Times Of Swaziland: MONSTER-ROLE IN HOUSEHOLDS MONSTER-ROLE IN HOUSEHOLDS ================================================================================ The Editor on 09/11/2018 01:21:00 Sir, I have been under the impression that humankind could be changed into upright societal beings. I thought people could be moulded from unacceptable behaviours into good ones. However, recent incidents of abuse tested my philosophy. Lives of women have been lost as a result of men, who reportedly assaulted them. This means the assaults had been going on for ages. Does this mean we have to tolerate abuse to the extent that we get used to it? These squalor provides a kaleidoscope of the many miseries women endure from men, who abuse them knowing that they can escape their ill-deeds by crawling into the womb of cultural traditions. A man’s role transcends the husbandry one to that of a knight. To, therefore, argue that you paid lobola is absolute piffle. Such misconducts worry me since they continue to provide an obvious happy hunting ground for those who are always pointing men for much of the domestic abuse around. Such men expose themselves as the type who subscribe to the dour doctrine, where they assume the monster-role in the household so that neither wife nor child befriend them, whereas they ought to be friends to their wives and children. This amounts to defiance to the writings and awareness to fight violence in order to rid our kingdom from patriarchal tendencies that undermine the rights and dignity of women. Since no branch of knowledge constitutes a cure for all the ills of humankind, it means we are at crossroads. However, we cannot hold men for much of the abuse. Women are to blame too; why do they continue to stay with monster men? Even present day Christianity cannot pretend to be the whole panacea of our ills, though it comes closer to it than any other discipline. Or, should we turn to anthropology, which provides a scientific basis for dealing with the crucial dilemma of the world today? Things like these hold us back as a nation since we should be devoting ourselves to matters of national development. Susan Khanya