When 32-year-old Masiye Moyo died on May 19, he left behind a house, a widow, four children, and a secret male lover. Now, the BF and wife are in a heated court battle over who gets the house.
Moyo was a former captain at the United Touring Company in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. He and his wife Christina Sibanda had four kids together, ages 5 through 14 years. Mayo also owned a small house out in the suburbs. That’s where he allegedly kept 30-year-old Bruce Kazembe.
According to Kazembe, he and Mayo had been companions since adolescence, and Mayo had promised him the house after his death. But Mayo’s widow begs to differ. She’s now trying to evict Kazembe.
“My late husband assumed ownership of that house from his employers in 2012 and Bruce should prove to us who authorized him to stay in it,” Sibanda said. “We’ve the keys and we don’t know how he got in which on its own is a crime.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
She continued: “He’s not even talking to us and each time we go to the house we don’t find him. Some property is missing already and he has also rented out some of the rooms.”
Mayo’s younger brother, Matthew, has also joined the legal battle.
“What pains us the most is that Bruce has been living in that house illegally,” he said. “We’ve served him with papers but he has refused to vacate the house. He claims Moyo sodomized him and promised him the house. We want him out so that the widow can use it to raise the children.”
But Kazembe says he’s not budging, saying his dead boyfriend “offered me the house to conceal this wickedness.” (The wickedness being the fact that he was carrying on an extramarital affair with another man–Kazembe himself apparently.)
“I’ve been disowned by my parents and the court should consider my status,” he said. “I can’t fend for myself and I can’t marry anymore.”
Before his death, Moyo granted power of attorney to his wife, which allows her to oversee his assets, including the house.
h/t: Nehanda Radio
Harley
It’s obvious which side is going to win here. I would bet being Zimbabwe that the lover will be strung up in the streets and stoned to death before the end of the year.
Cy
I don’t know of any society where this guy would be entitled to anything. If his dead lover wanted him to have the house he would have written it into a will. I think a widow of four children will make better use of the place than some free-loading ex-boyfriend who for some reason thinks he can’t get married anymore and whines that his parents have disowned him (probably more so because he’s a freeloading son than anything else.)
BJ McFrisky
Would the secret lover of a gay married man have a claim?
Er, no.
Simply no.
Move along.
Skyler Weston Mays
Widow gets it.legally
Chris
And here is the reason why people should get promises in writing; better yet, get some sort of legally binding contract.
I ask myself, if the lover were a woman, what would Zimbabwe’s courts decide? I hope there’s a follow-up article that says whether or not the court’s decisions were consistent with such a standard. [I’d bet not. Zimbabwe’s President-for-life, Robert Mugabe, has undermined what used to be a quite good legal system.]
John
Sorry Bruce(the male companion)…he shoulda put a ring on it. Wife and kids should prevail in this case. In this country, the surviving spouse/family is entitled to the estate before the mister/mistress. Granted this is Zimbabwe and same sex marriage is not on the books there but without a will saying “he wanted me to have it” doesn’t make it so.
jayj150
@Harley: Oh I’m rooting for the wive. Widowed wives with children take priority over freeloading mistresses(male or female) any day. Hope he gets his a#s kicked out pronto.
Curty
Wife, kids and affair with man. Was the husband confused? Or just a closeted bi man? Either way cheating on wife and the guy knowing the man was married and carrying on affair is just disgusting to me. But all that aside the wife and kids should get everything.
Jason Harris McBroom
Widow should get it all. If his chicken sh*t self wasn’t living a lie hurting people, and lived authentically and chose his male partner then he would be entitled to something. Every red cent should go to the wife/widow.
musctop
IF this guy had any intention of leaving the house to his boyfriend he’d have given him power of attorney or at least entered his name on the deed of the house.
James Hart
Maybe the “wickedness” he was referring to was homosexuality because in that culture homosexuality is a serious crime. He even said that his whole family abandoned him because he is gay.
Billy Budd
The woman should get it.
Clark35
The wife should get it.
But I know men who were legally married to other men, and a divorce happens and their ex-husband then tried to claim that they were not legally married when they were.
Sidney Davies
THE WIFE. Because they were legally married.
martinbakman
The BF doesn’t have a leg to stand on in that country. So quear-tee, I guess this is news?
Jonty Coppersmith
I was almost afraid to read the comments but glad to see the unanimous response that the wife and kids get the house. Bruce, have you ever heard of the pot calling the kettle black? You say Moyo was wicked for cheating on his wife? Doesn’t that make you wicked as well since you knew he was married?
NoCagada
It’s ZIMBABWE, kids…our laws mean nothing
jwtraveler
I doubt that anyone commenting here knows anything about Zimbabwean law, but it’s reasonable to assume that a legal spouse would inherit a deceased man’s property almost anywhere in the world.
