A Lusaka man’s dreams of having a night nurse in his bed for the rest of his earthly days have been blown away after his wife that he sent to nursing college, with the help of her mother, dumped him.
Without pity for his broken heart and now empty wallet, the mother and daughter tag team have gone further to sue Olen Mweene in the Matero Local Court demanding that he pays the K4,500 balance on his bride price despite the new nurse in town dumping.
And, as if being dumped like a rotten cabbage at Soweto market is not enough, Mweene has been administered an additional painful dose of mental Ritapen.
In her court claim, mother-in-law Beatrice Kansika, asked the court to compel heartbroken Mweene to complete paying bride price for her daughter.
Kansika urged Mweene to wipe his tears up like a man and pay up as he enjoyed the daughter in the time they were together before she earned the right to wear a white dress and scream ‘two in the morning, two in the evening’.
However, feeling done in, Mweene complained to the court over the double dose of painful mental ritapen the mother-in-law and her daughter were administering to him.
“I took my wife for nursing school and she later changed her mind into divorcing me”, cried Mweene.
“If they wanted me to continue paying her lobola, my mother-in-law should have told her daughter to wait a little longer before filing for a divorce.”
Meanwhile, as the trial was ongoing, relatives to the woman were heard murmuring, ‘why si anazipunzise eka. Ushe ninkogole’ (Why didn’t he educate himself instead, is it a debt?)’
In passing judgment, magistrate Harriet Mulenga reduced Mweene’s lobola balance from K4, 500 to K1, 000 and retorted that, “but how do you expect him to finish paying for a woman that ran away after he educated her?”
“Let men finish paying lobola before you give them your children for court will not allow a man to pay lobola for a woman that is not satisfying him every night.” stated Magistrate Mulenga.
