THE UNION OF OPPOSITES
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Dear reader, anyone that tells you that marriage is a waste of time is only wasting your time. Plug your ears, never pay attention, chances are, it is only that theirs was hell or it failed.
Marriage is a wonderful thing. And when the fit is right, it is divine.
Marriage is that relationship you witness between a nut and a bolt, a plug and a socket, a pestle and a mortar, the sacrosanct relationship between a key and lock.
Just as the union of a nut and a bolt serves the original intention, marriage has its purpose. One without the other is useless.
She badly wanted him. She was advancing in age. She knew that time wasn’t on her side. Panicky, time to marry is now, she had reckoned.
Desperate, that is how she added muti to her Vaseline which she religiously applied to her face every day before she left home. I tell you, these herbs are so powerful that soon your wedding bells will ring, the medicine man had assured her. I have helped many women. I have testimonies of numerous satisfied clients, he had firmly added. Apply it to your face daily, smile and you will attract men like a magnet.
Dear reader, there is a linkage between marriage and health. Marriage is a positive determinant of wellbeing.
Research shows that being single, having never-married, being divorced or widowed, is a strong risk factor for ill health and death. Marriage has a positive effect on the quality of life and longevity. Statistics show that those that are married suffer less ill health, do better with disease when afflicted and live longer. Putting it in a dramatic way, being single is akin to walking on thin ice, it is fraught with danger.
As the medicine man had foretold, she found her man. He wasn’t the man she thought that she would find. He was beyond her expectations. He wasn’t her equal.
He was a high-end man, a man several notches above her grade. He was an attorney-at-law, a man of letters.
Predictably, the community, was stunned, and endlessly tongue-wagged. How did she find such a fine man? The gossip hit the roof. Conjecture ran amok.
Marriage is a union of opposites. The more relevant one is to the other, the stronger the bond.
Be wary, dear reader, these days modernity has become a synonym for decadence. Though some culturally flawed and arrogant societies are bent on redefining the human family, marriage remains the mutually beneficial union between a man and a woman.
Marriage, in all its forms in nature, is a union of the feminine and masculine forms of energy
All she was, was only titties and ass. No degree, no diploma, no certificate. Nothing. Only a face and a body.
The only rudimentary education she had was from the village and her parents. Darkness still reigned in her mind.
Nonetheless, her ass was something else. It was the kind that makes men stare. Hers was the kind of ass that transfixed you and caused your heart to race. It was the kind that causes kings to fall, the kind that David saw and scrambled his brain.
And perhaps, just perhaps, that then is the whole story, the gist of it all.
Like all human beings, a woman, you see, should be more than ass. A woman should be a holistic healthy vessel of the required spirit for thriving mankind.
When a woman is devoid of the required grooming and culture, she becomes a danger. The body, you see, degrades but the spirit is immortal, it even outlives her.
So there she was, as raw and unrefined as they come, all ass and titties.
To the utter consternation of everyone, he loved her to bits. What they didn’t know was that his love for her was pure, the kind that God has for humanity.
Marriage goes beyond statutory definitions and cultural frameworks. Marriage is also spiritual.
The union of the masculine and feminine forms of energy is a natural construct whose end is balance and harmony. Marriage is centred on procreation, the thriving of its participants and their progeny.
She could not believe her good fortune. The husband she had landed herself was beyond her wildest dreams. His powerful concoction had worked, after all, she remembered the medicine man. Soon she would send him a white chicken as a token of appreciation.
And to keep her husband, she remembered the words of her grandmother. My daughter, no marriage survives without charms, she had said, sternly advising her.
I agree. No marriage survives without charms.
You see, dear reader, the charms required for a successful marriage include trust, effective communication, mutual respect, commitment and emotional intimacy. Partners in marriage should have a shared purpose, should treat each other as a priority, should view the relationship as a partnership, be in pursuit of common goals and keep their union pure, free of interference and contamination.
But then that is not what her grandmother had in mind. She had her own methods of how to keep a man and have a successful marriage.
Presently, if you happen to live in Zambia, chances are your marriage will end. Zambia’s governments, with their blue lies and failed promises, have created a disabling environment for families, an environment which is hostile to marriage.
Zambia today has become a cesspool of divorce. Arguably, it appears more marriages are dying than they are being created.