What I don’t understand is the level of hostility leveled at the boyfriend. Just because he doesn’t have a legal claim doesn’t make him undeserving of sympathy. If he lost someone he loved and shared a home with, it’s understandable that he would want to hold on to that home. You queens are really getting nasty.
mgkbus
@jwtraveler: I agree with you. Why no one is showing empathy for Bruce is a troubling state of affairs, people. Yes he may not have a legal way to stay in the home he shared with his lover, but that doesn’t make him less of a human.
That being said, I have been in that situation (lover of a married man) and I never felt like I was less of a human because of it. In fact, both of us would have fought for that relationship, had it been threatened in the way that many of you disdain. We loved each other and that was all we needed. I even became friends with the wife and (4) children! And, I was remembered in the will. Not all relationships are hollywood or fifties-framed: many are much more complicated.
Trevor McGee
Bitch Please, I’m not faulting you for taking up with a married man. But, know your place. You weren’t the wife. That’s why we have legal marriages, & the fight for them, for property rights, next of kin, etc. Get a clue. Leave the wife’s possessions alone. Those are not yours.
jayj150
@jwtraveler: Being sad over your lover’s death and wanting to “hold on to him” is not a legal argument to refuse to leave other people’s property. And even if you want to take the sentimental approach, no, secret-on-the-side lover(gay or not) does not take priority over widow and 4 kids.
David Achterhof
talk about your jerry springer and dr phil moment
Jonty Coppersmith
@mgkbus:
I’m glad that your “lover” had the foresight to include you in his will and that things worked out well for you in the end. That said, I have no sympathy for people who knowingly have affairs with someone who is married. Unless there are some extremely extenuating circumstances, that is lower than low, just disgusting and despicable.
iggy6666
Seems like both men were made for each other, both selfish assholes. Children should always be made priority
Transiteer
Quite the Mess. Look after the details gentlemen, if this is similar to you. The wifey is going to win this one — no legal protection for the BF. Lesson to be learned.
mgkbus
@Jonty Coppersmith: Why so judgemental? You’ve never been naughty? I’m sure you’ve done things that I would find despicable and disgusting, like your lack of sympathy.
jwtraveler
@jayj150: You clearly didn’t read or understand my comment.
jwtraveler
Gay American couples have the freedom to live together openly without too much fear of legal or social repercussions. Yet, we’ve been fighting tooth and nail for the past 2 decades for the “freedom to marry”. I would guess that gay Zimbabwean couples have considerably less legal and social freedom to live the lives that gay Americans do. So sneaking around is probably the only option for many.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was reading comments on an anti-gay Christian website.
So, I ask you judgmental queers: Where’s your COMPASSION?
Derek Williams
Legally the wife and kids get the house. The fact that the husband sired so many kids over a long marriage indicates he remained sexually active with his wife, regardless of extramarital dalliances. Moreover, his will doesn’t favour anyone else. In a country where same sex relationships are a crime he could still have remained single. There is no way the putative boyfriend can win this one, not even in the court of public opinion.
Jonty Coppersmith
@mgkbus:
You might think my opinion is judgemental, but I think of it as simply good morals. I’ve had a total of 2 men in my adult life. I loved the first one, but it was short-lived because he misrepresented himself to me. The second is my husband of 25 years. I never cheated on either of them. You may not like my opinion, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve never actually done anything that you would find despicable. Note that I did leave a small bit of room in cases where there are very clear, extremely mitigating circumstances. I didn’t see any such mitigating circumstances in this story.
jwtraveler
@Jonty Coppersmith: I find your self-righteousness and condemnation of those who don’t share your lifestyle and sense of “simply good morals” to be despicable. What is absolutely astounding is that you are oblivious to the hypocrisy in your statements. Your attitudes are no different from those of the religious fundamentalists around the world who have for millennia, and continue to condemn gay people for our “immoral” lifestyles. While you have decided that your “good morals”, as defined by your years of monogamy, separate you from those of us who don’t share that lifestyle, I doubt that the bigots, homophobes and gay-bashers of the world would make that distinction.
Your ideas are not only despicable; they’re dangerous.
Jonty Coppersmith
@jwtraveler:
I never suggested anything about everyone having to be monogamous. I personally don’t care how many people you sex it up with. My opinion is just that, my opinion. You are perfectly free to do whatever, but what I find astounding is that you are arguing that it is perfectly fine to sleep with someone else’s husband. I just can’t even fathom what kind of person thinks that is just A OK. You called me a hypocrite. I don’t think that word means what you think it does.
jason smeds
Women generally don’t accept husbands who have homosexual feelings. Even if those feelings are rare, the woman generally finds them to be a threat. In general, women are resentful to the idea that homosexual feelings can co-exist with heterosexual feelings in men.
This co-existence destroys her power because it means he isn’t beholden to women when it comes to sex. Her sexual consent – or lack of it – is irrelevant if he can turn to men, and she thus loses her ability to pull the strings on his behavior in general.
