Our Time

My cousin is married. Her in laws stay in Zimbabwe. Last year when her father in law was ill,  she travelled to Zimbabwe to stay with her in laws for about a month& only came back to her husband when the father in law was better. This year in August she went to Zimbabwe for other reasons,  but she did go to see her in laws while she was at it. Her husband had not gone to Zimbabwe at any point during this entire time.

For the festive season, her husband now decided that he would like to go visit his parents. His wife( my cousin) said that she didn’t want to go to Zimbabwe for the holies. I understand  her, she just got back from there in August.

So my dad asked me, “is cousin going with husband to the in laws?” I said no...then my dad was of the opinion that that didn't make sense. So I explained to him that she’d just recently been to Zimbabwe to which he protested that this is the festive season and “ndonguva yekuti dai muroora ari ku mhanya mhanya achibikira ana amwene”, translated- it’s  the time for the daughter in law to be diligently cooking for the in laws. I avoided responding directly to him, so I neither agreed with him nor opposed, I simply made an indifferent sound and changed the subject.

In my alone time I obviously couldn’t stop questioning a lot of things... who was wrong and who was right. If my dad was right, this meant that a woman could not have desires and her desires didn’t matter. Why was it wrong for my cousin to just not want to go? I understood her, I felt she has been a good makoti,  she’s gone to her in laws when they weren’t well and when she was in proximity with them, yet no one had questioned her husband’s absence. But when she chose to be absent it’s a problem.

I understand that when you get married you marry the family too, but for my dad’s reasoning to be “cooking for the in laws,” I felt very uneasy... like is that the most important thing for me to do as a wife?  To impress my in laws?... should the main thing not be to just be loving on my husband? And yes maintaining a good relationship with my in laws is important,  but that’s not what I live for... if I Feel a bit different sometimes is it so wrong for me to be let be? Should I only ever do things thathat bring  my in laws happiness even if they are at the expense of my own?

No one has an issue if the husband is never seen at the wife’s home, but if the wife isn’t seen at her husband’s we have problems... this is messing with me.

I always try to find the answers in what the bible teaches us, but I can’t find the exact thing that can articulate an answer for me (that’s also because I haven’t finished reading the whole bible). I mean there is  “wives submit to your husband” and another by Paul that says something about women having to be silent. I’m wondering if this means our desires should be disregarded should they go against our husband’s & in laws at large.

Then I started wondering all the more about the difference between the younger generations and  the older. Why is it that we have feminists in our time and not so long ago, it wasn’t a popular thing ?... back then women just obeyed and moved on, was that right?  Is the natural order of things that we should be voiceless ? Why did those women just do as they were told? Were they happy being  that way, or did they wish they could be heard?...

I’m asking because in my generation we question EVERYTHING. We don’t just accept things.  We question them and if we don’t like them, we don’t do them. Are we creating a mess? Now that we oppose so much, is that why we are always fighting? There is fighting everywhere. Parents are fighting with their children, wives with their husbands etc .... is it because my generation refuses to just accept what we found when we came? We have rights,  we are feminists, we define our own paths... are we right?

Look, I pick no side because I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. ..I do know that a lot of people are confused. The fact that we question everything is causing chaos and animosity... but accepting the old ways of doing things also means a lot of people are voiceless and that also makes no sense....

I’m not concluding on anything. My cousin didn’t want to go spend Christmas with her in laws so she stayed behind... that goes against all things African cultural norm – but it stands for all things feminist and all things self love. Should she have done things differently? I don’t know... is what she did acceptable?  I also don’t know. Is living in my time -where all your actions are questionable easy?-no. Is living in the older times -where you  only did what was deemed acceptable easy?-also no.

So what do we do?