Lol. I saw a bunch of men commenting under @charity_vimbai’s thread asking how marriage is more beneficial to men. So I’m making a thread explaining how and why. This is not to say that men don’t have responsibilities in marriage but they’re definitely not as taxing as women’s.

Let’s start with the basics. In Zimbabwe, although it’s not a requirement, women are expected to go and change their surnames. This means you have to go change your passport, ID, driving license etc. The people at those offices will discourage you from keeping your name (1/3)

This does not mean that it’s compulsory, but some women do end up just changing it because of the attitudes of the people at those offices and cultural attitudes in general. Men do not have to go through all that. (2/3)

I remember explaining that my sister-in-law may keep her surname to one of my cousin’s wives and she insisted that my brother would leave her. Hanzi, “no man can stay loyal to a woman who doesn’t take his surname.” (3/3)

Despite women also working nowadays, they haven’t been relieved of household duties, while few Zimbabwean men actually feel obliged to do household chores. When they do them, they say they’re “helping” their wives which strange considering they’re just cleaning.

The burden of raising children well is on women even though children supposedly belong to their father’s side of the family. Mothers are often seen as the tough parents while fathers are left to be the fun parent. This is also because fathers are not encouraged (1/3)

To be part of raising their children. Mothers usually do the cooking, cleaning, help with homework, checking up on children etc. While there are some men who do this, cultural norms do not encourage men to do this, which means that women still have to take most of this up. (2/3)

I went to a family function, and my cousin’s baby had been crying in her sleep and I asked him if he knew she does that. He said no because his wife is the one who wakes up at night with their infant and spend the most time with her. He doesn’t even get up to sit with her (3/3)

The commodifying of women through lobola and kuperekwa creates a narrative that women are their to serve everyone else (cook, clean, bear and rear children) which is another thing, in addition to surname changes, that strips women of their personal identities. (1/2)

There’s a general idea that because men pay lobola, they have certain rights that are supposed to be given by their wives which makes women subordinates in their marriages. In addition, it creates a culture where issues of marital rape are not taken seriously. (2/2)

There is a culture in Zimbabwe that gives men zero or few consequences for when they are adulterous. Women are told to be strong, shingirira vans, ndozvionita varume. So men can be as sexually promiscuous as they please but when do it it’s considered absolutely unacceptable (1/3)

Husbands don’t typically stay with women who are unfaithful but women are encouraged to be patient with cheating husbands. This all goes back to patriarchal conditioning that places a woman’s importance on her marital status. (2/3)

Meanwhile, infidelity is actually emotionally abusive and now women also have to deal with the effects of emotional abuse while taking up all these prescribed gender roles that have not been given to men. They have to live with men they don’t trust because of culture. (3/3)

In the professional world, married men are more likely to be promoted or employed than unmarried men, while single women are more likely to be promoted and employed than married women. This is because of the belief that married women will have too many domestic obligations (1/2)

To be fully committed to work. Again, this is all because while women have to be both completely committed to their professions and to their homes, men are only usually completely committed to their professions and as a result think they are “helping” their wives with chores(2/2)

Zimbabwe is a country where women are actually the primary breadwinners in most households, especially in the informal sector, but you will still find women complaining that they had to hand over their salaries to their husbands because they want to be the “head” of the house.

I saw a lot of men commenting that they now the lawn, do the plumbing install lightbulbs etc. But I know for a fact that in Zimbabwe people typically hire someone who does that for a living. And women do not have a problem doing any of those jobs (1/2)

But patriarchy prescribed gender roles that are designed to benefit men more than they do women. So men complaining about a system that benefits them instead of simply changing the system still baffles me. Why not just stop making plumbing and mowing a gender role?

Also, women grow up being prepared for marriage. Almost everything that we do is based on who will marry us, what the other family will think etc. You rarely hear of men being told to sweep properly because their wives won’t like their sweeping. (1/2)

There is no male version of a kitchen tea that tells men to be strong and tolerate emotional abuse from their wives, tells them to stay for their children or to look for what they could’ve done to make their wives cheat. There really isn’t.

At this point, if you can’t understand that patriarchy is actually designed to benefit men, and even at the expense of women’s happiness and health, then I really cannot help you.