Comments on: In Zimbabwe women are pushed to the margins, pushed to the limit http://www.kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/in-zimbabwe-women-are-pushed-to-the-margins-pushed-to-the-limit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-zimbabwe-women-are-pushed-to-the-margins-pushed-to-the-limit Kubatana.net speaks out from Zimbabwe Tue, 03 Dec 2013 13:53:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 By: Delta http://www.kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/in-zimbabwe-women-are-pushed-to-the-margins-pushed-to-the-limit/#comment-187470 Delta Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:50:33 +0000 http://www.kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=2745#comment-187470 Hey Natasha!

Thank you so much for this most interesting and provocative contribution. I suspect you and your friends will open a wonderfully wicked can of worms..lol!!! Our society is far from ready to swallow the bitter pill of reality that their ‘virtous’ women are adept and have adapted to the practise of playing the cheating game.
I completely agree with you that the above reasons apply to just fraction of small houses whilst some definitely need nor outside factor to prompt them to cheat – they (like men) have a natural inclination towards multi-tasking in terms of sexual partners.
And what a hilariously cynical view of the marital institution by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I’ll confess, I hadn’t heard of him before but now the name is sure to stick) thanks so much for sharing that.
It gives one more fodder material to ponder on as food for thought.

]]> By: Natasha http://www.kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/in-zimbabwe-women-are-pushed-to-the-margins-pushed-to-the-limit/#comment-187457 Natasha Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:12:12 +0000 http://www.kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=2745#comment-187457 Thanks for such splendid feedback from the conference, Delta. I am a big fan of your writing. Although your blog above touched on a much broader issue, I wish to zero down to the one always controversial issue of ‘small house’ you also touched upon. Myself and a group of academic friends are conducting a snap research into the existence of the small-house phenomenon, and it is still ongoing. The major advantage we have had is that, we personally know several women who fall under this societal classification, and a lot of the women have none of the above mentioned excuses. It has been particularly interesting to find that there are also ‘big small-houses’, i.e married women who have sustained relationships with married men or single men. Sometimes or even predominantly, these women can fend for themselves, but they are not satisfied emotionally or sexually in their marriages. Contrary to popular expectation, women are capable of cheating just as seriously as men, other schools of thought have said that they even make the best cheats because of the supposedly inherent female ability to multitask. Poverty is not necessarily the dominant cause. The need for attention, quest for sexual gratification and the belief that the spouse is an infidel are among the other key driving factors motivating women to be content with being somebody else’s small house. Some women have intimated the fact that they have simply fallen out of love with their partners, but stay put for the usual reasons -the kids and oh, the scandal of it! Religion also plays a role and oftentimes, the women feel wretched for wanting to be sexually involved with other men, but its a feeling they cannot help. Interestingly, the belief that the world has a few ‘good’ men holds supreme (even though ironically, such few good men have no problems being shared by a number of women). Define good as ‘emotionally sensitive and considerate, sexy or good looking, financially stable and with a future, provides much needed attention and spends time with one, and above all, is not physically or verbally abusive.” In short, the reasons are hugely private to each individual in that situation. Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Love in the time of Cholera (1985) makes what I think is an interesting but true observation about marriage that explains a lot:

“… the very nature of matrimony; an absurd invention that could exist only by the infinite grace of God. … against all scientific reason for two people who hardly knew each other, with no ties at all between them, with different characters, different upbringings to suddenly find themselves committed to living together, to sleeping in the same bed, to sharing two destinies that perhaps were fated to go in opposite directions.”

In his opinion, the problem with marriage was that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast, and that is often hard. Marquez’s controversial views on love and relationships have been understood to go as far as him claiming that only same sex relationships, especially between women work because its about understanding each other and a woman is better understood by another woman. What I know is unlike animals, humans cannot be expected to behave in a very predictable manner and the reasoning behind certain behaviors cannot be neatly classified under ‘because of’ or even justified.

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