Cultural misconception on marriage?

I ATTENDED an exciting meeting on gender equality where I was one of the presenters. Well, my slot was on gender and religion and one of Zimbabwe’s most colourful historians and educationists presented on gender and culture. It was such a good lecture from the gentleman and I learnt a lot of things from him. However, there is one thing that he mentioned that has kept me thinking and I find it interesting to share with you today. It is this misconception on marriage by our culture that is of interest to me. Culturally, marriage is not about love, it is about bearing children. It is about continuity ( ukwanda) as it was said. I find this very interesting and at the same time disturbing. I look back and begin to see this “idea” affecting many women then. This could have been the reason for all those arranged marriages in the past. This could be the reason for all those polygamous relationships that hurt a lot of women and children. This could have been the reason for all those conflicts and talks of witchcraft in many polygamous marriages. I have always said that, if we look genuinely to our challenges today, we will find out that our culture is the culprit. I am not blind to the fact that there are so many good things in our culture but this one on marriage was a great error and abuse.

Marriage is not marriage without love. The basis of it is love if we are to interpret and understand it from the Biblical point of view and largely from the Christ standpoint. The Bible encourages and teaches husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church. Now if marriage is not about love, then what is it about? If you remove love from marriage, you have nothing else to talk about. What binds two people together in marriage is love more than sex and children. I have heard many people, women in particular, claiming that they are now in their marriages only for their children, the love for their spouses is dead. This is very unfortunate. It was never supposed to be so.

It is wrong and deceptive to view marriage as just for procreation and making babies and building our clans. Marriage is beyond this. Marriage is still marriage without children. The first reason for marriage is not children but love between two people. Marriage is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and His church. I am on record saying that marriage cannot be claimed by any human culture because it is God who created marriage. We can therefore only understand marriage from God’s point of view. Its purpose is about God and not us. We are recipients of this sacred institution but not owners. We cannot therefore run it and do it in our own terms. There is no wonder why we have messed ourselves up and messed our communities. We have produced hurt, bitter and angry people all over because of our cultural misconceptions and theft of God’s sacred things which we have made ours.

If you closely look at the blessing or benediction by God to the first marriage, Genesis 1:28, the first instruction is Fruitfulness. Now, beloved that fruitfulness is not about “multiplication” which is bearing of children. Fruitfulness there is about being productive. God has blessed these two with the capacity to be productive and bear fruit and do great things together. The biggest challenge is that from our cultural point of view, we went for multiplying and produced children even beyond our capacities to care for them. We have hidden behind a misconception that God said, “zalanani lande”. The reason being that we have said marriage is about making children and so I can make as many as I can, it is the will of God. May God forgive us.

One of the reasons for poverty in the family and in Africa is this misconception. We have produced more than our capacities. We needed first to build our fruitfulness and be ready for multiplication. This is where we were deceived by the devil and now poverty and lack have become our second culture. We need to come to terms with our current realities and find ways of going back to the truth of God so we can have a solution.

I want to make it clear beloved that marriage is a love issue more than it is a child bearing issue. It is built on love for each other. It is a holy institution founded on love and demonstrating deeper love of God to His people. We cannot do it without love. In this day and age we cannot be doing arranged marriages. We cannot be polygamous. We need love in our homes and with love we will overcome. Love covers a multitude of sins. Marriage is a love affair and nothing more and nothing less.

Happy marriage to all those who love each other in their marriages. God heal all marriages in Zimbabwe today.