A 43-year-old visually-impaired man of Kabwata Township in Lusaka, Zambia, Paul Phiri, has dragged his 25-year-old wife, Mary Chitala, before the Lusaka Boma Local Court, seeking that it dissolves their marriage on the accounts of battery, infidelity and denial of his conjugal right.
According to Zambia Observer, Paul complained that any slight argument with his wife usually ended with him receiving slaps from her which almost all the time sent him staggering and colliding with walls or falling to the ground.
As if that was not enough, Paul also complained that he had been emotionally and psychologically tortured by the mother of his three children whose lover he identified as Hilary came to their matrimonial home, sometimes as late as 11:00 pm to pick her for sleepover.
“She has been torturing me to an extent that sometimes she brings men into the house when I am in the bedroom. They cook and eat without acknowledging me,” Paul stated.
He told the court that his wife had also denied him sex.
After hearing all the accusations of abuse from her husband, Mary presented her allegations against her husband.
While she admitted to slapping her husband during arguments, she added that he was in the habit of picking fights with her.
Mary told the Senior Local Court justice, Chibesakunda , “Sometime last month, he refused to give me money for food. He left home in the night and told me he was going to visit prostitutes who would satisfy him better sexually than I do.
“He told me that he does not want me again. He asked several times why I was clinging to a blind man,” she said.
After an exchange of accusations before the court, Justice Chibesakunda dissolved their union on the grounds that both parties were unreasonable in their behaviour.
The court ruled that Paul gets custody of two of their children while Mary remained with the baby.
He ordered Paul to compensate his ex-wife with K5,000 and maintain the baby with K500 every month.
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