LUCY PHIRI writes
A 25-year-old woman of Lusaka has sued her husband of one year for divorce for being an irresponsible husband and causing a lot of scandals in the home.
‘’Problems started on our wedding day, when my husband posted on his whatsAPP status that he was regretting marrying me.’’
Christabel Sinkala, 25, of Silverest was appearing before Chelstone local court Presiding magistrate Mary Namangala in a matter in which she sued her husband Willliam Banda, 29, of Lusaka West for divorce.
She told the court that she got married in 2018, and has one child and dowry was not paid. She said problems started on the wedding day because they did not have a house where they could go after the wedding as promised.
‘’Problems continued even after the wedding when we were in the hotel room because my husband took all the money guests contributed for the wedding and went out promising that he was going to look for a house because we could not know where to go next after honeymoon,’’ she said.
‘’I told him to rent a house nearby because I was pregnant by then and couldn’t want to be far from my parents. But he couldn’t find a house so we went to live at a certain place my parents had organized for us. We started having misunderstandings in the house because he used to get loans and other things from people and never repaid borrowed money to the owners. I also used to receive reports that he had gotten goods and couldn’t return, some used to follow me at my work place,’’ she said.
She further narrated that her husband reached a point where he could get money in his wife’s purse and refuse when asked even when they used to stay the two of them in the house.
‘’My husband never used to buy food in the house, never paid bills and also never bought clothes for the baby. Whenever I asked him why he was not doing so he used to tell me that our marriage was already destroyed from the beginning. Parents have tried to sit us down but to no avail,’’ she said.
‘’When we were dating, he used to say that the car he used to drive was his and he had a house of which I confirmed later that the things weren’t his but his grandfather’s,” Sinkala said.
In defence, Banda said he was charged K30, 000 bride price and paid quarter of the money.
“The time we were in courtship she fell pregnant. Her parents told her that she had two options, either to get chased from home or get married and that’s when we agreed to get married and started some wedding preparation, and I also realized that we used to quarrel a lot,’’ he said.
‘’We sat down together and borrowed where we could. I got a loan and I gave her half the money but I don’t know where she took it. As time went on, things became harder,’’ he said.
After hearing from both sides, the court said it had no Jurisdiction over their marriage because it was a statutory marriage and under the Act so referred them to subordinate courts.
