CHARLES MUNGOSHI is on record for blurring the siren on contemporary moral irregularities in Africa. He has done that in Waiting for the Rain where the voice of the Old Man against being slaves of tin-toys remains a nagging warning against the pursuit of artificial technology to the detriment of your destiny as a people. He has warned against abandonment of enduring collective unity for the lure of ephemeral individualism in Inongova Njake Njake. And in his short stories, ‘Some Kinds of Wounds’, ‘Coming of the Dry Season’ and ‘The Setting Sun’ and the ‘Rolling World’, Mungoshi has alerted the reader of many social aberrations which have inflicted various wounds on the skin of African conscience. His whistle-blowing short stories are meant to keep our nerves on the urge about the direction Africa is taken to by the deluge of the liberal train that threatens the foundation of our very humanity. ‘Of Lovers and Wives’ is one such short story. It draws our attention to the danger posed by homosexuality to the future of the human race as a whole. You will remember my warning against embracing the excesses of liberalism in one conversation last year; this short story takes this warning to even greater heights. This is a story about homosexuality in the context of marriage. Chasi is married to Shamiso. But he is also surreptitiously ‘married’ to Peter who has since moved in to stay with them. Shamiso is a wife, but Peter is a lover. On several occasions Chasi is woken up hallucinating about sexual ecstasies with Peter. And he has the audacity to defend his lurid sexual attraction to Peter. Peter too defends their illicit affair as normal. They see nothing wrong with their love. Rather they blame society for not being kind with their disposition. “There is nothing natural or unnatural about it,” Chasi says, further arguing, “Once upon a time, the fact that the world was round was considered unnatural by the highest human authority in the world of that time.” The implication here is that they have created their own new world governed by a new set of rules which prize individual whims above the tried and tested social norms and mores. Consequently, they make love in their offices and at parties. And for a while they turn a blind eye to society, choosing to live in their own world where Shamiso is an outsider. But society’s silence is not acceptance of their iniquitous relationship. Both families, that of Shamiso and that of Chasi, are painfully aware of this incorrigible social aberration. But they unanimously agree as by telepathy or group instinct to have nothing to do with these social outcasts whom they proceed to treat as such: “Not that they weren’t there. They just didn’t seem interested in becoming part of their lives.” Yes, Shami’s relatives, being strong Salvation Army Christians, “had written her off as a bad investment” once she fell pregnant when she was in Form Four. And Chasi’s parents, too, “had given him up for lost” after he dropped out of university to fend for his new family. Both of them had made their bed; so they would lie on it. The lesson here is simple: If you abandon society or rather challenge society in a fundamental way, society too withdraws any obligation to be part of you. If you think that you have rights and freedoms to do as you please, to oppose society’s norms and values; society too reserves rights and freedoms to have nothing to do with you. What remains to be seen, though, is who between the two will have the last laugh. This story is an eye-opener to the younger generation who experiment with all sorts of ideologies and sensibilities that challenge the African way. Their fate is sealed. Just as the fate of these. Peter commits suicide. He drives into Mupfure River after he realises that his relationship with Chasi is not sustainable. Here Mungoshi is making a statement: Homosexuality is an aberration that threatens the extinction of the future of the human race. Peter’s symbolic death seals the author’s choice from the two parallel marriages – better to have a marriage that reproduces society however barren of emotions than one which threatens the future of mankind altogether however rosy. The reader is not persuaded to side with Chasi’s subsequent self-excommunication. May I add weight to Mungoshi’s statement by stressing that a correct reading of African philosophy shows that marriage’s principal purpose is not to enjoy sex as wrongly expressed by modern liberalism; it is a social function to reproduce society. Our sexual organs are not toys for experimentation. As one sociologist, Ruparanganda, once implied, “our genitals are important assets for self-perpetuation.” And sexual enjoyment is also a function for the fulfilment of this function, not an end in itself. It is an accompanying bonus from Above which cannot come before the principal. Asi chii chava kuitika mazuvano? Sex has become the be-all and end-all of everything. Africa-centred marriage values children more than self-indulgence. That is why God made sex a holy exercise; not a sport as it is now taken by the younger generation such as Kathy. Kathy is their eldest daughter, now 17. It is ironic that she is aware of the illicit affair between her father and Peter, but she is not awed by it. When her mother seeks her opinion on her apprehensions, her reaction is to laugh. It is clear she is not perturbed by it ostensibly because her liberal mind-set sees nothing out of this world with it. And who knows; she could also be unusual in one way or another. Let me end by warning our children against buying debates by liberals of the West who have no heritage to protect anyway. You have a heritage to protect, and identity to preserve and a morality to teach the world. Never mind the Freuds; seek wisdom in the bowels of your history, that of your ancestors. They will give you an enduring compass for life. All in all a simple observation caps it: If homosexuality was the way, you would not exist.