Shona Women in Zimbabwe—A Purchased People?

Marriage, Bridewealth, Domestic Violence, and the Christian Traditions on Women

Chitakure

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498293068
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The position and treatment of women in every religion, culture, and society have been subjects of concern for a long time. In every society, women fight for their emancipation from exploitive and oppressive patriarchal structures. The most contentious issues include domestic violence, gender discrimination and inequality in the areas of employment, leadership, and marriage. Domestic violence tops the list and is the worst enemy of any progressive and democratic society. It dehumanizes, disfigures, and demeans its victims and survivors. Shona Women in Zimbabwe--a Purchased People? explores the causes of domestic violence--the cultural practice of bridewealth, in particular--and assesses the extent to which it contributes to the proliferation of domestic violence among the Shona people of Zimbabwe. It then explores the Christian traditions, particularly, the Roman Catholic Church, in search of resources that can be used to emancipate Shona women from patriarchal subjugation. Finally, the book offers a pastoral response that is informed by the experiences of the Shona women, their cultural resources, and the Roman Catholic religious tradition.

Chapter 1

Domestic Violence

Nomenclature, Causes, and Types

Introduction

Domestic violence is ubiquitous although some societies and cultures may experience more of it than others. The forms it takes and the degree to, and the frequency at which it is practiced might differ, but it remains domestic violence—ugly, uncivilized, and inhuman. Its occurrence might not be so evident and publicized in some societies, but that does not make it non-existent. That is why it is naïve and myopic to think that some human societies are free from gender violence. In the past, some activists thought that gender-based violence was a crime of the uneducated and uncivilized nations of the world, but that notion has been challenged and disapproved by the empirical evidence that comes from several cross-cultural victims’ experiences. The United Nations has observed that “Violence against women is both universal and particular. It is universal in that there is no region of the world, no country and no culture in which women’s freedom from violence has been secured.”6

According to Terry Davidson, the problem of domestic violence is as old as humanity itself, and it has no ethnic, cultural, religious or social class boundaries, and it is as ubiquitous as the air that we breathe.7 For many years in the history of humanity, domestic violence went on unchallenged because most societies considered it part of human life. In some areas of the world, it was only recognized as a social problem in the seventies.8 Before that, many societies believed that it was right to discipline one’s wife by beating. According to Richard J. Gelles, “Throughout history there have been legal and cultural precedents which, to a degree, sanctioned the right of a husband to use violence on his wife.”9

Although domestic violence may not seem to exist, it is a reality for some women. It fakes its death, and it may be successful in doing so because most of it goes unchecked due to the secrecy that surrounds its commission. Margaret M. Leddy observes that wife battering is a silent crime, rarely reported in most societies because of the ignorance and denial of both victims and perpetrators.10 The Professional Education Taskforce on Family Violence affirms the observation that other scholars have asserted that domestic violence remains undetected because of the pain and humiliation it instills in the victims and also the lack of evidence and witnesses that characterizes its occurrence.11

Domestic violence takes various forms and degrees of severity depending on the geographical location of the community in which it is perpetrated and the caliber of the couple involved. In some countries where gender-based violence has been outlawed, it tends to appear in subtle ways to evade detection by members of the public and the law enforcement agents. In societies where very little has been done to eradicate it, domestic violence happens out in the open, in more vivid and despicable ways.

This chapter starts by giving brief descriptions of some terms that are related to and can be used interchangeably with domestic violence. The chapter then goes on to describe briefly different forms of domestic violence. It finally gives statistics of domestic violence among the Shona of Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Although gender-based violence can appear in various forms and contexts, and can be perpetrated by either men or women, this chapter deals with the violence that is directed towards women by men in civil, customary, and unregistered marriages. Some writers have called this type of domestic violence, marital violence, which I think sufficiently captures the spirit of what this chapter is all about.

Terminological Issues

Domestic Violence

Kathleen Waits has defined domestic as “a criminal act of assault, sexual assault, sexual battery, or other act that injures or kills a family or household member by another who is or was residing in the same single dwelling unit.”12 In the same manner, the Zimbabwe Domestic Violence Act [Chapter 5:16], No. 14/2006, defines domestic violence as, “Any unlawful act, omission or behavior which results in death or direct infliction of physical, sexual or mental injury to any complainant by a respondent and includes the following: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional, verbal and psychological, economic abuse; intimidation, harassment, stalking . . . ”13 Domestic violence can be violence directed at a child, husband, wife, brother, sister, and so on, within the framework of a family.