Women use sexual consent as a bargaining chip in their relationships with men. When he opts into men, she loses her grip on him. Her bargaining chip is destroyed.
jimh
@jwtraveler: I think Jonty Coppersmith is absolutely correct, and I’m glad he raised this issue. I’ve often thought that we’ve become a generation of Woody Allens. Somehow, in the quest for freedom and self-actualization, we’ve developed a belief system that (conveniently) holds us accountable to nothing other than our own satisfaction. I think that’s wrong — morally and ethically.
When you undermine someone else’s marriage — and that’s what you’re doing when you sneak around with a married partner — you’re harming others for your own selfish gain. That’s what makes it wrong. Selfish infliction of harm violates just about every moral and ethical system in the world, for what ought to be obvious reasons.
Another thing: jwtraveler’s argument treads dangerously close to nihilism. “Morality is so subjective and relative, we might as well not have any.” I think the danger in that idea should also be obvious.
NJjoe
Sounds like a Lifetime movie in the making.
aliengod
@jimh: Wow. Very well said. Completely agree with you.
Jonty Coppersmith
@jimh:
Your reply is much better than mine. It just baffles the mind that anyone would consider it even remotely controversial or dangerous to say that it is wrong to sleep with married men for the reasons you clearly explained.
Oscar M. Lopez
onthemark
@Jonty Coppersmith: Saying it’s wrong doesn’t mean it’s illegal.
It MAY be illegal in Zimbabwe, I don’t know. (I hope you realize it’s not actually illegal in the U.S. because we don’t live in the freaking 17th century here.)
Either way, it’s irrelevant to this case, where it seems pretty cut-&-dried that the widow gets the house.
Jonty Coppersmith
@onthemark:
I agree that the widow should get the house if we have gotten the whole story.
Never meant to imply that anything was illegal.
onthemark
@Jonty Coppersmith: I hesitate to get into this, but here goes. Yes, when I was in my 20s, I had sex with a few married men. Always THEIR idea, their seduction of me, not my idea.
And I’m totally serious with this next thing. Since I had only a very nominal religious upbringing (and I was never Catholic), I genuinely didn’t think of this as being “wrong.”
I was very careful re: STD’s, very careful not to get caught, etc. But I genuinely thought worrying about marriage, per se, was for religious people. So it didn’t concern me. Even a little bit.
So your judgmental attitude is STILL a little mysterious to me. Do you assume there’s some non-religious “morality” out there in someplace in the ether, or what? Even in my 50s, I still don’t quite understand why you assume every “moral” person agrees on this when obviously it has explicitly religious roots.
(And we agree – this is irrelevant to the legal case here.)
Jonty Coppersmith
@onthemark:
Absolutely there is non-religious morality. I’m not religious. Most non-religious people know that lying, cheating, stealing, etc are not good morals. If you didn’t think there was anything wrong with what you were doing, why were you so careful not to get caught? If your action was just fine you wouldn’t have needed to keep it a big secret. Nevertheless, I’m glad that you are content with your choices.
onthemark
@Jonty Coppersmith: “why were you so careful not to get caught?”
Simply because that’s what they (the guys) wanted. That’s about it. I wasn’t really curious beyond that.
If it’s not apparent yet, I was a very easy person to push around! I was mostly concerned with protecting myself. Of course, now I realize it would’ve been easier to protect myself just by staying OUT of such situations. But back then, that honestly didn’t even occur to me.
Neonegro
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with having sex with someone who is married or in a relationship with someone else.
The only person breaking any vows or promise is the married person.
Outsiders don’t destroy marriages, the married people destroy their own marriages
onthemark
@Neonegro: That’s a good point.
jimh
@Neonegro: That’s just a rationalization to help “home wreckers” feel better about themselves. It’s a flimsy, self-serving excuse. Sleeping with a married person is to participate in an act that harms the other spouse. You’re not absolved of guilt just because you didn’t make vows. It’s the knowing, selfish infliction of harm that makes it wrong.
Interestingly, contract law has an analogous concept: tortious interference. If I know that two parties are in a contract, and I induce one party to breach the contract, I can be held liable for the harm.
Neonegro
@jimh: And this is the cry baby syndrome, “The whole world must stop living and loving so I won’t get hurt”
The married/involved person wrecked his own home…if there was even a home left to wreck.
You are also not aware of the cultural aspects. Having a mistress in many caribbean/african societies is not quite the taboo that it is in the west.
These mistresses and the spouses usually understand the rules of engagement.
We have sex with all type of people with other failings, liers/crooks/abusers/cheap/angry/whiners/selfish/arrogant/boastful…etc etc etc.
When you get involved with another human being, yes there is a chance you will get hurt. That is part of life.
Just move on.
jwtraveler
@Neonegro: Yes, we always want to blame “the other woman” or, in this case, the other man, when it’s the married cheater who is breaking the promise and violating social convention. Thank you for your comment.
Again, I ask all of you: Knowing the obstacles that gay people face to find love and happiness in a relationship, and assuming these obstacles are far greater in Zimbabwe, WHERE IS YOUR COMPASSION?