Small-House

December 9, 2009 by Memory Dete ·
Filed under: I was just thinking 

Never before have family values been more seriously challenged in Zimbabwe. For the maintenance of morality, being chaste before marriage and fidelity in marriage has always been propagated, yet both chastity and fidelity have been largely ignored by the majority of Zimbabweans and the issue of small house has become a social cancer and much debate has been conducted about the practice which has nearly destroyed the very social fabric structure of the family.

Although chastity is always advocated, both in the religious and the secular world, many stories are abound of couples who continue to have adulterous extra-marital affairs, which in the Zimbabwean context, are referred to as “small-house” and as a sad result, adultery has become almost like an epidemic.

It was believed that in the past, African culture and morality had sustained itself around two great traditional pillars, both rooted in the family and culture. One was premarital chastity, with absolutely no sexual contact before marriage. The other was marital faithfulness, with no room for extramarital affairs. Tribal, cultural, ethical, and religious forces supported these values and fear also supported these values: fear of what the tribe, the family, friends, and relatives might say; fear of God, fear of unwanted pregnancy that would bring shame to the family and the tribe; and fear of sexually transmitted diseases.

As a “cub-reporter” and being assigned by my editor to write a feature article on the issue of small house[1] I interviewed couples, sociologists, traditional leaders and church pastors and discussed with them their perceptions of why “small houses” were so rife in Zimbabwe, in my search for answers. This assignment intrigued me and my research on this question did not stop with these interviews and I continued with the observation and analysis of this social problem which was slowly gnawing away at the Zimbabwean society.

I also interviewed producers of a local television soap which was broadcast twice weekly, which depicted issues related to the epidemic of small house in Zimbabwe and many viewers watched the programme, some not with the intention to learn from it, but to gloat on escapades that were depicted in the soap. Despite this the producers of the soap insisted that it had good intentions though, which were to show the evils of the small-house.

After several screenings of the show there had been much outcry from local Christians in Zimbabwe, because the show depicted people who engaged in ‘small houses’ as also being dedicated church leaders. The portrayal of these pseudo-Christians had precipitated the angry burst of communication in the local press regarding this depiction of Christians as also being worldly. One angry Pastor had written in the “Letters To The Editor” column of the local newspaper,

“According to the Bible, when one is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, the old is gone and the new is come[2]. That means that if one was engaged in a small house before one turned their heart to God, when he or she truthfully experiences divine transformation in his or her life, he or she is totally repentant and discontinues any sinful acts such as infidelity, adultery or fornication, some of the sins that are committed by those in small houses.

While, it is true that not all who profess to be children of God or living according to God’s Word, will inherit the Kingdom of God, because many people who fill church pews and only attend church merely as a hobby or favourite pastime as well as “kuti vazowana kuvigwa,” it is also really unfair and wrongful to generalize and depict Christians in the vein of deceitfulness, as portrayed by the show. When the devil’s hand is at play, it is the “unsaved church-goers”, and please not that , not Christians, who profess to be children of God, attend church services regularly and actively engage themselves in different church activities, but then they return to their small houses, immediately after leaving the church premises.

It is grossly unfair to accuse the entire Christian fraternity of sweeping the ills of small houses under the carpet. Indeed nobody really knows an individual’s thoughts or deeds except God. With our own will, we are unable to live justly. It is only if we abide in the Lord that He gives us the ability to overcome all temptation which may lead us to committing sinful acts, such as the defilement of the God-ordained institution of marriage, by engaging in small houses. Within the bonds of marriage, the moral standard of who we are in God’s sight, focuses on God’s intention for marriage which clearly shows that marriage is a beautiful experience and that it is a gift from the Creator, which is to be enjoyed within the realm of marriage.

In conclusion I wish to express my hope that the producers of the show will put much more emphasis on portraying the evils of small houses instead of the current portrayal of ‘small house” as exciting, pleasurable and “the norm” and to also refrain from adopting a confrontational approach to the Christian fraternity but to take heed of the constructive criticism they have been given in these letters to the editor in order to reshape the soap to adopt a more neutral stance in their quest to, “ expose the cancer that is slowly eating away at our families, homes and society and to discourage infidelity by showing the pros and cons of extra-marital affairs, or small house as we call them in Zimbabwe!”

