What GBV? I see GBW!

 Is what we are experiencing in Southern Africa, gender based violence (GBV) or something more sinister, namely gender based war (GBW)? I think it is the latter, and it is caused by OUR KILLING OF MARRIAGE. You see, when the colonialists subjugated our subcontinent, they were looking for wealth. They had no time to waste with complex native customary laws. So they contented themselves with controlling the apex native administrators – the so called CHIEFS, and left the “micro” administrations to their cultural practitioners.

The result was that we continued to marry according to our traditions, thereby subjecting our families to cultural stabilisation. When we attained independence, we made no effort to harmonise European marriage law and practice with our own traditional laws and customs. We were too lazy. All we continued to do is to practice Roman Dutch Law of marriage alongside our own cultural laws of marriage. The result is the mayhem we are witnessing today. Young people no longer see any value in marriage. They do not have the same expectations vis-à-vis married life as European descended kids. In short, we are culturally flying on autopilot; and that is why we repeatedly crash!

The way out of this predicament is to fuse the two laws – Roman Dutch law and our own cultural laws/norms regarding marriage, and come up with ONE LAW that restores marriage to its dignity. I am not a lawyer, but I wish I could find out how the South African courts for example, ruled in the matter where Mama Winnie Madikizela Mandela was challenging the “presumed” dissolution of her cultural marriage to Madiba. Were the courts really seized with potential cultural implications going forward or did they simply side-step the issue, the way the colonialists would have done? 


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