I THINK as Zimbabweans we need to have a difficult and honest conversation, because sometimes we focus on the tragedy at the end without interrogating some of what was happening before it.
First of all, nothing justifies taking another human being’s life. Whatever the betrayal, humiliation, anger or pain, nobody has the right to kill another person.
Let us deal with the matter of Martin Muduva, 42, the Midlands State University lecturer and commissioner of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission killed with an axe by his wife, 43-year-old Lyliosa Chirara, a nurse, as he slept at their home in Dzivarasekwa Extension on September 9, 2026.
It has been reported that Muduva had been in an extramarital relationship with Vongai Patience Mangwiro, a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, for about five years. They reportedly have a child together, and lobola had recently been paid for her while his marriage was still existing.
None of us outside that family knows every private detail, but what has been reported raises important questions about marriage, patriarchy, infidelity, polygamy and the choices both men and women make.
THE MAN: WHERE THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY LIES
Let me begin with the man because I do not want women to be interrogated while the man at the centre escapes accountability. The married man carries the greatest responsibility because he made the vows.
In most of these situations, the first wife did not enter her marriage agreeing that one day another woman would be introduced.
This is what troubles me about how we sometimes sanitise polygamy. Two people get married believing this is our marriage, our home, our partnership. There was no agreement at the beginning that another woman would one day be brought into it. Then somewhere along the journey, a man decides he wants somebody else and effectively changes the terms of the marriage without the consent of the woman he originally married.
Culture may later come in, lobola may be paid and families may sit down, but that does not change the fact that the first wife may never have chosen a polygamous marriage in the first place.
That is where we need to talk honestly about male selfishness and patriarchy. Too often everybody must adjust around a man’s desires while he gets the best of both worlds.
If your marriage is no longer working and you genuinely want to build another life with someone else, deal honestly with the marriage you are already in. Leave if you must, divorce if you must, and allow the other person to heal and possibly find love elsewhere too.
Sometimes what we later call polygamy began as an extramarital affair that was eventually formalised, and paying lobola does not erase how that relationship began or the pain caused along the way.
THE OTHER WOMAN: AGENCY, SISTERHOOD AND THE CHOICES WE REFUSE TO INTERROGATE
And this, for me, is really the conversation I wanted to have. Women, we also need to talk to ourselves.
Sisterhood cannot only mean defending women when something has happened to us. Sometimes sisterhood must also be honest enough to say, my sister, this choice may be causing another woman pain.
The husband remains primarily accountable for the promises he made, but women also have agency. If you knowingly enter into a relationship with somebody’s husband, there is another woman on the other side of that decision, a real woman with feelings, history and perhaps many years invested in that marriage.
We cannot speak about women having agency in education, politics, leadership, economics and human rights, then suddenly remove that agency when the choices become uncomfortable.
Mangwiro, from what has been publicly reported, is an accomplished professional woman, and for me that makes this conversation about agency important. Not because educated women should be judged more harshly, but because education, exposure and empowerment should challenge all of us to think about how our choices affect other human beings.
It has been reported that photographs around the recent roora were shared publicly. I do not suggest that the sharing of these makes someone responsible for another person’s violent actions, because it does not. But surely we can still reflect on the additional pain that can come from publicly celebrating a relationship when another woman may already be living with its consequences.
Sometimes the hurt is not only what happened privately, but also the feeling of being publicly displaced or humiliated. And there is something I have always found interesting about second wives and small houses. A woman may accept becoming number two, but very few second wives would happily welcome number three. That tells us something.
We all understand the pain of wanting the person we love to ourselves, so if another woman entering your relationship would hurt you deeply, surely it is fair to ask why another woman should be expected to carry that same pain quietly because today you are the one being chosen.
This is where women can also help sustain the very patriarchy we complain about. Patriarchy largely benefits men, but women can enable it when we knowingly participate in arrangements that hurt other women.
There are single men, divorced men, widowers and men who are genuinely available. Find your own love. Find a relationship that does not have to begin with another woman carrying the pain of betrayal.
I know that sounds firm, but women should be able to say difficult things to each other with love.
THE WIFE: WHEN ENDURANCE BECOMES DESTRUCTION
Then we also have to talk about the wife and, more broadly, women who remain in marriages that have become deeply painful or toxic.
We are a country where many of us say we are Christians, and culturally we also frown upon divorce.
I do not think divorce is the best outcome, but when a relationship has become bitter and destructive, why do we continue behaving as though divorce is worse than everything else that can happen inside a marriage?
I was having this conversation with my mother and she said something women of her generation often say, that as for them they just kept quiet and endured.
I said to her, Mama, maybe the day you decided that you had to keep quiet about everything was the day a part of you died.
There are women walking around alive whose joy, confidence, dreams and dignity died years ago, yet society called that being a good wife.
We need to stop romanticising women’s suffering as endurance.
Our mothers, aunties, churches and communities must also interrogate what we have normalised: “Vese varume vakadaro.” All men are like that. Just pray. Stay for the children. Where will you go? Who will marry you after divorce or with children?
These are things women have heard for generations, and perhaps that is why some remain in relationships long after those relationships have taken away their peace and sense of self.
There is life after divorce. Women rebuild, women fall in love again and women remarry. Your life does not end because your marriage ended. And again, betrayal, humiliation or the breakdown of a marriage can never justify violence.
If a relationship has become unbearable, seek help, leave if you need to, divorce if you need to, cry, grieve, pray and rebuild, but do not take another human being’s life.
What makes this tragedy so painful is that two people are dead, families are shattered and children will live with the consequences.
We do not know every private detail, but we can still allow what has been publicly reported to make us reflect on the culture of silence, betrayal, selfishness, forced endurance and patriarchal entitlement that exists far beyond this particular family.
Men, stop being selfish with women’s lives. If you no longer want your marriage, deal honestly with it before building another life elsewhere.
Women, stop believing that suffering is the price you must pay to remain married, and as women, let us also be careful not to knowingly become part of another woman’s pain while expecting sisterhood when that same pain reaches our own door.
Maybe one lesson from this tragedy is simply this: a marriage ending is not necessarily the worst thing that can happen. Sometimes walking away, however painful, allows everybody the opportunity to live, heal and begin again.
