By Dr Masimba Mavaza | Zimbabweans in the UK have taken the first and the golden cup in killing their spouses. In the last four years in the UK alone thirty Zimbabwean women were murdered ruthlessly by their husbands or boyfriends. About 40 percent of all female murder victims (and just six percent of male murder victims) die at the hands of a former or present spouse or lover.
The home becomes a dangerous place for women. Whereas almost all cases of murder committed by males against their female partners occurred after the female ended the relationship or announced her intention to do so, most of the murders committed by females against their male partners were actions to severe male domestic violence.
In 2011 a Zimbabwean woman in Luton cooked her husband in cooking oil burning all his genitals leaving him for dead. The woman was reacting to sexual and personal abuse, in Corby a town few miles from Leicester a woman who was in a wheel chair drove thirty miles to burn her boyfriend who has jilted her. Unfortunately she killed three innocent children and their mother who had nothing to do with the affair.
The handling of domestic issues abroad is so bad that it ends in murder. According to the Metropolitan police Zimbabwean men involved in murdering their wives have risen and the causes are more of passion than wealth. When love kills Zimbabwean man tops the list. A woman was stabbed in a car park by her husband and the other was stabbed several times in the comfort of her house by her ex-boyfriend. The scenario in most bedrooms abroad resembles a war zone. The white sheets and colourful beds are being turned to blood and the lucky ones come out bruised and some permanently maimed.Nearly all male murderers claim that (a) they committed the murder out of love, and (b) it was a result of loving too much. Wife murder does not express profound love; rather, it is an abusive type of the problematic fusion model of love.
There is a great difference between love and jealous most men even those who have not killed yet are so jealous and interpret any movement by the wife to be infidelity. The men have become so insecure and feel so unsafe to the extent that they declare that if they cannot have her no one should. The embarrassing and painful situation is that even adult couples have joined in the race to murder spouses. What has gone wrong with our diaspora society? There is no family which does not know a family which was a victim of diasporic domestic violence. There are reasons always given for such cowardly behaviour by our people in the Land of the queen.
The various explanations offered for the murder of wives share two common assumptions: (a) the murder stems from masculine possessiveness; it is the embodiment of the murderer’s personality and sexual jealousy and anger are two emotions that trigger it; (B) the murder is the climax of a history of violence that preceded it. Killing for love is never justified, killing for anything is the cruellest human action ever described. Spouse-murder is undoubtedly the most extreme manifestation of male violence, it is not due to a single male quality, such as masculine possessiveness, and is not a “natural” or “inevitable” continuation of domestic violence.
It is a phenomenon that is separate to other forms of male violence. Moreover, it is believed that in an important sense, these murders are committed out of love, so that an understanding of which components of love play a role in these murders would increase our understanding of this phenomenon. Because of the shock of the changes in finance , culture and behaviour a sense of insecurity is ushered in the mind of a man and the stupidity blinds his thinking and ends up killing his wife.The wife murderers are not only those who are druggies or those who depended on the wives, some of them are pastor’s and some professionals, their actions leaves one wondering what spirit has visited us. What is wrong with us.The murder is not an unintended result of violence that went too far—as most of these murders are well-planned. Furthermore, wife murder cannot be understood in terms of loss of control or local insanity. It is rather a deliberate act which is the resultof emotional ripeness that created mental readiness for committing the murder as anact of profound despair that is ready to destroy the other even if this means destroying oneself.Victims always know the result.
“There was writing on the wall”
It is sad to note that in most cases the victim have been subjected to a prolonged violent treatment. Some have so much into our culture that I cannot embarrass my husband, so they soldier on. Most of those who are killed have been in the abusive relationship for some time. They want to be Zimbabwean woman and try and hope that the man will change. Many women put up a fake picture of what is happening to them in order to have a face. at the end we will all say “There was handwriting on the wall … but I think that even if the writing on the wall wasn’t so prominent for the people around, for the family, for friends, the onefor whom it was definitely prominent was the victim….
The victim ignored and believed that maybe it wasn’t what she thought.” Although masculine possessiveness as well as jealousy and anger all play a role in the full range of factors that produce a readiness to take the life of a partner, it is more accurate to consider the motive for murder in terms of conditions that are favourable for the development of murderous violence, rather than in terms of one central personality variable. The murders are mostly caused by the man’s perception that the woman is his whole world so that he feels that any separation from her entails a loss of his own identity, he feels that there is no other reason for being alive without this woman.
