Women speak on challenges of marriage
Support group’s drive to live up to vows
WOMEN from across the Eastern Cape gathered at the Queens Casino and Hotel on Saturday to discuss marriage at a married women’s devotional on Saturday.
The event was organised by a national married woman’s support group formed in 2012, Tshatile Tshatile. The group’s Eastern Cape regional administrator, Angie Kaulela, said their main objective was to strengthen marriages and fight against divorce and abuse.
“We support and pray for each other. We are against divorce so we give a person skills on how to deal with challenges. Marriage is ordained of God and we want women to be happy.”
Unemployment, substance abuse and infidelity are some of the challenges they openly discuss.
“Some people feel like they have more power if their spouse is not working. Fathers drink alcohol a lot, so we try to encourage them to be involved with church programmes because women are also at risk of getting sick as a result of men who are cheating,” she said.
The women share daily prayers through their WhatsApp groups.
“We pray every night and whoever is up first writes a daily prayer for everyone in the group.”
Kaulela said they would continue motivating women to remain noble mothers, regardless of their circumstances. “Our times have changed because women have been through a lot of abuse. They sometimes become too bold in that they want to take the role of men in their marriages. We must be the wives who remain humble.”
She said these were challenging times which needed more people to spread the gospel of love.
“We are preaching respect and love in marriage. It is nice to have a partner and someone with whom to share frustrations and happiness. No one will ever have a perfect marriage but it is something that we want people to work on.”