Gender-based Violence

The gender-based violence is committed within a family set up, usually by any family member against another family member. Sometimes people commit it using a weapon such as a knife, gun, stone, stick, and so on. In most countries, gender-based violence is more directed towards women than men. This scenario can be a result of the physical, biological differences between men and women. Although there are men who are victims of gender-based violence in Zimbabwe, most of the victims are female. Several reasons have contributed to that scenario. First, most men are biologically and physically stronger than most women, so, when it comes to matters of fighting, men seem to have the upper hand. Second, in the past, Zimbabwean women were not as educated as men, and they tended to stay at home looking after the children while men pursued education and gainful employment in industries and towns. So, when it comes to economic power, more men are better placed than women. Third, some people argue that women are more peace-loving than men. So, most women are committed to promoting peace in the family. In the traditional Shona family, even if a woman is physically stronger than her husband, she may not subject him to any physical violence because of respect. Of course, some women have been reported to abuse their husbands, but that is an exception to the norm.

Victim or Survivor

Another terminological issue concerns the use of words victim and survivor in connection with domestic violence. It seems that the word victim refers to the person who is in the process of being victimized although the violence might be intermittent. A survivor is someone who has lived through domestic violence and has managed to extricate oneself from the violent person and environment. Although the two words are sometimes used interchangeably, they have somewhat different meanings. Some think that the word survivor is a more positive and empowering term than the word victim that seems to have some connotation of presenting the abused person as being a mere passive sufferer. It should be noted that a person who has survived domestic violence may sometimes be victimized again by the same perpetrator or a different one. It is also true that victimization does not end with the physical act of abuse but it may continue in the memory of the survivor long after the abuse. If the survivor sustained physical marks as a result of the abuse, these may act as reminders of the traumatic events to the survivor. It seems that a battered person goes through a simultaneous process of victimization and surviving. Hence, one person can identify with both terms.

Marital Violence

Marital violence refers to the violence that happens between people who will, are, and might be married. These people might be cohabiting rather than married in the strictest sense of the word. Usually, the violence is directed against women although there are men who are also victimized by their wives in every culture and country. The focus is on the woman because she is considered to be the weaker partner, physically, and in most Zimbabwe cases, women are economically marginalized. In marital violence, children are also caught in the crossfire as either passive or active spectators of the violence that happens in the family. According to Lundy Bancroft, “5 million children per year witness an assault on their mothers, an experience that can leave them traumatized.”14 So, marital violence happens within the framework of marriage. It should be borne in mind that marriage means different things in different cultures. The Zimbabwean law recognizes both customary and civil marriages as legitimate. This book will use the term domestic violence and marital violence interchangeably to refer to the violence that is perpetrated against women within the framework of marriage.

Violence against Women

Violence against women is the abuse that is directed at women, in general. This kind of violence can happen to any woman either within the confines of a marriage or outside. Nancy A. Crowell and Ann W. Burgess define violence against women as “. . . a wide range of acts, including murder, rape and sexual assault, physical assault, emotional abuse, battering, stalking, prostitution, genital mutilation, sexual harassment, and pornography.”15 This form of violence is usually perpetrated by men although there are also women who abuse other women. This kind of violence does not spare even young girls who are sometimes forced into child marriages, sex slavery, and prostitution. It can be perpetrated in the name of religion or culture. In Africa, there are ethnic groups that practice circumcision of women, a practice that has become notoriously known as genital mutilation. This ritual has been outlawed in most countries, but, like any other banned religious practice, it survives secretly. Those who practice it believe and argue that it is part of their cultural and religious heritage and because of that it should not be discarded. There is also forced marriages of young girls who can hardly give their marital consents because they are minors.

Family Violence

Family violence happens within the framework of the familial relationships. First, it occurs within the nucleus family. It can be a husband who abuses his wife or children. It can also refer to the woman who may do the same to either the husband or the children or even both. Sometimes this type of violence is only directed towards children. In every culture, people have acceptable ways of disciplining children, and most people know when some form of punishment has gone beyond what is considered reasonable and acceptable within a particular culture....

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Domestic Violence
• Chapter 2: Types of Shona Marriages
• Chapter 3: Bridewealth and Domestic Violence among the Shona
• Chapter 4: Religious Tradition on Marriage and Women
• Chapter 5: The Theological Conversation
• Chapter 6: The Way Forward
• Conclusion
• Bibliography