admininterpreter, who appeared almost half their ages, the two started firing barbs at each other as the gallery listened attentively.
“Your Worship, I am going through hell at the hands of this man. There is no food at home. He is not paying rent and fees for the children. He comes home drunk daily and he seems to have forgotten that he is the head of the house,” she quipped.
Swept by a tide of emotion, the wife sobbed but that was not before the husband bellowed: “Mubvunzei kuti anenge amboita sei. Handipenge kungosanduka moyo fanika kunze. There is no smoke without fire.”
The husband railed and railed, giving his account of being denied sex and a rigmarole of other unprintable allegations.
Gentle reader, the former lovebirds were sounding like sworn enemies. They just did not have any kind words for each other with either party complaining about time wasted.
“To think of it, I lost an opportunity to follow my sisters to the UK thinking I had found someone special. Oh, the choice I made did not work out the way I thought it would,” the member of the fairer sex said, seeking to draw sympathy from the gallery.
It took a long time for court officials to call the pair to order before the magistrate pronounced her judgment.
When all was rosy, the pair had a white wedding which captured the imagination of all and sundry.
They hugged, kissed and danced, making others green with envy.
But that was then.
However, the two are not the only Zimbabweans in that predicament.
There are millions of couples out there who are not on talking terms to the extent of wishing each other dead.
“Zvipiko iwe. Dai ndisina kukuroora unoti kwenyu kumba mungadai makamboikadabvura yembudzi nyama herewo? You are a mindless babymaking machine without any other reason for existence,” you hear men saying to their erstwhile partners.
And the women always hit back. Havafi vakatarisana nerufu sesadza.
“I wish I had listened to my sisters that you are the devil’s advocate. I did not know what hell I was putting myself through. I am glad I am still alive and there is always another chance,” you hear women saying to the fathers of their children before hanging up at the workplaces.
Men and women cannot live without each other, but when hell breaks loose they appear like bull elephants from rival feeding groups.
Rudo rukasanduka kuva ruvengo, zvakaoma vasikana,
Rudo rukasanduka kuve ruvengo, zvakaoma vakomana,
Zvaikuda kana zvokusema, wave munyama wegawega,
Zvaikuda kana zvokuramba chenjera ngozi shamwari,
Ndiyo inonzi gonzo nachin’ai uya uone nhasi zvatosvorana, sang the late wordsmith Marshall Munhumumwe and his trailblazing Four Brothers.
True to the song, when times change people also react differently. Love is indeed the only game under the sun in which you sleep with the enemy.
The conflagration in Egypt occasioned by a blind and uninformed sense to effect illegal regime change actually comes second best to the drama the world is exposed to whenever lovers grow out of each other.
There is too much acrimony whenever soul mates choose to go separate ways and children and dependence of the erstwhile couple suffer the most.
Children feel the pinch when none of the feuding parties feels the edge to feed, clothe and send them to school.
They bear the brunt when they see their mother being beaten to a pulp in public or their father groaning at the weight of beatings from hired thugs.
But what makes people who announce to the world that they are an item choose to go their separate ways.
The answers are many and varied. Among the causes is the change in economic fortunes.
“Kana murume asisina mari unoswera uchiiteiko naye? Love is an emotional attachment that is nourished by cash. If that cash disappears you go after people with money.
Runako rwemurume rwuri muhomwe hanzvadzi yangu. We have one life and there just is no reason to suffer,” one lady who refused to be identified confident in this writer.
She said it was better to change men every year than to stick to one partner who has no money.
“You may be very respectful but poor and that will not work. The world revolves around cash and not respect,” she purred, before dragging and expelling smoke leisurely from her cigar.
Gentle reader, another cause of divorce is sheer promiscuity.
There are some people who never feel good sharing a bed with one man. Their quest for new challenges, sex wise results in these people looking for new lovers at every instance.
As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, the courts of law are inundated with cases of people seeking maintenance for the upkeep of their children.
Some women, court records show, claim maintenance for up to five children from four men and they find nothing wrong about that.
If you thought children were there to cement relationships, you were totally wrong.
It’s a money-making venture. Business zvaro rakazvigarira! The surge in divorce cases in this country can also be largely ascribed to the assimilation of wild foreign customs which place no emphasis on the need for building families.
In the Western world people marry for comfort and not to build families.
There you can find fathers donating sperms to their daughters and vice-versa.
The country needs to go back to the drawing boards and ensure whatever direction we are taking does not erode our cultural values.
It is sad for people who grow up in broken families because they never get to learn the importance of life, service and sacrifice.
The surge in divorce cases and the corresponding rise in the quest for financial support point to a problem that needs to be nipped in the bud.
Let’s act now to stem the disintegration of our society.
Inotambika mughetto.
Online Reporter