The Married man and Street Children

The children that are found permanently resident on the streets of Zambia generally claim to come from two-parent homes. It is not usual that one comes across a street child who is the product of a single-parent home. Generally children claim to come from homes where a male parent has died leaving the female parent without means. Other children claim to come from homes where a mother has died and a step-mother has taken the place of the deceased. 

In the first scenario where a father has died the children fare a little better, especially while the mother still lives. In the second scenario the children are unlikely to continue enjoying normal family life. In Zambia marriage is increasingly becoming a union based on economic expediency rather than love. Harsh economic realities are driving young women into the hands of spouses they believe to be a way out of poverty. The ultimate decider when a proposal is made is financial stability. This is not a situation occuring only amongst the un-educated women of Zambia, but is also prevalent among the educated. Parents of young girls are only comfortable to marry their daughters off to men they consider to be of a higher income than their daughters. Young women in viable employment also fall into this same trap. 

A close study of Zambia's laws seems to re-inforce this traditional view of the male "Bread-winner". Laws assume that men will always be of a higher income and that they have an obligation to "support" their wives. The fact that women eveywhere are seeking greater autonomy of personal control appears contradictory to the world-view promulgated by the laws. It is now normal for women in Zambia to, on one hand lobby for greater education and more employment, while on the other hand lobby for laws that confirm men as being better off financially. The argument made is that men have traditionally controlled the job market making them fare better financially. Another assumption made is that women are completely powerless in the power relations that lead to child conception and birth. Generally all male-female unions are viewed through one eyeglass. This the view that assumes a dominant stereotypical male African man ruling over a helpless female victim. The studies made and published normally assume this position and are tiresomely static in their results. One would be tempted to assume that African men are generally neo-Victorian virtual rapists and that African women are innocent adult children. The views are dangerous when unchallenged and are at the core of generating the wrong interventions that continue to plague the challenge of street-children.

In the first place Zambian  African women from time past to date control the home structures that directly relate to the child. They control nutrition, hospitality and family relationships. Femaleness in Zambia is almost a secret society with strict rules of secrecy and deeply entrenched rules of conduct. It is a world of ancient spiritual beliefs that rule even the minds of the educated elites. From the time a young female Zambian child is born to the day it dies it is subjected to rigorous and secretive training and personal invasion that subjugates the girl to the dominant aunts and grandmothers for life. Few studies, if any have investigated the female tyranny of females in Zambia. Female Genital mutilation is not practiced in Zambia, but a kind of "Female Genital Deformation" is practiced in some tribes with the purpose of making the girl more pleasing to men. Few Zambian men even know of this practice as I am sure any survey would show. The truth is that how a home runs, how girls are groomed, how they are taught to relate to men and how men relate to women are all factors controlled by dominant female relations. 

This is the machinery that decides how children will fare in Zambia. When a child suffers in Zambia one can be sure to locate a woman that ensuring this situation prevails. It is not true that Zambian extended families are unwilling to support the members of their families that suffer. If this was so Zambians would be extinct today, living on less than a dollar a day is simply not possible in such a urbanised country as Zambia. Children are on the streets principally because of they pushed out of the homes by dominant aunts and step-mothers. Men in Zambia only control the money which stays in their pockets, especially if they are not committed to a woman. It is the traditional expectation in Zambia that control of the homes finances should be handed over to the woman so she carry out her expected role of controller of nutrition, hospitality and care. Hospitals, funerals and other public events are the best reflection of this relationship. Women are expected to carry out all major functions of Zambian life, the men simply provide the finances and carry on with other non-domestic functions. Men in Zambia are expected to support women from the time the girl agrees to be their girlfriend through the formal engagement and into marriage. Men are expected to die earlier automatically leaving all their belongings to their wives, sisters or mothers. Property-grabbing is intensively perpetuated by female relatives of the dead man. Most homes are distabilised by the husband's female relatives so the woman can go and leave the man's wealth to the "family". It is not normal for fathers to cause confusion in their son's or daughter's homes. Such a man would be disrespected by other men. 

This is the family context from which children come that end up living on the streets. Children in Zambia are increasingly the victims of females raiding their homes in an attempt to oust the mother and gain control of the man, the bread-winner. Young women of all ages and stages are either attempting to take control of a husband or boy-friends purse or are otherwise attempting to oust a wife from her home. At the center of this frenzied conflict is the married man, the sugar daddy who has money for all that a young girl can want. When the marriages finally breakdown the children are the least consideration. The street becomes a refuge from adult selfishness and aggression. 

Arguments will obviously be made that men are simply irresponsible and will want to marry too many times. Again this argument assumes that women are cognitively inferior to men. Women are equal to men, they have greater access to social knowledge and are more closely connected than men. They also express themselves better and know who is married to who. Girls getting into relationships with married men know that they are hurting another woman somewhere and possibly harming some child's future. The truth is that they simply do not care, they will have their good time and God help the children of "...that woman...". 

So long as Zambian women continue to pass total responsibilty to men for their own actions their children will continue to suffer. It a situation that calls for a paradigm shift and the enacting of tougher laws against those that distabilise homes. It is not enough to punish erring husbands with alimony and such penalties. It is time that women who took down homes were also held culpable and made to pay back all that the man gave them, what they stole from the children.
Mankind lives in the world that is collectively created. If Zambian people fail or refuse to honestly assess the situation of that is leading to the creation of street children then they condemn themselves to unstable marriages, more street children and crime. It is time that there was greater transparency about the idea of the "married man". It is time that this culture of girls crowding marriedmen for money was addressed as more than just a minor sub-culture.
 
It normal now for young girls to pressure each other into these relationships, to the great enjoyment of the male population. Young girls train each other to view young men as not financially viable, that married men will give without strings attached beyond sex. Hence, increasingly the HIV/AIDS pandemic and broken homes begins to act as a perpetual-motion machine creating street children and destroying the child. If young women are being given greater rights, affirmative advantage in education and schorlaships then they must be held responsible for their actions to the same extent as boys and men. You are only equal to one with whom you share both rights and responsibilities. The married man must be compelled to keep his money for his children, as must the married woman. Those women who are not married to such a man must be held to account if they take his children's money. It is time to legislate that a home's income belongs to the children of the home. Then and then only will children stay off the streets.