It is an obviously unpalatable news, a husband ordering his wife and their first son to strip so he would be sure they had not been sleeping together.
But that is exactly the ordeal that 47 year old Fredrick Chifwembe has been subjecting his wife, Agness Mpango, 39, to.
The matter became so unbearable that the woman had to bring it up before the Chelstone Local Court, Lusaka, Zambia,
Mpango told the court Chifwembe became convinced that she was sleeping with their 17 year eldest son, claiming he had dreamed about having sex with his mother.
As a result the man would conduct a routine bizarre examinations of inspecting the family’s private parts whenever he returned home from drinking.
The matter came before Magistrates Charity Milambo and Elizabeth Zulu after Chifwembe, a ZAF civilian, petitioned for divorce, accusing his wife of repeatedly assaulting him.
Mpango, however, presented a very different version of events, suggesting that the marriage had moved from ordinary domestic disagreements to what sounded like an increasingly chaotic courtroom script.
She said the couple, who married in 2004 and have five children, lived peacefully until 2024, when Chifwembe allegedly began making accusations about her relationship with their son.
She said the trouble started after she travelled to the village to collect her mother. While the family was in Chinsali, Chifwembe allegedly called and claimed he had discovered a condom in a clothes basket.
Mpango said she was baffled because she had cleaned the house before leaving and had never seen the condom.
Her husband, she alleged, had already reached his own conclusion: that she had used it to have sex with their eldest son.
The allegations then apparently graduated from verbal accusations to what Mpango described as regular underwear inspections.
“Your Honour, we have no peace at home because of his allegations involving our son,” she told the court.
She said that whenever Chifwembe returned home drunk, he would call her and the children into the sitting room and order them to remove their underwear.
He would then allegedly inspect their private parts and, according to Mpango, would point to their son’s size as supposed evidence.
She said Chifwembe would allegedly declare that the boy’s manhood was “big” using that as basis for the alleged incest between mother and son.
READ ALSO: Court Sentences Man 24 Years Over Incest With Biological Daughters
READ ALSO: Court Delivers Judgement On Man Who R@ped His Two Daughters
In other words, the family had apparently been subjected to a forensic investigation based on nothing more than suspicion, dreams and measurements.
Mpango said her husband threatened to kill both her and their son and told the boy to leave the home because he believed the two were having an affair.
She said Chifwembe also called her a prostitute and a witch and threatened to stab her, Nkani online reported
But if Mpango’s account sounded like a domestic drama with an unusually large dose of absurdity, Chifwembe’s testimony was no less dramatic.
He told the court that his wife had assaulted him several times, including allegedly pulling his manhood on three separate occasions.
He said the couple had experienced problems even before moving to Lusaka in 2020.
According to Chifwembe, while they were living in Kasama, his wife allegedly organised people to beat him.
On one occasion, he said, he survived after throwing an alcohol bottle at the attackers.
Then came an unexpected intervention, courtesy of nshima.
Chifwembe told the court that another man once entered the house intending to remove him, only to find his children eating nshima.
The man apparently joined them for the meal and forgot about the beating.
“It was his hunger and the nshima that saved me,” Chifwembe told the court.
It may be one of the few domestic disputes in which a plate of nshima ended up playing the role usually reserved for a lawyer, police officer or emergency mediator.
Chifwembe said the violence continued after the family moved to Lusaka.
He alleged that in January 2025, his wife attempted to stab him, prompting him to report the matter at Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe Police Station, where he was issued with a call-out.
He further alleged that in November, while he was sleeping, his wife pulled his manhood on three different occasions.
Then, on August 26 this year, while the couple were separated, he said Mpango followed him home while he was drunk and allegedly attacked him with a plank.
Chifwembe said the injuries on his face were caused by the beating and that his swollen hand resulted from trying to hold the plank to prevent himself from being killed.
He told the court that his wife had two assault cases at the police station but said he had stopped officers from arresting her because of concern for her 82-year-old mother.
Mpango, meanwhile, said she did not want the marriage to end because of the children and because she had no family in Lusaka to help her if she was awarded custody.
But after years of accusations, threats, alleged assaults and what can only be described as an unconventional underwear-inspection regime, even she appeared to have reached the end of her patience.
She told the court that she had involved her husband’s family in an attempt to resolve the accusations.
However, she said Chifwembe avoided the meeting, resulting in the family sending their teenage son to Chongwe to stay elsewhere.
Mpango also said that for the previous three weeks she had been staying with her eldest daughter after her husband allegedly threatened to stab her.
Aside the alleged incest, She said Chifwembe sometimes removed his shirt while insulting her and told her she did not look like a woman.
She further alleged that when he returned home drunk, he would order the family to undress and would take her underwear, sniff it and then order her to leave the bedroom and sleep in the children’s room.
READ ALSOL: Hisbah Arrests Commissioner Over Alleged Adultery In Uncompleted Building
READ ALSO: I Know Those Behind Adultery Allegation With Alafin’s Wife –Kwam1
At that point, the marriage appeared to have reached the stage where even the underwear had apparently had enough.
“I am now tired. If he wants the marriage to end, let it end so that I can be free,” Mpango told the court.
The court ultimately granted the couple a divorce, bringing an end to a 22-year marriage that had deteriorated into allegations of violence, infidelity, witchcraft, drinking, threats and deeply uncomfortable family inspections.
Chifwembe was ordered to pay his former wife K1,000 per month for three years as maintenance, with the court taking into account the torture and humiliation she endured.
And so, after two decades together and five children, the marriage ended not with a romantic reconciliation, but with a court order, a maintenance bill and enough family drama to make even the nshima that once saved Chifwembe wonder what had happened to everyone.
