Lesotho: Forced into Marriage

By Thandaza* (Not her real name)

Sometimes one would think that it is a punishment to be a woman from the things that our societies did or still do to us. I am a mother of four, three boys and a girl. I am 49 and go by the name Thandaza. I got married when I was at the very tender age of 15 and I was forced to marry a man much older than me. I had to leave school and get married.

My husband's people came to my parents to ask for my hand in marriage, he was a man who worked at the mines and was very rich because he had many cattle and a herd of sheep. We lived in the same village. My father planned to accept his marriage proposal without my knowledge because he knew that I loved my education and would never leave it for any marriage regardless of how rich the suitor was.

My father accepted the bride price and arranged everything for me to get married, but that day they did not succeed, because I ran away. My father was fed up to the extent that he told my mother that he did not want to see me in his house.

I lived like an animal in my father's house and did not attend school well, I was ordered to do hard jobs so that I would go but not come back soon. The man that father agreed could marry me was on leave and when I went to fetch water he would follow me with dogs to the well and try to force me to go with him but I did not agree and when I told my mother she would say that he is my husband I have to follow him, that is how she got married to my father. I had no one to cry to.

One day when I was on my way back from school it was winter and the sun went down quickly, when we were going to our village we walked through a donga, immediately when we were about to go up I heard someone call me.

When I looked it was him, he asked what I was doing going to school although I was already married. I got angry and told him that he did not marry me but my father. He also became angry and told me he would show me that he had married me not my father. He took me down, I tried to fight with anger but I failed. He raped me and told me to go home and tell my parents and hear what they had to say. I went home angry and did not tell my parents about it.

He went back to work and after two months I found out that I was pregnant, actually my mother noticed first and told my father about and then my father called me a woman and told me that he would not live under the same roof with two women.

My so-called husband was informed and he said it was high time that I came to live with him because he did not want his child to be raised in other peoples' houses. I stopped going to school because I was indeed a woman, no longer a girl. I was humiliated before my friends and age mates to the extent that I did not want to meet any of them. The pregnancy forced me into my husband's house.

The day I entered this man's house I saw misery and suffered humiliations. He did not raise his hand to me but he just did not care, he only came to me when he wanted food and that was when I realised that he was a heavy drinker. I never had peace with this man until one day he came home from work earlier than expected. He had lost the job, after that, he seemed to know that I was a person and I could eat decent food with my baby.

He now showed me love and I kind of felt pity for him and I grew to accept him as part of my life. My husband now works for a construction company and he makes a lot of money to take care of us. As for me my dream was shattered in my face when I dropped out of school for marriage. It was hectic but I finally succumbed to the situation because there was nothing to be done about it.

I now live happily with my husband, even though it took me a long time to understand why my father did what he did. I never thought that my own father would hate me that much to the extent of forcing me into marriage. I never understood why, the man was rich, yes, but his riches were neither mine nor my father's.