My wife does not cook, wash for me, nor talk to kids

A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD woman who was married at the age 14 has been divorced after her 27-year-old husband accused her of failing to do household chores.
This was a case in which Rosemary Sakala, of Lusaka’s Garden Township was sued for divorce by her husband Elias Sakala who accused her of failing to perform household chores including bathing the children.
Facts before the court were that the couple got married when Rosemary was just 14 years old and have three children although problems started shortly after their wedding day.
Sakala claimed that he had taken up all the household chores because Rosemary could not wash for him or clean the house hence his decision to divorce her.

He said he was tired of living like a bachelor when he had a wife because he used to do everything for himself even cooking for the family.
“My wife does not cook or wash for me, not even to talk of her own kids, I think am tired I will not manage to continue living like a bachelor when I have a wife.
“She has also threatened to kill me and when I was on TB treatment she abandoned me, saying that she never wanted to contract the disease,” he said.
He said Rosemary had not changed despite several efforts by the family to sit her down and teach her good ways of keeping her home.
In her defence, Rosemary told the court that her husband was just obsessed with jealousy.

She said whenever she visited her parents, Sakala would get upset and accuse her of having love affairs with other men.
She said she still loved her husband and since he was the father of her three children and she was not willing to divorce him.
Magistrate Lewis Mumba sitting with Petronella Kalyelye was shocked to learn that Rosemary was married off at the age of 14 and called on parents to stop marrying off their daughters before they were of age in order to have successful marriages.
She, however, granted divorce and ordered Sakala to compensate Rosemary with K6,000 as well as monthly K250 towards child maintenance.

Times of Zambia