I also introduced the aspect of love potion in relation to the issue of small-house and I was quite sure that the different views from members of the community would make the article an interesting read. The article would express the views of society on whether love potion really worked, whether love depended on love potion and whether relationships between men and women could be fruitful without the aid or the administration of love potion. Ideally for this assignment, I would conduct some interviews and also conduct some research to determine why married women administered love potions to their marital husbands and what drove unmarried women to administer love potions to men whom they desired to clinch for themselves, regardless of the fact that the man may be already contracted in a monogamous relationship. I began my search for possible quotes and my first stop was at a sociologist.

When I called at his office in town I introduced myself and said, “I’m here as a reporter from the Daily Telescope newspaper. “As I informed you in my earlier phone call, I would like to ask you a few questions on the issue of small house. My first question is: “Different films have been screened on Zimbabwe national television and various songs have been sung by Zimbabwean musicians lamenting on the increased incidences of small houses. Do you perceive that love potions have a stake in the prevalence of small houses, which are blamed for wrecking havoc in many Zimbabwean marriages?”

The sociologist responded as follows. “It is indeed inexplicable that a reputable, respected, educated and cultured family man would desert his wife, for whom he will have paid a large sum of lobola and usually wedded in grand style in a church, to co-habit with another woman whom he has no intention of ever marrying traditionally, customarily or legally.

In my research, I have found out that the first thing that the small house woman would likely do upon meeting a man whom she fancies, and having no regard of whether he is already married, is to procure a love potion, which she will use to lure and tame the man as well as to cast a spell on him, that will make the man suddenly develop an uncanny and sudden dislike and hate towards his marital wife as well as his children and selfishly transfer the love intended for his family to her instead.

The problems that are associated with extramarital affairs, leading to the establishment of small house cannot be over emphasized and they inevitably cause a complete breakdown of marriages, as the man, or woman, who engaging in a small house affair, draws less concentration on matters that affected the legal marriage and family as a whole.

“Thank you for your answers,” I said to the sociologist and left to conduct more interviews.

Upon interviewing a pastor of a charismatic Pentecostal Church he vehemently condemned the use of love potion and argued that it was known to have caused devastating results and instead of bringing about the desired effects of a man bestowing unsighted love to a woman, it was known to have caused untimely deaths to some men and some men were known to have become insane, violent or senile as a result of having been administered with the love potion.

The Pastor went on to say that love potion could do things such as allow a woman, who administered it to her husband or to her adulterous lover, to manipulate and control him, both physically and spiritually, and he would either be unaware of what is going on or have the full knowledge of what is going on, but for no apparent reason, allow this manipulation to continue, as he would be helpless to do otherwise, due to the malevolent influence of love potion.

“The church has the formidable task to champion chastity before marriage and fidelity in marriage,” the Pastor said.

“Church leaders must find ways of fostering the maintenance of high moral and spiritual standards in our people and stress to them the positive discipline of life as it is in Christ so that we will not be pressured into embracing destructive immorality trends. Zimbabwean families require a spiritual awakening that will enlighten them about the forces that push them in the wrong direction, so that they desist from leading destructive ways.

My next port of call was to Mbare Musika[3] were where the majority of the inhabitants worked in the informal sector in a variety of activities including trading and casual labour. many Many skilled workers who had been retrenched during the ESAP years[4] had joined the informal trade in various manufacturing and trading activities and they accounted for part of the total informal sector in Zimbabwe. These were also the same people whose livelihood had been threatened by operation murambatsvina/ restore order, that had been initiated by the government which tore down all illegal structures in the city.. Although this initiative had the noble aim of removing squalor and return to legality and proper controls the development and commercial activities in urban areas with its primary role being to eradicate shanty towns and illegal settlements in which poverty and disease were rife, many citizens argued that in getting rid of urban centers of slums and the attendant social ills there had been no consultation with all stakeholders whom they believed should have had a say . Others believed that the end effect was to drive out and make homeless large sections of the urban and rural poor and Those whose homes were destroyed had no option but to return to their rural homes

