mbulelo smpofu
Fredrick Qaphelani Mabikwa
MANY reasons have been postulated by researchers on the possible drivers of wife battering. In this article, I want to examine one driver that is often demeaned but ironically remains one of the biggest drivers of wife-beating in this modern day and age. This driver is the traditional and cultural marital context from which many men derive the manner in which they run their families, especially the treatment of their wives. It is very unfortunate that we still have men holding on to some patriarchal traditions and cultures, most of which have been overtaken by events and time.
Tradition and cultural views held by most Zimbabwean men are one of the major drivers of wife-beating. Chirume (1989) postulates that traditionally in Shona and Ndebele cultures, wife-beating has been considered an appropriate way of correcting a woman’s wayward behaviour. This traditional view further suggests that the beating must be of a type that neighbours and the community at large will not detect. The wife must not be injured or bed-ridden from the beating. The Shona even have a saying in this regard, “Kurwa ishamhu yerudo,” literally “fighting is a recipe for love.” The husband beats his wife to show his love for her. It is part of the husband’s marital obligation to beat his wife.
Soon after the wedding or traditional marriage ceremony, when the wife is received in her new marital home, she must be beaten to remind her that she is starting a new life and that the person in charge is her husband. This beating must not be delayed, as delaying is considered not right, in case the wife forgets who is in charge. So, the sooner the first beating is done, the better for the new marriage. The belief is that the first beating sets the tone of the marriage, it stabilises and “blesses” the marriage. There is even a ritualistic and mystic view about the first beating. It has to be done as soon as possible and not doing it is taboo, zvinoyera in Shona and kuyazila in isiNdebele. At the onset of the new marriage, the elders will be checking regularly and closely with the young groom whether the first beating has occurred. If the husband delays administering the first beating, he is admonished and reminded that the wife will not respect him. In isiNdebele, the elders will be saying uzadelelewa ngumfazi, umfazi uyafikiswa egumeni and in Shona uchadhererwa nemukadzi, mukadzi anotambirwa muchivanze (you will be disrespected by the wife, the wife is officially “welcomed” into the homestead).
The beating of the wife must be done in moderation. The problem is how does one measure moderation during a beating? The man must not injure the wife as already stated. He must not use fists, or dangerous weapons like knobkerries, knives or axes. The man who uses any such weapons on the wife is cautioned by the elders, he is considered a coward. In Shona, he is labelled mhengera mumba and he can be taken to be possessed by some bad spirit or demon. In such cases, the community would side with the wife for having suffered injury from a coward husband. Chirume (1989 p.10) says “ . . . the beatings must not be frequent so as to make the beating a habit, but then again it must not be too spaced lest the wife forgets ‘who is the boss’.”
Payment of lobola for the wife has also exacerbated the problem. The husband “pays” for the wife, she thus belongs to him and he controls her and the children as head of the house. The best way he can affirm his control of the wife and the children would be to occasionally beat them. The traditional community was and still is so patriarchal to the extent that reporting channels for the wife in the event of a beating have been created to formalise the heinous habit.
The wife is supposed to understand that beating by her husband is part of the marital grooming process and she should contain these beatings. She is only supposed to raise her head when the beatings become intolerable and reach unacceptable levels. In such instances, she is supposed to go to her in-laws or husband’s elder brothers for protection. In some special cases, she could go to her husband’s sisters. Only in extreme cases does she turn to her own father or senior male relatives for protection.
The extent to which the wife’s family is prepared to assist during an assault is also dependent on the status of the lobola/roora (bride price) payment. If there is still a huge balance on the payment of her bride price, her family then really feels obliged to take up the issue of the beating with the husband’s family, because her in-law’s entitlement to their daughter is inadequate.
On the contrary, if all the lobola has been paid or there is a little balance, the wife’s family is a bit incapacitated to meddle in the issue of the beating because they may be viewed as supporting the woman against her husband, which will be generally viewed as destroying their daughter’s marriage. If the family authorities find the husband guilty, he is supposed to apologise to the wife with a gift. Being guilty has nothing to do with the reasons for the beating, he is guilty because he beat her excessively. The gift can be anything the husband and his family think is suitable. In rural set-ups, the gift would normally be in the form of livestock such as a goat or cow.
The gravity of the beating to which the husband is found guilty would also determine the size of the gift, the worst-case scenario being a cow.
With the Shona traditions, in the unlikely event that the husband refuses to cooperate in the apology and payment of the gift, he is threatened with a family isolation process called kucheka hukama.
In the Shona traditions, this is a serious thing because the isolation means the husband is literally excluded from the family. No one wants to live like a loner, so the threat of isolation means isolation from all spiritual processes of the family which many cannot afford to lose. A wife was best protected from assault by her husband through the belief that when she died, her tormented spirit would return as an avenging spirit (ngozi/uzimu).
From the colonial era, under both Customary and Common Law, the husband had the right to physically chastise his wife as a correctional measure or as a way of making her obey his orders. The beating was comparable to the chastisement of a child, as long as the punishment did not cause injury. The million-dollar question is, can someone assault “cautiously” avoiding injury? The wife was relegated to a child to the extent that the traditional Ndebele men referred to the women as abesintwana (children).
Some public toilets in colonial Rhodesia were thus labelled “abesintwana” to refer to both women and children. It is apparent that the purported right is no more. Currently, at Law, violence against wives is just as criminal as other crimes. It is also time our men let go of some of these patriarchal traditions and cultures that oppressed and still oppress our women.
Most of these traditions and cultures have been overtaken by events and time.
