Zimbabwe: The political marriage of convenience saga continues. Episode 3

Disclaimer: This story is fiction and any resemblance in names and the plot of the story to your on circus government or family is purely coincidence

In our last episode of this saga we were left puzzled as to why the wife, Tsvangirai, was allowing the husband, Mugabe, to treat her like his doormat? We were left with these questions. Where has the wife's pride gone to? Is this marriage of convenience really worth the humiliation she is being subjected to by her husband? Why is she afraid of divorcing this husband? In this episode we are going to scrutinise the marriage more so as to bring out in the open some of the problems causing this marriage of convenience to be shaky as well as answer all the questions that the last episode raised.

Let me bring to your attention that in the first place this marriage of convenience was arranged by neighbors from the surrounding surburbs of SADC who thought it was the best solution to bringing harmony and development between the husband's and wife's families whose rivalry was shaking the stability of not only these two families and the surburb they live in but the whole city. It took a very long time for both parties in the marriage to agree to enter into an agreement concerning the ground rules that would govern this marriage, the governing rules had to be negotiated and signed and that was a lengthy process with one impasse after another. When they finally decided to sign the agreement to marry for convenience still there were some outstanding issues to which no consensus had been reached and it is these same issues that are causing the marriage to become shaky now. The neighbors who arranged the marriage had brushed aside these issues as minor domestic problems that the husband and wife could settle on their own once they got married. More than 100 days into the marriage and yet the husband and wife have failed to agree on the matters concerning the firing of their housekeeper, Gono, and the gardenboy, Tomana, and the wife has asked the neighbors who arranged the marriage to intervene. The other main problem in the marriage is that the husband is behaving in an autocratic manner towards the wife, not giving the wife enough power and authority to run the household in the democratic manner she wants to run it. The husband is of the old school that thinks that a wife should always agree with the husband's thoughts and do what the husband wants without any regard to her own thoughts and feelings and should not make any decision concerning the running of the household. He is of the ancient opinion that the wife should exist as an extension of the husband and not as a person with her own thoughts, opinions, feelings and likes and dislikes. In getting married to this particular husband the wife has been made to loose his own individuality and his sense of pride as a unique idividual whose thoughts count. The wife is not happy about that but is allowing the husband to have his way because she has neither the strong character nor the intelligence to outwit her conniving husband. Besides the conniving husband has wrapped her around his finger and made her believe that he is not the demon that he is purported to be and blames some of his powerful relatives for manipulating him so that he does not succumb to his wife's needs. What a gullible wife he has turned out to be.

This marriage of convenience came with benefits for the wife and her close relatives who all became entitled to Mercedes Benz and 4x4 wheel-drive cars and a generous monthly allowance of pocket money. The children in this marriage of convenience are of the opinion that it is because of those benefits that the wife is hesitating to divorce the husband and her close relatives are not advising her to do so. Whoever said the love of money and material possesions is the root of all evil has been proved to be right in this case. Meanwhile the children in this marriage have not benefited anything from the marriage, so far the marriage has not improved their lives at all and they are puzzled as to what their mother means when she cites the reason for not divorcing their father is for their sake, "Handiende ndinogarira vana vangu", unovagarira pakudii ivo vana vacho vasina zvirikuvanakira zvirikukonzerwa nemuchato ivoyo The children feel that their mother is bit by bit being swallowed by their domineering father and as a consequence she is bit by bit deserting them. As a reaction to that they are thinking of deserting their parents in this marriage of convenience and joining the Makoni or Dabengwa families.

As we speak the wife in this marriage of convinience has gone out of the country to USA and Europe to try and convince potential well-wishers of this marriage to help the family with loans and donations to run their household since their family bank account is nearly bankrupt. In the next episode of this saga we will talk more about that issue, just watch this space.