BORN AGAIN WIFE OPTS OUT OF POLYGAMY, death threats by first wife

27/07/2014

LUSAKA local court has granted divorce to a couple after a woman decided to walk out of a polygamous marriage because she has become a born again Christian.
Mary Simenda of Zingalume Township told the Lusaka Boma Local Court that she could not continue to be a second wife to Robert Sichima because the first wife had never accepted her.
This is in a case where Mary Simenda, 30, sued Sichama, 40, for divorce after allegedly receiving continuous threats from his first wife.
Simenda told the court that her husband lied that he had divorced his first wife when he married her, but was surprised to find that they had reconciled.
Simenda said she was now a born again Christian and that she could no longer continue being in a polygamous marriage as the Bible was against it.
“His first wife has never accepted me, she is always threatening me, saying that she will kill me because she will never rest until I am dead,” Simenda said.
“I understand her because I found her already married to him and I know she is just trying to protect her home. I recently got born again, I have leant that the Bible is against polygamy and as such, I want a divorce,” she said.
But Sichama told the court that he never wanted a divorce her as he still loved her and that he would resolve the differences the two women were facing.
Sichama, however, said that his second wife wanted to divorce him because she had found a boyfriend.
He said he was surprised to learn that his second wife had left the house and went to live with another man after he recovered from the sickness at his first wife’s home.
“I was sick at my first wife’s home and when I recovered and went to check on my other wife, I found she had left. I have even been told that my wife is living with another man,” he said.
Principal presiding magistrate Mable Mwaba sitting with Grace Ngoma and Mundia Banda granted divorce to the couple and asked Sichima to pay Simenda K4,000 as compensation.