Tsungai Chekerwa-Machokoto
I HAVE taken time to observe how our society works. It is actually really interesting. After people are divorced, you find that it is ‘acceptable’ for a man to jump straight into another relationship but if a woman does the exact same thing within the exact same time frame, it is intolerable and she gets all kinds of unfavourable labels. Just like virginity, there are sexist judgments that are quite harsh on women. So, is there anything wrong with dating soon after a separation or divorce? If so, what’s the perfect timeframe that would be ideal? Who gets to place the timelines on these things? What considerations are taken into account when coming up with these timeframes and any other rules?
What people need to realise is that for a relationship to come to an end, it would have died long before that. Couples stay in marriages and relationships for reasons that are often times not for their own benefit. They consider a lot of things and one of the main reasons for staying is usually the children. It is after they realise that raising children who witness a marriage between two parents that don’t even like each other, is more toxic to the children than having divorced parents.
Once they get to this point they start withdrawing themselves until they are ready to face the world and all its judgments about broken families. Family members will tell you to ‘stay for the children’. Religion will say ‘God hates divorce and therefore, make it work for His sake’. Society will say ‘children from broken marriages are also broken’ and so are the parents, so stay in it so that you look respectable in society’. These are just a few examples of what is said during this emotionally difficult time.
Owing to the above reasons, it is not reasonable to put a time frame on people to publicly move on with their love lives after a separation. Maybe they would have been in a dead marriage for years and the freedom to finally date again will be a welcome change. One question always bugs me though: What exactly is wrong with women having a love life after a divorce? I don’t understand it. Surely they also deserve to be happy. I hear a lot of religious connotations attached to this particular aspect of this discussion. Should the Bible not be respected by both parties? It surely should. Then why does there seem to be an unwritten law that requires women to stay put and wait for the husband, just in case in the near future he decides he made a mistake by leaving his family.
If that never happens, this poor woman would have lived her life in anticipation, hoping every day that one day her family will be intact again. Is that a way to live one’s life? I think not. And why is the assumption that when a marriage breaks, it is always the wife that has been dumped? It is really mind boggling.
Over the past few decades, things have been shifting steadily. Perspectives are changing. Culture is becoming more and more diluted with the migration that is taking place actively every day. Globalisation is bringing in practices from other cultures and they seem more exciting and less ‘rigid’ than our own culture. We often hear the term ‘global village’ and it has brought interrogation to the values of morality that have been around since time immemorial.
With all these changes, it is advisable to embrace change to a reasonable extent. I’m not advocating for radical moral transformation, no. I respect our culture, I respect the elderly and their priceless wisdom which we all must consult more often than we do. I just have a problem with people giving cultural connotations only to aspects of life that affect them. Selective respect for culture. All the bad things are blamed on culture. All the rigid and harsh factors are blamed on history and before you know it, it gets colonial and the arguments just come at different tangents and it never ends.
Who is the author of sexism? Why is it still so prevalent in our lives despite the exposure that comes with us living in a global village? Going back to the topic of the day, why should women be the ones to stay alone and wait for the ‘return’ of the husband to his senses? Why is there a stereotype that whenever there is a separation or divorce, it’s the woman that would have been left? Do women not have emotional intelligence to walk out of a toxic marriage? And after they do, happiness is not an option for them? Really? Yes, that includes Christian women too. I think we as the members of society should rethink our positions in some of these things because when you really think about it, some of it makes no sense and is very oppressive to women.
These unwritten laws and the silent judges that are so dominant in life should be questioned and interrogated. Life is not a rehearsal. It is actually happening and you only live on this planet once. You don’t get a second chance at it, so it is best to live it to the fullest with the chance that you get.
If you live your life for other people, to try and make them happy, you will certainly be fighting a losing battle. It is impossible to make each and every spectator happy. Those people are on the terraces of your life and they actually don’t even relate to what it is that you are really going through. They don’t appreciate the tightness of your shoes. Even people with the best of intentions and spend a lot of effort on other people’s issues are not guaranteed of appreciation.
People can be very disappointing sometimes. It is best not to have too many expectations from society as far as approval is concerned. I’m a married woman yes, but I do have close friends and some family members that have gone through ‘persecution’ because they started dating again after they ended their marital unions. It has really been draining for them to fight the odds to stay in their relationships.
Society is really sexist when it comes to the dating life of the newly divorced or separated couples. Men are allowed to date, or rather, it is acceptable for a man to jump right into a new flame but when a woman does the same thing, she is attacked and that woman faces all sorts of stigma and is given labels that are degrading, all because she has found another person who is interested in her.
While it makes very little sense, it is the truth. Despite all the migration that happens, all the exposure that we gain by living in a global village, these oppressive practices seem to have stood firm and have been attached to culture whenever it suits people.
People that are not cultural at all in any other part of their lives, become cultural just so that they can use unwritten laws to suppress women and that is not fair. It is important to put ourselves in the shoes of the people that would have divorced in order to understand where they will be coming from. Without doing that, it is easy and fun to judge them until you need the same understanding from other people as well. Take time to think about these things.
-Tsungai Chekerwa-Machokoto can be reached via email tsungimachokoto@gmail.com