Why the world needs more divorces

(By Pius Vilakati, writing as Mr Pius Rinto)

Introduction

In South Africa, the 2012/2013 Annual Report of the Department of Justice reported that in 2012/13, there was a 28% increase in new divorce matters. There were more females than males who instituted divorce (plaintiffs) during that period. This seems to be an increasing and interesting trend these days. Many moralists hold the view that the reason for the increase in the number of divorces is the decay of the ‘good’ norms and values that have been in place in society since ‘time immemorial.’ However, this world needs more divorces than ever before if we are to see real women emancipation. Divorces are therefore a condition without which the liberation of women is impossible. They are a conditio sine qua non for the liberation of women.

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This world has been a patriarchal society since, to use the moralists’ language, time immemorial. Patriarchy is much older than capitalism. It is even older than feudalism and slavery. Patriarchy is rampant even in many Socialist and Communist parties of the world. As such, when the priests, pastors and their moralist buddies claim that divorces are caused by the decay of societal norms and values they refer to patriarchal norms and values. Seen in this fashion, one then needs to praise this high prevalence of divorces. It is a good thing. It is a clear sign of progress in so far as the women’s struggle for liberation is concerned. It is an act of rebelling from the dictates of the oppressive world-wide patriarchal system. Rebelling against patriarchal norms and values is a good thing which everyone, men included, must do.

God and Ancestors want people to get married?

Perhaps we also need to question the very idea of marriage. Marriage has set principles and processes. It does not matter whether it is a marriage based on religion or culture or other system, or whether it is a marriage in Africa, Europe or America. Whilst on the one hand the pastors and priests claim we should marry because it is what God wants us to do, African traditionalists, on the other hand, claim that we must get married because marriage is one of the precious institutions that our ancestors left us and which they want us to continue doing.

But whose principles and processes are these? As stated above, the world has been a patriarchal world for many centuries. That means all the marriages of this world are firmly based on the rules, principles and processes underpinning patriarchy. Hence we have the ‘Mrs’ title, for instance, whilst in many societies the woman must leave her family and join her husband’s family after the wedding ceremony where she will practically become the husband’s minor child. In some societies, when the woman is raped by a man their principles state that the rapist man must be forced to marry her. Nothing about the raped woman’s right is in issue. All they are worried about is the embarrassment that the rape has caused on the woman’s family, a family which also has a male as its head and ultimate ruler. In a nutshell, marriage as it stands today, is nothing but a tool which is used to keep women in bondage and perpetuate the nonsensical belief that a woman is not a real woman unless and until she is married to someone (a man) and lobola is paid for her.

Therefore, all the marriage principles, rules and processes are nothing but a way of strengthening patriarchy. Patriarchy has developed to such an extent that even women themselves are its champions and thereby contribute to the subjugation of women; hence fighting against it is difficult. Even men have found it extremely difficult to fight against the backward principles of marriage such as the payment of lobola and other backward principles. Many times the opposition against such rebelling has come from women themselves. They seem to want to keep themselves in this perpetual disease of patriarchal marriage system and, like wild animals which always fight veterinarians who want to heal them of their infectious wounds, many women will fight even the men who have rebelled against this patriarchal system of marriage.

Conclusion

Women and men must, despite the challenges mentioned above, rebel against the current system or form of marriage. When one investigates the trend that divorces have taken, it becomes clear that the more women get their independence the more divorces we shall see. Women independence has contributed in the increase in divorces. More women are making their voices heard and stand by them. They are questioning the very institutions in which they find themselves. Unfortunately they are in a patriarchal world where pastors, priests, evangelists, traditionalists, lawyers, human rights activists (yes, them too!) and all other moralists are always armed with powerful weapons against this independence that these women seek. When the women make their voices heard and stand by them the one thing that they consistently receive is violence and condemnation by society. Nevertheless the struggle must continue. More divorces mean the goal towards women liberation is getting closer.

Let there be more divorces! 

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