Divorce rates, like the price of money, food, fuel and other essential commodities, have been steadily rising in Zambia. For example, divorce cases rose from 20,818 in 2019 to 25,851 in 2020; 22,000 in 2021; and 31,000 in 2022. In 2023, a staggering 36,000 divorces were recorded.
Divorce is union failure, a case of loss of fit. Divorce is loss of spousal relevance.
Failure to perform one’s expected roles in a marriage leads to divorce. Further, breach of trust, sameness of behaviour, redundancy arising from duplication of responsibilities and duties, coupled with the perception that a spouse no longer possesses the required value, are all factors that explain the genesis and grounds of divorce.
Her grandmother was thinking of lizards, tortoises and herbs.
Get the heart of a tortoise. Get the head of the lizard that repeatedly nods its head, a gumugumu. Get the tail of the house lizard. Mix all these with these herbs. Add the mixture to his food whilst saying his name, and repeatedly chanting ‘you will forever be mine.’ That’s what her grandmother prescribed.
Explaining, she had said just like the tortoise, he will never want to leave his shell, your home. Just like the nodding lizard, he will nod to or agree with whatever you say. The house lizard’s tail will ensure that he follows you all the time. A tail always follows its owner.
Give it only to him. Never take it yourself. Doing so would neutralise the potion. Adding a drop of your menstrual blood to the mixture makes it even more potent, she had added.
That then became her magic formula, her secret for a successful marriage. Not once did she ever think of improving herself.
He was a model husband, the kind women rarely find. He provided for her and protected her. However, his good nature further accentuated the disparity in grooming between the two, fuelling even more gossip in their circles.
She did not believe that there existed men on earth that were selfless, that loved without conditions. So it was that she attributed his every good act, his exemplary character as a husband, his fiery passion for her, to her muti, her charms.
If sloppy was a person, it was her. She lacked many skills, the competences required in a virtuous woman.
She wasn’t clean.
She couldn’t cook. Many were the times that she burnt the food because of too much TV.
Though from a distance her ass gave a glimpse and promise of heaven, her performance in bed was poor. Instead of giving him happiness and peace, it left much to be desired, it caused him stress. Devoid of passion and pleasure, it left him, as if lice-laden, scratching his head in wonder.
Soon after their wedding, though they were just the two of them, she demanded that a maid be employed to help her with the house chores such as the dishes and the laundry.
And every time he complained about her sloppiness, she put it to the love potion losing its efficacy. Then she would increase the frequency of its administration.
Tolerant and patient, inspired by his love for her, he told himself that with time she would change, that she would improve. He even prayed that she changes.
Years went by. A kid came but nothing really changed. In fact, as time went by, she became insolent. Not in keeping with his character, utterly offended by her attitude, one day he slapped her hard. GBV had come.
That is when, encouraged by her grandmother, she doubled the dosage and trebled the frequency of administration of the love potion. Lacking insight, never at any one time did it dawn on her that she was the problem.
Recently, addressing Parliament on National Principles and Values, Hakainde Hichilema, Zambia’s Republican President, warned and lamented that poverty breeds many vices. He was right.
Zambia has now become the face of poverty. Poverty has worsened in Zambia. Presently, in 2025, the World Bank Group ranks Zambia as the sixth poorest country in the world. Ubucushi wafula!
Admittedly, under such adverse existential conditions, marriages cannot thrive. It therefore surprises no one that, just as divorce rates are now soaring, death rates are also high, prostitution is skyrocketing, junkies are proliferating and the Zambian family is falling apart.
As all this is happening, instead of changing people’s lives, improving their livelihoods, the Zambian government, as if afflicted with madness or high on psychotropic substances, is changing money and the Republican Constitution. The government’s own divorce now looms as the relevance of the ruling party in the lives of citizens is now under question.
A collective gasp was heard, the courtroom was stunned. Fear gripped everyone. A prolific lawyer he was. On this day, as he convincingly argued a case, he suddenly fell to the ground. And just like that, he was rushed to a nearby hospital, and the trial was adjourned.
Holding a mirror to his face, your eyes are yellow, the doctor explained to the lawyer. This is what is called jaundice. It is a sign that your liver isn’t working well. Your liver is damaged, the doctor said. You have hepatitis.
For reasons of privacy and confidentiality, as the doctor was explaining his findings to the esteemed lawyer, the wife, teary and wailing loudly like a police siren, was kept separately in a holding room under the watch of a nurse. She was utterly disconsolate.
