantry were full to the brim.
But the couple is not alone in that predicament.
Married people — both young and old — are fighting day and night.
Some of the times the fights get so nasty that you shudder to think why they ever got married in the first place.
Women are being used as punch bags under the roofs they call home, while some men are treated worse than strangers in their own homes.
A kiss has become alien.
It’s unheard of.
“Inga hamunyari chokwadi. Manje mungabva mada kundikisa pamberi pevana hamuoni kuti hazviiti here? I don’t eat these cheat kisses. Can’t you find other ways to spice this relationship,” you hear some mistakes of the male species being told straight in the face.
Huya ndikutaurire, mukoma huya ndikutaurire,
Huya ndikutaurire, kana ndozofa ini,
Mukoma ndarumwa nechekuchera,
Kana rekuti bufu, zvino ndashaya pamba pangu here,
Mukadzi haanditeerere, anoita zvese zvaanoda,
Nhasi onditonga, pamba pangu here,
Sang the legendary Marshall Munhumumwe and the Mighty Four Brothers while highlighting the challenges men are facing at the hands of their wives.
As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, some men are not allowed to receive friends at their homes.
Each time a female friend or a workmate pays a visit, they are interrogated worse than people intending to board a plane.
“Kwakanaka? Zvamurikuda zvacho zvaisaita kuitira kubasa here? Inga hamuna matyira asikana kubva mauya pambawo pane mukadzi semi kudai. Please if you know my husband from the workplace, why does your relationship not end there. You are too young to cause me discomfort,” some insecure women will tell your workmates.
But the issue is not confined to women.
Men can be very insecure to the point of stopping their wives from going to work.
“How can he just call you any how as though he does not understand that you are married? One of these days you are going to stop going to work because if it means boyfriends, then the whole deal is doomed to fail. I can never share a woman with anyone so choose between remaining married to me or going to work,” some men often give their spouses such close-ended options.
Gentle reader, if you have never met a bickering couple you aint seen anything yet.
Marriage seems to be the only war in which you eat and sleep with the enemy.
Mune hondo mudzimba umo varume.
It can be worse if one of the spouses loses a job.
They may live to be cursed over that for the rest of their lives.
A mere perusal of daily newspapers confirms that all is not well in the homes.
The institution of marriage is under threat.
According to a daily tabloid, a sex-starved man thumped his wife for denying him his conjugal rights.
George Chaparadza’s wife Rovisa Nyamukondiwa ended up being granted a protection order owing to the frequency of the beatings.
The same paper reported that a Kuwadzana man forgave his wife after finding her enjoying the juicy act with a man who stays in the neighbourhood.
She had reportedly left their child in the custody of a neighbour to avoid disturbance.
The previous day, a soldier had reportedly appeared before Chief Negomo on charges of abandoning his wife.
He was later ordered to kiss her publicly to show is affection.
But what is published in newspapers is a drop in the ocean.
It is very small fraction of what goes on in the communities in which we live.
People are not living in peace.
Not at all.
And such goings on bid on us to introduce love lessons so that only those who pass competency tests are allowed to marry.
This may help reduce the divorce rate and extricate millions of children from the jaw of orphanhood occasioned by divorce or a discovery that you were sharing love with a rock.
Love is good, but like fire, it needs to be handled with care.
Inotambika mughetto.
Online Reporter