WHEN people get married, they are happy as they live together as wife and husband.
Many relatives show that they are pleased with the marriage of their family members, especially if they are well-to-do and they constantly visit them in the hope that they would be given ‘something’ when they are returning to their homes.
In many instances, female relatives of the men like the wives who may be their sisters or mothers-in-law. They like the women for the many good things they do for them such as giving them money and buying them clothes as well as many other niceties.
But when problems start manifesting at the homes and the couples are faced with conflicts, these women who were happy with their relatives’ wives are quick to start pointing accusing fingers at the women they have been calling good persons for a long time. They are like green snakes in green grass.
Recently, I was on a trip to Choma in Southern Province with my sister and two nieces where we went to sort out a family issue.
After being on the road from Ndola, we decided to make a stop-over in Kapiri Mposhi and went to a restaurant to buy some take-aways.
While one of my nieces was at the counter to buy the food, the three of us took some seats and waited.
It was at this time that I saw and heard a woman who was seated with two other women in front of our table point at a woman who was just walking out of the restaurant, saying: “Baina nomba ba Grace. Balibashupa sana elyo abalume babo bafwwile,” (Grace has now gained some weight. She was really troubled when her husband died.)
I turned to look at the woman who I thought was being talked about.
“Her husband’s relatives even thought of exhuming the man’s body in order to do a DNA to prove whether he was the father to the children,” the woman continued.
As an eavesdropper, I thought this was something for my ears.
Her husband’s relatives even thought of exhuming the man’s body in order for them to do a DNA to prove whether he was the father of the children! Why was it so? I wondered.
As I was waiting for the woman to continue with her story, my niece came and asked us what we would like her to buy.
Initially, my idea was to get some take-away sausage and chips so that we could eat while moving on as Choma was quite far.
But because of the story the woman had started telling to her friends, I thought I should take nshima and eat it just there in order for me to listen to the story.
As my niece went back to the counter, I heard another woman ask the one who had started the story: ”Ninshi balefwaila ukuchitilefyo?”(why did they want to do that?).
Then the woman started explaining what had happened.
According to the narrator, the woman had been married to a soldier. The two had been married for some time until they started having problems after the husband started having extra-marital affairs.
When the situation was getting worse, the two decided to divorce – or was it separate. “They stayed on separation for about six months. The man started ailing and since he did not have anyone to care for him, he recalled his wife and they reunited,” explained the woman.
She said when the two reconciled, they stayed in harmony even better than before. It seemed that the husband had realised that he had wronged the wife with whom he had three children.
“But the man’s sickness persisted and his health deteriorated. That woman took good care of the husband and the relatives appreciated her. However, the man could not recover and died,” said the woman.
It was after the man had died that his relatives turned against the woman accusing her of being the cause of the man’s death.
“They told her that as far as they were concerned, the two had been divorced and they did not know anything about their reconciliation,” narrated the woman.
The other two women shook their heads sadly.
“Fwebanakashi twalishupa,” (Us women are difficult) commented the other.
The narrator continued and said after burial, the relatives of the man asked the woman to vacate the matrimonial house and did not allow her to take anything from the house.
When the woman complained about how the children would live, one of the elderly women, who was believed to be the aunt to the deceased, pointed out that the three children were not their relative’s children and she suspected the woman bore them from other men as she was suspected to be immoral and that was what had earlier led to their separation.
When the woman explained that she and her husband were the biological parents of the children, the elderly woman flatly refused.
The woman told her husband’s relatives that the two of them were in deep love despite the separation they had gone through which had been caused by the man.
She told them that the two had buried their hatchet and were in good books after they had reconciled, but the relatives could not take it.
“The old woman refused. She challenged the woman to take the children for DNA to prove whether or not they were their relative’s,” explained the woman.
“But how could they have done the DNA when the man was dead?” another woman wanted to know.
Surely, how could they do the DNA when the man was dead and buried! I was thinking like that myself too.
It was then that the woman explained the relatives suggested that they exhume the body and cut a piece of the flesh which they would have taken for DNA!
What cruelty was all this? I thought.
On hearing this, the woman’s relatives decided that the woman should just get her children and forget about everything.
They said what was at play was property grabbing. They did not want that woman they were earlier saying was good to take anything which belonged to her deceased husband.
“Ulefwaya ukusombola efyo tawabyele (You want to reap what you did not sow),” they accused her, explained the woman.
She said apart from denying the woman any property left by her late husband, they punished the woman’s relatives who attended the funeral by not giving them food.
While all this was happening, said the woman, the man’s relatives were defending the woman but they were overpowered by the women who threatened to deal with any man who was going to allow the woman to get anything.
The women finished eating their food and got up to leave. The narrator was still explaining the story to her friends as they were walking out of the restaurant.
Although I did not eavesdrop the rest of the story, I had listened enough.
We also finished our food and left the restaurant.
As we were getting to our vehicle, I was wondering why some women (not all of them) were so cruel to the wives of their relatives when they died.
Many innocent women are treated very badly by their womenfolk when their husbands pass on even when the couple was very happy when they were both alive.
I have on many occasions heard that uncles, nephews and brothers were very good at property grabbing when one of their own died, but I think the number of cruel women against their relatives’ wives are aunties, sisters-in-law and nieces who outnumber the men,
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