WHEN a man falls in love he should be at peace. 

When you have selected the best partner to share your life with, you do what is correct. 

You do not abuse your partner in a manner which is anti-marital institution. 

Being faithful to your partner is the correct way of our people, it is what has made us remain a respectable people before Musikavanhu because this is His way; the way He designed for vanhu, it is the hunhu he searches for in those He calls His own. 

Without hunhu/ubuntu, there is mayhem and chaos, as exists in the Western world.

When a child arrives into this material world, there should be a support system to make the child feel special, wanted and normal; the child is born into wedded bliss where there is abundance of love, of all the psychological, spiritual and material support that this new fragile, vulnerable citizen of the material world requires for a successful landing and the beginning of a new successful life. 

Whether the parents are poor or rich, there is a fantastic network of family that welcomes and supports each new entrant into the family circle. 

There is jubilation as each member brings to bear his/her own force on the new born; a force of love and acceptance to support the new born. 

There are material gifts and no end to the joy. 

Sometimes grandparents or the father slaughters a beast or a goat or a sheep; there is something special to mark the arrival of the addition to the family.

However, if a child comes into this material world as a result of a scandalous liaison, then none of the above will be realised. 

When a child is born out of wedlock, the situation is drastically different from the situation just described. 

In many cases, it is quite tragic.

The troubles of such a child starts while it is still in its mother’s womb. 

The father might reject the pregnancy, throwing the mother into traumatic torment. 

Medical science has documented that when the child is in its mother’s womb, it experiences what its mother goes through, be it joy or sorrow. 

Thus, the child also gets traumatised; the trauma registers in its psyche and it might never be as peaceful and sanguine as one born in wedded bliss. 

The mother herself might reject the pregnancy and actually attempt abortion. 

This total rejection leaves enduring scars on the unborn child, making it difficult for the child to navigate the vicissitudes of life after birth.

Sometimes the male beats up the expectant female, disowning the pregnancy.

‘Kwakatinhwa n’ombe ngani kubva kwedu kuenda kwenyu. I never paid lobola, thus never married, saka uri hure.’

What is inaccurate here is that the female is the only purpoted prostitute; but both defiled themselves while the male was quite aware that he was not married to this particular female. Emerging out of this is the truth that only in marriage is it correct for people to be intimate as husband and wife.

When the pregnant female is beaten up, the child in the womb is traumatised and it will never be at peace; this disturbance will register in some form or other in later life. 

In some cases, if the male is married, both he and his wife terrorise the expectant female so that she leaves ‘their marital home’. 

Thus the child experiences and suffers this rejection by its own father. 

Both the male and female are culpable; they should never have committed adultery but their sin affects the child more than the two.

Society seals this rejection of the child by declaring: ‘Igora’, born from liaisons hatched behind bushes. 

That child will never be at peace, he/she will always live

in the shadows. 

If the mother subsequently marries someone else, mostly the child will be labelled ‘mubvandiripo’ by the husband’s family, which is total rejection. 

The child thus suffers. 

In most cases, the child does not have the same rights and privileges as its siblings born to the incumbent father. 

The two who were involved in a scandalous liaison are responsible for this child’s predicament.

If the father brings this child into his own marriage to someone else, it is almost always a daggers-drawn relationship. 

The wife generally is wary of this illegitimate child, sometimes seeing him/her as a constant reminder of the husband’s  scandalous liaison. 

Generally the mother does not want competition for her own children, this child is viewed as a constant threat. 

It just doesn’t work for the child, its woes never end, it is not the right way to be born and to live.

The maternal grandparents might take the child but the history of the child will follow him or her always. 

Grandparents are generally loving and will not discriminate against the child, but the child will always be distinct from the other grandchildren as the one ‘without’ a father, or the one whose mother is a ‘whore’.

No child needs to be sentenced to permanent rejection. People should bring children into this world in wedlock, after ensconcing properly. 

Sleeping around pre-maritally and extra-maritally (kuhura) and the children born under such conditions will never enjoy the same joy and happiness as those born in relationships deemed proper by society.