When wazees offer quicker solutions than our courts

The former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga may have been on to something when he recommended village alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to reduce the case load in the courts. The wily mzees have perfected the art of diffusing situations that otherwise build up to divorce cases before the courts today. Their tried and tested ways have seen marriages survive rocky patches and endure for ages.

There's a reason ladies took off to their homes when a quarrel ensued with the husband. It was encouraged by the elders, it was their opportunity to earn mediator fees and also teach a lesson.

Say your wife asks you for salon money but you tell her you don't have money and that even 'bald' is a hairstyle. Later that night you come home drunk singing circumcision songs demanding food and conjugal rights.

The wife is miffed. She tells you to go have relations with the bottle of beer you love more than her and maybe it will birth you a six pack. You roar that you married her, not her opinions, and you might as well unmarry her quick fast. She reminds she wasn't kicked out from her parents' home; you dare her to go back, she says she will. You call her bluff and blackout on the couch.

In the morning you wake up to an empty home. You call her and true to her word she is on her way to her parents' home. You try to reason with her but she tells you to direct any further communication to her people.

After you thump your chest about how you don't even need her for a few days, the house starts getting very cold. Coming home to an empty house loses it's shine, you even start missing the arguments. So you eat humble pie and approach your old man to gather a few of your people and go get your wife.

He listens sympathetically as you explain how unreasonable the wife is being. He tells you he knows exactly what you are going through and he will help only if you heed him. This is war, he tells you. He is not taking you on a begging mission. You are there to claim your right so you better bring the heavy artillery.

Mention not petty things like salon money, sex it up, talk about how the wife pees on the bed. Accuse the in laws of not potty-training her. Point out how much of a saint you've been having to come home late every night so you can share her wet bed for a few hours without suffocating. Don't accept any accusation thrown against you, he promises his full backing.

Cometh the day, cometh the hour and you and your people troop into your in law's boma like a delta force squad raiding a terrorist bunker. You are super confident. What you don't know is that your wife has also been conferring with her war council and she is waiting for you like Shaka of the Zulu with a tongue sharpened like an assegai. Rules of engagement are set. You go first and fire your salvos expecting an easy win then sit down to the approving nods of your people.

Then the counter strike comes. The wife testifies about how you are a pathetic drunk and she is tired of picking you up from ditches. She complains about how you eat the baby's Cerelac, which you did not buy. She cries about how she did not get married to clean soil from her baby's diapers and a grown man's underwear.

You look at her aghast and try to protest but you are ruled out of order. You look to your father for backup but he is looking at you like Jon Snow, he knows nothing. That's when it dawns on you that you are on your own.

So humility accosts you and you ask for private audience with your wife. You beg her to come back home and you'll be on your best behaviour, she's also eager to escape the embarrassment so she agrees. But before you can leave you have to endure a long lecture and to irrigate the wazees throats with frothy liquids and a goat as their mediation fee, which eats into your next month's rent money.

The next time you are asked for salon money you think of the word 'bald' and shiver. The consequences of mentioning it are not worth it. You and the wife learn the art of consensus building and solving your issues without involving outside parties. You even laugh at the accusations you fashioned against each, and that bond formed in war forms part of the memories that makes the union endure.

Case closed.