A visit which was initially meant to offer moral support to a friend who lost his wife turned into a battle ground when a 54- year-old man bluntly told his friend, the widower, that he had gone to give him his wife for free. The fight ensued when Moses Chileya visited his friend and dumped his wife, Julia Chabu, with him on suspicion that she was having an affair with him.

“I escorted my husband to visit his friend who had just lost his wife but when we reached the house, he grabbed his friend and told him that he should get me for free,” Chabu, 43, who sued Chileya for divorce, told the Bulangililo local court. S h e n a r r a t e d t h a t Chileya got into a fistfight with his friend and that it was only stopped by neighbours.

Chabu said her husband left her at his friend’s house and that when she went back to her matrimonial home, he moved all her belongings and told her that she would be sleeping in the kitchen. They got married in 1991 and they have seven children together. Chabu told the court that problems in their marriage started after she gave birth to their first child. S h e s a i d s h e h a d travelled to her parents’ house to give birth but that he never sent her money to go back to their matrimonial home.

Chabu said when she returned to her house, she discovered that her husband was having an affair with another woman, which made them to differ. She also complained that her husband beats her and threatens to kill her. But Chileya said the biggest problem in their marriage is that his wife is too secretive. He testified that his wife goes away from home for a week without informing him of her whereabouts. Chileya said his wife owns two houses, which he only got to know about recently. Chileya told the court he suspects his wife of having an intimate relationship with another man and asked the court to grant them divorce. And Bulangililo senior local court magistrate Kambole Nyoni granted the couple a free divorce.