Africa-Press – Malawi. For ages, our fathers used to leave our mothers behind at home going to far-away countries in search of fortune, but they returned home after years to find their families and marriages intact. The family would have to wait in anticipation of the return of the father despite the long period some men were away.
The wife in particular would endure the struggle of living without her husband and would remain faithful until the day the husband would return. And such patience characterised the type of marriage these people experienced. It was rare for men to bring back new wives.
But today’s excursions into the Diaspora have brought in a new phenomenon characterised by lack of affection, divorce, cheating, hatred and emotional abuses of untold proportions now reign supreme.
It emerged that married men and women remarried in the USA and other countries. Its is no longer an issue. People are getting married again in the Diaspora with some even having white weddings, but back home they would have spouses…
It is not surprising seeing a woman whom you know has a spouse back home getting married to a fine young man in the USA..I know of a few women who are now nursing children from Diaspora marriage, but have family back home. The issue of acquiring mapepala ( Green Card US & Stay in UK ) had seen people getting married to other partners to get the necessary documents.
Infidelity is a major cause of marital fissures here. Men openly cheat on their wives and the women too cheat on their husbands both been emotionally abused and sexually starved, or in some cases, their husbands or wives unable to perform the role in a manner deemed to be satisfactory, have taken their desires elsewhere.
Some men bring marital problems to themselves by marrying women who are above their pedigree in every manner possible and they can’t have a meeting point of minds.
Diaspora marriages are going through very tough times. This has destabilised the family unit that was once the pride of the African in the Diaspora. One of the major issues couples find themselves struggling with is cheating that has seen both parties moving on. It is no longer the issue of money or any other thing, but infidelity seems to rule among people in the Diaspora with most of them reportedly having “second families”.
As a consequence, the dysfunctional state of affairs in many Diaspora marriages has at times led to deadlocked relationships, with couples hanging in there just for the children or because they are afraid of the social stigma that comes about with divorce and separation.
But the truth is that most people who are married to partners in the Diaspora are wasting time as their partners are already in alternative family settings.
One of the major factors contributing to this phenomenon is that Malawian or in fact African men and women in the Diaspora are very different in their way of thinking and that at some stage, their marriages cannot hold anymore due to these differences.
Most people who go to the Diaspora think that they are better than the ones behind. For example, as the Malawian woman in USA advances herself career-wise, she outpaces her man back home financially and socially.
Sooner or later, both find themselves on different economic levels, dealing with different environments and hanging around with different people and the perspective of things that they once shared starts to disintegrate while the woman moves up the ladder, the man is usually left struggling trying to find his footing…
For instance, a good number of African men do not integrate into the system as well as the women do in the healthcare sector where most of the disapora women work, while the corporate world where men would fare well remains so competitive that only the boldest survive.
In addition laws in the Western countries favour women to the detriment of the men, which is contrary to traditions in many African countries the woman finds new confidence from the protection of the law and is not afraid to stand her ground, while the man feels helpless. So ask you, the reader, what are your thoughts? What are your experiences? What is going on? Or am I just making this up? You tell me.
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