THE INDIGNITY OF WIFE KILLING
Written by Millennium on July 9, 2019
JEALOUSY and suspicion of infidelity are no doubt some of the major basis for wife murders in Zambia today.
It also appears that majority assailants and victims are of low socioeconomic background as murders principally occur in such conforming communities.
But what all of us have to admit is that men who kill their wives are not necessarily ‘jealous husbands’, they are simply cold-blooded murderers.
The nation however cannot continue to romanticize domestic abuse, in which men murder their wives for whatever other reasons with impunity.
It is also possible that depicting such wife killings, the issue of mental health of the goons could be a “catch-all” explanation for violent male behaviour towards women.
Needless to say, elucidating the men’s horrific behavior as stemming from love is in no way a validation for their actions.
While it may be difficult to understand the men’s state of mind at the time, it is eq1aully important to examine their real state of mind that leads these men to kill their partners.
We will be the first ones to admit that usually the murdering men could be the weaker partners who see their wives as their whole worlds and the conditions of his existence.
If the man’s ability to maintain his view of himself as a human being depends on the woman being part of his life, it is becomes to let her go and his only relief is to killer her.
Thus, love turns the woman into a hostage to the man’s life and this puts her own life at risk which at worst results into gruesome murders of the women.
It has also been suggested that men who kill their partners experience both an unconscious dependence on their wife and a resentment of her.
According to some homicide experts, men kill their spouses for different reasons and situations.
Some wife killers have been reported to be manipulators with a lot of anger issues who ultimately feel that they are failures at many levels and want to kill their wives and start life all over again.
Unemployment and financial strain, coupled with prior domestic violence, is a huge risk factor for homicide because men in our culture are trained to believe they are the breadwinners.
They’re considered the primary caretaker in terms of making sure their children have resources and enough to eat, so when they fail at that, that’s a pretty humiliating blow to their ego.
In fact wife killing in Zambia has become almost a common feature in as the media is never short of the horrific stories.
What about justice men receive from our local courts? It would appear their rulings are also contributing to men bumping off their wives because they are always on the receiving end.
This could as well explain why 52-year-old Watson Ng’ambi of Lusaka’s Kabanana Compound got hold of an axe and a machete to mercilessly hack his sleeping wife Agnes Chabala,41 to death and kept her body under his bed for three months
Ng’ambi staffed Chabala’s body in black polythene plastic, pushed it under the couple’s matrimonial bed and fled. He later called his older brother informing him that he had murdered his wife.
Police spokesperson Esther Katongo who confirmed the killing said: “Physical inspection on the body revealed that it was half naked with a broken left leg and was in a decomposed state.
“A machete and an axe stained with blood were found at the scene and are suspected to have been used in the act,”
We strongly urge the church to play a much bigger role by imparting moral values into citizens and contribute to reducing the depravity.