So what caused this liver damage, doctor? The lawyer asked. You said chronic hepatitis?
Yes, advocate. The damage was gradual, the doctor calmly explained. Now it is advanced.
You now have end-stage liver disease. It explains your sudden collapse in the courtroom.
Over the years, repeatedly, toxins have been destroying your liver. It is most likely that you have been ingesting these toxins through your food.
Perplexed, the lawyer was without words.
We will do the best we can for you. You will receive the best care that the world can offer. We will even explore the possibility of a liver transplant. Many patients like you have survived this disease before. The doctor assured him.
The lawyer was relieved. Later on, speaking to his wife, he assured her that he was in good hands, that he would be fine. He remembered to say ‘I will always love you.’ And from the bottom of his heart, he meant it.
He died.
Just like that a national asset was gone.
Unbeknownst to her, it was her that killed him. By blindly seeking to keep her man and to preserve her marriage, she got rid of him.
She killed the very saviour God had sent her way. The love potion was to blame. That was the poison which destroyed her husband’s liver. Her remedy became the problem.
Today, as circumstance would have it, she again is as poor as a church mouse, utterly inconsolable. And as is usual in these parts, she sorrowfully sings: ‘Cibusa wandi lelo waya. Nashala ninjikumbata mwe tata. Mayo nanaka mukulila.’
Dear reader, ignorance is a terrible thing. Commonly, with good intentions, it makes people commit harm, do things that are antithetical to their visions, stupid things.
Regardless of how eye-catching it may be, a woman’s body alone does not make a good wife. Her character, on the other hand, does. Ass degrades, character endures.
And when a woman has both a body to die for and the required character, she then reflects the very essence of God.
As one Holy Book advises, ‘the [a] wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.’
So it is that, oftentimes, seeking to secure ourselves, we render ourselves vulnerable. Seeking prosperity, we court disaster.
Marriage remains a wonderful thing, a required union. Each person, in his or her life, should marry at least once. Marriage is an interplay of two different things, opposites if you like, for a common purpose. It is the relevance of one thing to the other, one person to another, which makes it thrive and succeed.
Life wouldn’t be without marriage. Strangely, as if a paradox, that is why the Catholics call it a sacrament, a sacred union. They call it Holy Matrimony.
Nature thrives on marriage, the collaboration of things to become one. It is when marriage occurs that the intention of creation occurs, when divine purpose is served.
It is all natural really. When a servant does not do the bidding of his master he is fired, divorce occurs.
Similarly, when the behaviour of a republican president is at variance with the expectations of the citizens, when it falls far short of the people’s expectations, when he or she fails to deliver as promised, he or she is dis-elected, he or she is removed, divorce occurs.
The success of any marriage does not hinge on voodoo, black magic or love potions. It hinges on a clear understanding of one’s integrity and its purpose, a firm grasp of one’s roles in it, behaving in a manner that fully and perfectly complements the other, one’s conduct benefiting the other, and as a whole, harmoniously striving towards one purpose.
A leader is led by the people. The behaviour of a shepherd is determined by the nature and needs of the flock.
The success then of any leader is dictated by his obedience to the needs and wishes of the people. There is no leadership without understanding and obedience.
It is when a leader gives power to the people that he keeps it. It when he secures the led that he secures himself.
And just like in marriage, the success of any leader is not spoken or presented as a graph or pie-chart. It is felt, it is lived. By themselves, successful marriages are a testimony. Not requiring Public Relations (PR) or an explanation, a leader’s success speaks for itself.
Dear reader, hearken now, sameness negates marriage. Two things or more, that are exactly the same, both in physical form and spirit, can never marry. Marriage is a union of opposites, two different and separate parts of one entity, opposites that are meant to complete each other.
Marriage clearly illustrates the principle of interdependence, why alone, a human being fails to serve his purpose, remains unbalanced, and cannot succeed.
And note that, in nature and in its purest forms, and not as a social construct, it is not Council registration nor the presence or utterances of a priest, pastor or church minister that renders a marriage valid. Validity, on the other hand, is only a function of the compatibility of corresponding or matching opposites.
It follows then that many people marry every day without even knowing it. In essence, many girlfriends and boyfriends, are, in fact, spouses.
These then are some of the under-said and under-sold but indispensable origins of health or lack thereof, origins of quality of life and longevity.
Godspeed!
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