I made straight for the section where traditional medicine men and women sold their array of varied bottled concoctions and charms. The hardest part was actually deciding which of them I should approach and finally I plucked up courage to ask an elderly woman, who did not look too intimidating, as compared to the others, and I walked up to her and politely greeted her then asked her whether she could be so kind as to answer a few questions that I wished to ask her. To my relief she agreed and I quickly took out my notebook

I took paper and pen and jotted notes as she responded to my questions. The woman looked directly into my eyes as she began by telling me that that the sale of concoctions was a brisk business which earned her lots of money. She went on to give me many other insights into this business the last question I asked her was,

“There is much speculation of what ingredients make up love potion, with some claiming that a lizard’s tail is one of the main ingredients because it is known that a lizard never seems to depart from the walls of a house and it is perceived that when its tail is administered to a man’s food, he will never leave the side of the woman who administers it to him. Please may you shed truth on what love potion is really made up of and quell the speculation?”

“Love potions come in various forms and modes of administration. It mostly comes in powdered form with a prescribed dosage. Other charms include items that women are instructed to hide in some specific places in the house, for instance under bed linen, sprinkled on any of the man’s clothing or sprinkled along the footpath leading to the gate where the man passes on his way to engage in extra-marital affairs.”

The woman did not comprehensively answer and she seemed to be evading my question and I decided not to probe her further and then went on to ask her another pertinent question.

“Although love potion is known to have worked successfully in some cases, it has on many occasions backfired leading to grave consequences. If such a thing should happen, can the potion be neutralized?”

The medicine-woman waved her hands in a sign of refuse to answer this particular question and I decided not to probe her much further and thanked her for the information that she had provided me.

Lastly, I wanted to speak to a few of the medicine men and women’s customers. And I knew that for some people, being interviewed on this subject could be quite uncomfortable but there would be those who were would be enthusiastic and very open with giving their thoughts. I spoke with several women, some who said that they had used the love potions and others who said that they had never used the love potions.

Of course I valued their privacy and agreed to keep them anonymous in my article. Some of the men and women whom I interviewed were unable to give me any printable quotes for the paper but there were some who were more than happy to share their stories on the subject. The first woman looked me straight in the eye and admitted that she had administered a love potion to her unsuspecting husband and she felt that the love potions did no physical harm to him and that on the contrary it had actually helped their relationship to blossom and to make their honeymoon perpetual.

The next woman I spoke to whispered and often looked surreptitiously over her shoulder, to ensure that no one was in close proximity to overhear her and said.

“The father of my six months old son has dishonoured his promise to marry me and to fend for his son. I have found out that he is seeing another woman. I just procured some charms to win him back because I love him and I refuse to let him go.”

Another woman said that she had procured charms to win back her husband who had been snatched using witchcraft powers.

“In all my years I never thought I’d ever be remotely interested in love potions. But that was before my husband, whom I have been married to for thirty years moved out to cohabit with a young woman, who by the way is exactly half his age,” the young woman lamented. It was definitely a love potion or a spell of witchcraft that I suspect the young women cast on my husband.

I am fighting to make him return to his logical senses and return home to his family. I still cannot fully comprehend that he unceremoniously walked out of our matrimonial home to co-habit with a young woman, whom I hear boasts about being my husband’s small house.

It had been a good interviewing experience for me and although I had had a rather tough question to get quotes from; I had enjoyed the interviews and the varied responses which I got from the interviewees. Having gathered enough information I went back to the newsroom to compile my story.

Following the publication of my article in the newspaper, I received numerous letters from all over the country because and the fact that the article reflected how the media, being a product of society, reflected the values, the ideas, the attitudes, the culture and the practice of its society and at the same time, shaped and influenced society’s thinking about various subject matters, the article had been a wake up call. Various people noted that the article had caused them some discomfort and unease but most people had generally agreed with my analysis of the controversial subject of small house.

Among the many letters that I received was a letter from a woman who claimed that she was engaged in a small house relationship and she gave me a total piece of her mind, and even using some swear words, for having written the article, which she said had demonized women such as herself, who had resorted to becoming ‘the other woman’ due to economic difficulties in Zimbabwe. She pointed out that it was better for her to be in a small house affair than to become a prostitute. I noticed that the woman did not write her name at the end of the letter but only signed as Anonymous and this prompted me to challenge her as to why she had chosen to remain anonymous and not given her true identity and I wrote a response which was published in the newspaper.

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