Terrence Mawawa, Zvishavane|In a rare case of supposed gender equality, a local man has been been left with eggs on his face after being embarrassed at the magistrate’s court -following the dismissal of his maintenance claim.
Innocent Hungwe was seeking $150 maintenance from his former wife, Chipo Mainge, saying he needed the money for survival since he was no longer employed. He also claimed he sponsored the woman’s tertiary education.
Initially Hungwe demanded that Mainge should repay him the money he used in paying for her college education.
To support her refusal to pay maintenance, Mainge argued that she was the one responsible for the needs of the children and she also produced her pay slip-reflecting she earns only$133.78 per month.
She also argued she owed Hungwe nothing since she was staying with the children adding she was also paying the school fees for the children.
“We both have equal duties to look after our children but he is not doing anything for them and he now wants to be maintained. He is selfish because he even earns more than what I get. He gets cash from rental proceeds from his late parents’ house. On the contrary my brothers paid for my college education- not him,” said Mainge.
After seeing Mainge’s payslip, Hungwe revised his maintenance demands down to any amount which would help him to buy food. However Magistrate Shepherd Munjanja dismissed Hungwe’s case after it was revealed it was Mainge who was staying with the couple’s three children.
Social commentators have attributed the incident to the current state of social and economic quagmire.