The ManicaPost
Tinashe Mlambo
Weekender Reporter
FED up with her husband’s laziness and boozing both of which have left her performing the fatherly role of providing for the family, a Mutare woman dragged the former to the civil court, demanding US$150 maintenance.
The woman, Olinda Sibanda, filed for maintenance against her husband, Steven Chapenya, accusing him of being lazy and squandering every cent on booze, while doing nothing to fend for the family.
The two appeared before Mutare magistrate, Mr Xavier Chipato, who granted the woman US$50 as maintenance.
“Your Worship, this man does absolutely nothing to fend for his family. We have two children together. He is never at home. He usually leaves home early in the morning to (go)drinking with his friends.
“Every month, he collects money for rentals from our tenants and squander(s) it on beer with his friends, not sparing a cent for us. I am now playing the fatherly role of providing for the family. In short, I do almost everything by myself.
“He recently returned from South Africa and was not feeling well and I nursed him. He has fully recovered, only to become a nuisance to the family,” she said.
Sibanda said her husband collects more than US$150 as rentals from their tenants.
“Since he is now collecting all the rentals from the tenants, I am applying for maintenance of the sum of US$150 so that I can pay school fees and other educational and basic needs of the children,” she said.
Chapenya hit back at his estranged wife for disrespecting him as the head of the family.
“Your Worship, every morning she mockingly refers to me as ‘Mai Sibanda’ which derogatorily means ‘I am a house wife’.
“Yes, I started collecting money for rentals from the tenants so that she could humbly request for it from me as the head of the family and her husband. I want her to ask for permission to do anything from me like any married woman,” he said.
He denied being a drunkard, saying he was now an ardent churchgoer.
“I have since stopped drinking. In fact, I am an ardent member of the Johanne Masowe Church. She claims that I do not take good care of the children, yet she took the children to our aunt without my consent. At one point I told her to bring the kids back home, but up to now she has not brought them back.
“It has been five weeks since we last shared the same bed because she does not respect me.
“I am being denied my conjugal rights by this woman, and we don’t even talk. She wants me to be on her leash every day. I leave home early and come back late to avoid her nagging.
“She calls me ‘a house wife’ because I cannot do menial work after my hands were injured in a road accident some years ago,” he said.
However, Mr Chipato granted Sibanda maintenance for US$50.
