Why marry if you can’t commit to one man, one woman?

By Daily Revelation Editor

The Magistrates court recently sentenced Baxton Danga, a wife batterer to 14 months in jail after his merciless abuse of his wife.

The abused wife, a 30-year-old woman of Lusaka’s Matero Township, says she is happy that her husband who mercilessly beat her has been handed a jail sentence.

She encouraged women who are in abusive marriages to leave before they are killed.

She told the court that in August this year, her husband spent a night out and when he returned home in the morning, she asked him why he slept out again.

She said the husband answered her that, “sinimapeleka yabatate bako. Nimapeleka yanga (I don’t take your father’s, I take mine),” she told the court.

For those who did not watch the video, it was so agonising to watch every second of it, as the now convict husband unleashed brutality on an innocent woman. It was such a sorry sight that apart from unleashing heavy punches and kicks, including arm-twisting the young lady so much so that she cried her lungs out, the abuser also resorted to using a metal object that was nearby and hit her very hard with it.

The poor defenseless lady could only watch and suffer pain as the abuser unleashed on her. And despite the cries and beatings being heard around the vicinity, some just watched on and took the videos instead of stopping the ‘animal.’ The only credit is at least a video was taken to document the unfortunate incident, and today the abuser is in jail.

We shudder to imagine the pain and agony the young lady has endured for all these years outside the camera from that man. It surely isn’t an easy thing to be in her shoes. Unfortunately, there are many out there who are suffering in silent agony, just in the name of marriage. Life should never be lived in that manner. Marriage is an institution that was established by God to be enjoyed and not to be a shipikisha club as many put it.

In the case of Baxton’s conviction, we feel the courts were lenient on him to have given him only 14 months imprisonment. We feel the penalty should have been harsher in order to send a strong warning to the other abusers. We are not sure if he will be able to sufficiently reform within this little time, he might just come out and effect more abuse on the other women he will find, since the wife has indicated that she would not go back to him but find something to do to care for her two children.

The established norm is that when someone marries, they are doing so because they have committed to spending their lifetime with one man in the case of women, and one woman in the case of men. We wonder then why many want to live an adulterous life afterwards. This is the root of many struggles in marriages actually as in the case of that Matero woman whose only sin was asking the husband why he had spent his night out. Just that question angered him so much and brought the animal out of him to unleash such heavy brutality on a defenceless woman.

We encourage women, including some men who are experiencing such a torturous life to immediately leave. That marriage is not worth fighting for. The route which that Matero woman took of getting the abuser to court is the route those who are in abusive marriages should take.

An abuser will always be an abuser, whether that abuser is your husband or a wife, they are still an abuser. You must leave them before you lose your precious life.