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Avoid shortcuts to marriage

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WHEN a female eagle meets a male and they want to mate, she flies down to earth with the male pursuing her and she picks a twig and flies back into the air with the male still in pursuit.
Once she has reached a height high enough for her, she lets the twig fall to the ground and watches it as it falls.
The male chases after the twig.
He has to catch it before it falls to the ground, then bring it back to the female eagle.
The female eagle grabs the twig and flies to a higher altitude and repeats the process.
This goes on for hours, with the height increasing until the female eagle is assured that the male eagle has mastered the art of catching the twig, which shows commitment.
Then and only then, will she allow him to mate with her.
For the bald eagle, this commitment lasts for a lifetime unless one of the two dies.
Whether in private life or in business, one should test commitment of people intended for partnership.
One such partnership is marriage, which is supposed to be a lifetime commitment.
The eagle tests before it trusts.
Last year, High Court Judge Erica Ndewere reported that she granted a staggering 22 couples divorce in one week.
There were various reasons, most, however, gave irreconcilable differences as the reason.
There are three types of marriages in Zimbabwe: civil marriage, registered customary marriage and unregistered customary marriage.
Customary marriages are traditional unions.
They are sometimes registered or they remain informal.
The legal status of a marriage determines the rights of a wife/husband after divorce or the death of a spouse.
Most of the cases that are dealt with at the High Court fall under the Civil Marriage or Chapter 5.11, which is a monogamous marriage.
The other two which are estimated to be about 80 percent of the populace in marriages may be polygamous.
However, apart from divorce rates at the High Court, the influx of maintenance claims and protection orders at the civil courts dotted around the country prove that divorce cases are on the rise.
In an interview, cultural expert Sekuru Raymond Mazorodze said there was need to go back to the courtship processes of olden days which produced enduring relationships and not ‘bubble gum’ love which has now become the order of the day.
“Kare taiti rooranai vematongo because it was easier to relate to someone from a family that you knew,” he said.
“However, nowadays our children meet at colleges or even at workplaces and date without meeting anyone from their prospective spouse’s family and think that only their spouse is important.”
Sekuru Mazorodze said they only involve the family when they are ready to do the lobola/roora negotiations and this gives very little time for interaction between the two families.
This weakens the power of the mentors in a marriage like the sekuru (uncle — mother’s brother of the boy) grandmother and the tete (father’s sister of the girl).
These people, said Sekuru Mazorodze, can be described as the third parents for the young boys and girls as they played a key role in mentoring the youngsters into adulthood and teaching life skills.
“If a girl had her first menstrual period, tete was the first to know while sekuru would know when the boy started to develop feelings for girls,” he said.
“The boy would tell his sekuru if he was interested in a certain girl and the girl would tell her aunt of a prospective suitor.”
The meeting place would be the aunt’s homestead.
This way, cordial relations were developed as well as the habits of the boy monitored.
After some time of courtship, the aunt and her niece would visit the boy’s home so that they meet the potential in-laws.
This was called kumema.
The boy and girl were not allowed to have sexual intercourse during this whole period.
After meeting the families, the girl and boy would then promise to marry each other and give each other engagement tokens (nduma) with the aunt as the witness.
Lobola negotiations would then follow with the facilitation of the go-between (munyai/dombo).
At this point, everyone was involved and this includes the extended family.
Most of the times the real parents of the girl were not even involved.
The aunt would continue with her role and accompany her niece to her husband’s house as well as advise her on her new role as a wife.
Her advisory role would continue and even the husband could go and complain to the aunt if there were problems.
Such problems would always be solved amicably.
Mbuya Ellen Chipuriro, from Glen Norah, said it was very difficult for one to divorce someone because the family was involved and the only reason that could not be solved was when there was infidelity from the wife.
“Many people avoided being divorced because of the repercussions on both families who would have been connected through the relationship,” she said.
“However, in cases where a divorce would have been agreed (on) a token of divorce (gupuro) would be taken to the girl’s father by the go-between and the father would call for a meeting so that he too understands the cause of the divorce.”
Mbuya Chipuriro said the role of the family has since been overtaken by the church and by some hired relatives in town, hence the collapse of many marriages.
She encouraged women to respect their husbands regardless of status and urged the men to work hard for their families and to love their wives so as to have lasting marriages.
The internet and social media platforms have opened up a world of opportunities for those looking for love, relationships and marriage, not only for Zimbabweans, but all across the world
Many relationships still happen by meeting a friend of a friend, at colleges, churches and social as well as business functions, among other places.
It is very common for one to bring a potential marriage suitor just a few weeks before their formal marriage.
And because there is an increase in the use of social media, potential spouses are introduced via whatsapp, twitter and facebook, among other platforms.
Research indicates that children often suffer badly from a parental break-up or divorce and those raised by a single parent usually perform poorly in their studies, suffer bad health and fall into addiction, crime and poverty in adulthood.
The study unveiled that children whose parents split when they were between five and 16 years old had higher possibilities of developing an emotional and conduct disorder.
The research findings say that the family backgrounds of children are as important as the health, income and educational qualifications of their households.
These children have higher tendencies of entering into multiple live-in relationships upon reaching adulthood.
Moreover, girls from divorced families are more likely to become teenage mothers. Children from divorced families engage in de facto relationships instead of marriage as a means of self-protection to avoid social and economic risks related to marriage.

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