Me or Him?
My husband was a very good man. He always talked nicely to me and was always kind. But as the years went by and we didn't have any children, his family, especially his mother, became very cruel to me. She used to call me an ox. You see, in the Transkei we use four oxen, yoked together in pairs, to plough with.
The cows were like women, bringing children, but the oxen were for doing hard physical work, pulling the plough and carrying big drums of water or carrying big piles of wood from the forest. My mother-in-law compared me to an ox because I couldn't have children. I was very angry and hurt and I wanted to leave.
My husband said, 'Don't worry. It's not only us who don't have children. Some old people don't have children, and they're still together.
We are married and we must stay together until we die.' But his family wanted many children from us and took no notice of what he said. Even when the house was full of people, they would talk about pushing me out.
They would repeat, 'She is not what other women are, she is an ox.' It was killing me. And I didn't know whether it was me, or my husband, who was unable to have children.
Poisoned Womb
At one stage they took me to a doctor, who said my husband was healthy but I was poisoned and my womb was very dirty. This made everyone believe, more than ever, that it was my fault. I left Mzwandile without even telling him, six years after we got married. I felt very sorry for him among other men and I wanted him to feel free.
I was wasting his time because I couldn't bear children, and he should take another wife and try again, I thought. I came to Cape Town. We did not talk over that period. But, at one point, when I had to go home to the Eastern Cape, I heard that he had been asking my family when I would arrive because he wanted to see me. I knew he still loved me.
When I eventually did see him there, it was a sad day and he cried. He told me he didn't believe I was wrong for him, but he had already married someone else, a woman who had two children with a previous husband, and he wanted a divorce. At one stage my uncle told me the divorce papers had come but I never got them, because I wasn't at home then.
I still often think that if my husband's family had been different, we would still be together. I wonder, 'Why didn't we have children? Our lives would have been grand.' He didn't have any children with his new wife either. I think what happened was that a witch doctor injected him, to ensure that he did not have children.
By Jo-Anne Smetherham