The Voice (Francistown)
Moses Maruping
13 May 2008
Francistown — Having a child with a married man has cost the man's unfortunate mistress P8000 in a customary court ruling.
Thirty-six-year-old Gertrude Mokwakwa's ten-year affair was exposed as sordid details of the marriage she was said to have wrecked were revealed to the Metsimotlhabe Court this week.
Looking worn and frustrated, 43-year-old Bashadi Seboni had clearly had enough of her husband's cheating ways when she reported the matter to the Metsimotlhabe Customary Court.
She told how Mokwakwa had been sleeping with her husband, Eric Seboni, 48, for more than 10 years, and had had his child.
Prior to that, the couple, who married in 1989, had apparently had a happy relationship. But when her construction boss husband started spending nights out, she began to smell a rat.
"He would go for days without coming home and my investigations led me to discover that there was an extra woman involved. I reported my concerns to both our parents, but things stayed the same."
She said her frustration led her to confront her husband who then made a confession about the illicit affair.
"My husband told me everything about this woman. He even told me that they had a child, who will be turning four in June.
"I was devastated by his lurid confession. But the final nail in the coffin came when my husband even told me he had built a big house on this woman's plot."
She told the court of how, for the past six years, her husband had been depriving her of sex, saying that he had no feelings for her anymore and that her breasts and body no longer excited him.
"I've been celibate since and even as I speak my husband continues to deny me my conjugal rights. At one point, he told me to start looking for other men to tame my raging libido.
"This woman has wrecked my marriage and I want her to pay me P20 000 in damages."
The mother of two said her husband's extra-marital affair had made her life hell. She told the court of how her husband, who used to drive her to and from work, stopped and instead started driving his mistress to work.
"They would pass me by the bus stop and laugh their lungs out. I started losing weight due to frustration and my stress levels skyrocketed. I want this woman to pay for making my husband stray away from his family."
In her defence, Mokwakwa claimed that she fell in love with Eric without any knowledge that he was married.
"He proposed love to me and I asked him whether he didn't have a woman. He denied and told me that he used to go out with a certain woman who worked at a petrol station, but now their relationship was over. I agreed to his demands as there was nothing to make me doubt him."
The accused woman added that during the course of their relationship, Eric told her that he would like to have a child with her.
"I told him to marry me first before I could agree to his request, but he told me that his parents were far away in Zimbabwe, but that he would make a plan. In 2004, I fell pregnant as there was nothing that made me suspicious that Eric was married or had a woman and we continued with the relationship.
"Then in February 2006, I started receiving strange calls late at night, but the caller would hang up when I answered." She said that the calls continued until one night her phone rang showing Eric's number. When she answered, the voice on the other end told her that she was Eric's wife.
"She started insulting me telling me she would kill me for stealing her husband. She also showered me with obscene language, asking me why I couldn't find myself a drunkard to sleep with." She then confronted Eric who admitted that he was married.
"I was shocked as all these years there was never a sign of this man being married. He then pleaded with me to continue his relationship for the child to which I agreed."
Asked by Kgosi Maganela Mmipi of Metsimotlhabe if she had any witnesses, Mokwakwa said she would try to bring Eric to testify for her. But on Wednesday morning, the awaited witness failed to turn up and the court found her guilty of committing adultery and marriage wrecking. She was given 30 days to pay the fine or her property would be attached to compensate the complainant. Commenting on the outcome, the aggrieved wife said: "I'm just happy justice has served its cause. I don't know what will happen to me after this, maybe my husband will dessert me for ever for dragging his mistress before the court, but I don't give a damn about what happens now."
Meanwhile, the man at the centre of this controversy refused to comment on the issue, claiming he knew nothing about the court matter.
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