The man’s traditional perception of masculinity, which dictates that the male has full power, honour, and control, runs counter to his dependency upon his wife, making that reliance appear evidence of his weakness and humiliation, and an affront to masculine honour. Some of these men are lazy and are so used to be fed by these women. When they are thrown out or feel that they will be thrown out, they see the end of their world and they make a fatal decision to kill to avoid humiliation.
These men are uncompromising and have a rigid behaviour which can only be controlled if there was pressure or assistance from the extended family. The man’s prevailing beliefs about love appear to justify the sacrifice of his wife on the one hand and of persistence on the other. In this case, the ideology behind love provides the legitimacy for terrible crimes. When all the above conditions pertain, the risk of wife murder significantly increases. The specific event that ignites the explosive barrel often revolves around the woman threatening to or actually separating from her partner. Knowing these conditions of risk will enable us to read the writing on the wall, thereby preventing many wife murders.
The reasons given by these murderous spouses are often that “I couldn’t live, I couldn’t function without her. … I believed that I couldn’t function if I wasn’t with her.”In light of the centrality of love in our lives, it is no wonder that cultures all over the world have depicted an ideal form of romantic love towards which all of us are supposedly striving. Zimbabwean men have indeed considered romantic love to be crucial for personal fulfilment and a happy life.
However, romantic love is also a major factor in people’s misery, as it involves many disappointments and unfulfilled hopes. but love also hurts a lot, can be dangerous, and may lead us to foolish deeds. The biggest problem we have with Zimbabwean is that most do not want to work and view their wives as tools of work. They spent most of their time flirting and themselves harloting around. They then believe that their wives are doing what they are doing. in their idle minds they then plan to kill to show their ultimate power. Most of them commit suicide but many have unfortunately been rescued and they have survived.Needless to say, explaining the men’s horrific behaviour as stemming from love is in no way a justification for their actions.
Understanding the men’s state of mind could prevent future murders; hence, we should examine the real state of mind that leads these men to kill their partners, without worrying about whether our findings are politically correct. The fact that Zimbabweans in Diaspora have no cultural guidance has contributed to these murders. Zimbabwean home grown churches have contributed to the killing of these victims.The church spends time fund raising buying the pastor clothes, cars suits.
A woman was killed in 2015 in London because she bought a high quality suit for the pastor and had never bought o sock for the husband.Zimbabwean women in UK have a great madness for hero-worshiping their pastor’s to the extent of evoking anger from the husband. Statistics shows that half of the murdered women the problems started from the churches. Pastors have abandoned their roles of promoting family life, they have embarked on the get rich fast.
With the loophole and windfall in payment of nurses women became richer than theirhusband in diaspora, so they start controlling the household thinking. Pastors in their need for money always side with those who are highly paid so that their cars are fuelled and their kitchens are upgraded.There is no spiritual guidance, the closeness of the pastors to the ladies with money has made the men jealous and caused these killings.Whichever way we look at it life abroad has made husband and wife strangers, the wife works 24/7 and the husband thinks she is oiling someone.
Sometimes the husband is so tired the wife is not sexually satisfied; she then goes out to fill up the sexual gap. When this is done the cheated husband feels humiliated and lowered and turns to kill the wife.In the name of love, people are ready to use other people; in the name of love, people are ready to be used. In the name of love, women want to leave their male partner, and in the name of love, these men murder them. The woman is the man’s whole world and the condition of his existence.
If the man’s ability to maintain his view of himself as a human being depends on the woman being part of his life, how can he let her go? Thus, love turns the woman into a hostage—a hostage to the man’s life—and this puts her own life at risk. The words of many loves songs may beno more than superficial clichés about love, but when these clichés are adopted wholeheartedly with no attention to reality, love becomes a loaded gun.If only women can open up, if you are caught cheating tell someone, a cheated man is unpredictable. The problem with Zimbabwean women in England is they quickly want to behave English. Have friends who are men and go out at will, if your husband is suspecting and you reply in a manner foreign to his culture you have put your leg in a bottle.
Vazet2000@yahoo.co.uk