THIS column will endure to give advice to people with personal problems.
My answers to all questions will hinge on Christianity and traditional tenets.
This will entail quoting from the Bible and citing tradition as the guide for my answers.
I will provide an email address where readers can send their queries.
Send all queries to tellmejosephine@gmail.com
Dear Josephine
I am a young man studying Engineering at the University of Zambia. I have been courting a fellow student who is five years younger than me.
I really love this girl and want to marry her, but when I mentioned her to my parents whom I feel are old fashioned, they objected with her tribe arguing that women from this tribe don’t make good wives.
What should I do because I am torn between the love for my girl and loyalty to parents?
SK, UNZA/Lusaka

Dear SK
I feel your dilemma is unfounded because I can think the relationship you are talking about is between you and your girl friend. Your parents have no business, unless your girl friend has done something seriously wrong for them to intervene.
The issue of tribe that they have cited is very weak and based on stereotypes that surfaced when different tribes were brought together at independence.
Before that Zambians had been living in small tribal groupings sometimes even clans. We are talking of 50 years and that is half a century.
Use advantages of the generational gap to argue your point to your parents and move on with the right choice you have made to marry your classmate.

Dear Josephine
I caught my husband taking ARVs which I suspected he had been taking all along since his first wife died from what I now understand to be HIV/AIDS-related complications.
At the time I married him, he told me that his first wife had died from sickle cell.
However, last year my husband suddenly gained weight. It wasn’t the normal weight gain but the unpleasant type were someone just ‘balloons up’.
I had even asked him about this weight gain which I have seen among some people taking ARVs but he told me that he has a peace of mind that is why he got ‘fat’.
I started suspecting he was taking some pills because he excuses himself on several occasions. This time I readily found him taking some medication in the toilet.
When he saw me he quickly threw some tablets in the toilet and flushed them. He however dropped some tablets which I picked and confronted him on what it was for.
I have since stopped having sex with him because I feel he is HIV/AIDS-positive. What should I do?
Melody, Kabwe.

Dear Melody
A healthy bond should be based on dialogue. If this component is missing then there is a serious problem in any relationship.
Your problem started a long time ago when you married your husband without asking his status in these days of HIV/AIDS.
What you are reaping are years of secrecy and refusal to open up. If your husband cannot tell you the medication he is taking, how do you expect him to reveal his status?
Again if he lied to you that his wife died from sickle cell, how do you expect him to tell the truth now?
My advice is call some other people you both respect and bring up the issue.

Dear Josephine
I have been married for 10 years and we have three children. Problems started recently when my wife started attending gender workshops and repeatedly challenged my authority over certain things.
I ignored a number of them but got angry when I saw that she had dropped my surname and only used her family name.
I confronted her but she told me that I am old fashioned because modern married women use three names ; their maiden name, their family name and then their husbands. What should I do?
Worried Hubby

Dear worried hubby
I feel your concerns are justifiable. I don’t see any modernity in dropping your husband’s name in preference to that of her parents.
Traditionally and Biblically, a woman is married by a man and not vice versa as some feminists are telling us in what they wrongly call ‘equal gender rights.’
These misinformed ‘modernists’ are either using three names eg Lucy Musonda Banda or maintaining the names of their parents say Lucy Musonda. Either practises are wrong.
A married woman should adopt her husband’s surname. Period. This speaks volume that they are one. On the other hand dropping her spouse’s surname also speaks volumes that cracks are appearing in a relationship.

Dear Josephine
I am a staunch born-again Christian who is in the Praise Team at my church in Kabulonga. I have been going to this church since 1992 when I gave my life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The problem started recently when a new Pastor started making advances to me.
He has been very persistent that I don’t know what to do for fear of embarrassing him. What should I do?
H N, Lusaka
Dear HN
If you were not saved, maybe your predicament would be understood.
However, as a born-again Christian as you state, this problem should not give you sleepless nights.
Confront this Pastor and tell him that what he is suggesting is not only wrong secularly but a sin according to the Bible which he should know better as a ‘man of God.’
A woman has the last say in any relationship. I feel bad when I hear a woman saying a man is forcing her into a relationship when she has all the powers to say no.
Tell off your Pastor and if he insists involve other church members of even his wife if he is married.