Africa-Press – Lesotho. A DONKEY at a pumpkin farm, usually takes a single bite from each pumpkin without any care that it will leave them to rot. Basotho men are being associated with such a culture, as the country seeks answers to cases of infidelity that continue to rock communities.
Men, some people claim, will always want to have sex with every woman they meet before moving to the next one. As a result, their behaviour fuels infidelity, say some people.
“Infidelity has always been there since time immemorial,” said Ratokelo Nkoka, a retired Sesotho teacher who is also an expert on issues related to tradition and culture.
“Even in the Bible men had multiple sexual partners,” he said. This is also rife in other African countries where men leave their homes to seek jobs in faraway places.
“The woman left behind would want someone to sexually fulfill her.
This is because going for such long periods without sex also affects her, she gets bored,” he said, adding that sometimes the extra-marital affairs result in contentious pregnancies.
He said in Sesotho, any child born by a woman who is married belongs to the family and has a sense of belonging to that family even if he is a product of infidelity.
In Sesotho, mosali ea nyetsoeng ka likhomo haa tsoale likhaupane, this loosely translated means that children born to a married woman are legitimate. Nkoka says it is only the wife who can authoritatively know who the father of a child is.
“Mosali ke eena feela ea tsebang ntat’a bana,” he said. This means it is only the wife who knows who has fathered her children while the husband is in the dark.
’Makatleho Liphoto, a counsellor at Temoso Consulting, said infidelity happens from more than just a desire for sex.
“In actual fact it also involves intimacy and companionship,” said Liphoto.
“Distance is a strong contributing factor to infidelity.
A man leaves his family to work elsewhere or to attend school. He will feel bored and will need a sexual partner. So the same thing applies to the woman left behind.
Partners in a marriage have to regularly please each other sexually,” she said. “Likewise, the woman might say she is tired and no longer does things she used to do in the early years of their marriage.
When that happens, infidelity creeps in,” said Liphoto. At times, Liphoto says, conflicts in a marriages lead to infidelity. “Conflicts lead to unhappiness in the marriage.
Some may choose to seek that happiness elsewhere,” she said. Revenge, according to Liphoto, could also lead to infidelity where one partner discovers that the other is cheating.
“Then the other partner will likely seek revenge so that they could heal. Many women do not usually forgive men for cheating so to heal they may also seek to cheat,” she said. Another issue is economic status, she said.
“A married man can fall in love with another woman who is well off financially to gain access to the woman’s money.
He becomes involved in infidelity so that he can save his family from starvation. ”
*Moliehi Thulo, 32, said women engage in infidelity “just to get rid of boredom”.
“It is not a matter of money as such,” she said, adding that sometimes women can have sex with random men just for sexual pleasure, especially when their husbands are away at work.
“When our husbands come home every month-end, they do not satisfy us sexually because they are tired from work.
Our husbands usually have fatigue when they come home,” Thulo said. “Even when men work locally, they are usually busy with family errands like putting bread on the table.
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She said some men are businessmen who are always out to ensure that their businesses are doing well.
“They end up giving the woman little time.
We need to have time with our husbands,” Thulo said, noting cases where well-off women who engage in sex “with ordinary, simple men who cannot even give them a cent”.
“So this is not about money.
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She said this is rife in rural areas where women would be having sex relationships with shepherds and herdboys.
“This is because they need someone to please them sexually,” she said.
“Sex is important in the lives of women. A woman who is sex-starved is a bitter woman,” she said.
*Thabiso Moiloa pinned the problem on men.
“Men have an insatiable desire for sex and they are always after women. They want to have sex with every new woman they come across,” she said. He said there are a couple of Sesotho idioms that support her claim.
“For example, pela e seqhobo se seng e shoa ha bonolo (a rock badger that lives in a single crag is killed easily),” he said. Locally, this is usually taken as meaning that it is impossible for a man to have just one sexual partner.
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