A husband of Kitwe in the Buchi Local Court in Zambia has said he wants to divorce his wife on the basis that she has refused to stop congregating at a Pentecostal church.

In defence of his suit for divorce, Anderson Mwenya alleged that his wife wakes up at 4:00 am to pray, which he said disturbs him.

Anderson was testifying in a case in which he sued his wife, Priscah Chali, for divorce on grounds that she does not respect his decisions.

According to Zambia Observer, the two got married in 1993 and have four children

Anderson told the court that all was well between them but that problems in their marriage started in 2018 after his wife joined a Pentecostal church.

He said initially, he used to congregate with his wife at Christian Brethren Church but when he went to work out of town for several months, he found that his wife had joined a Pentecostal church upon his return.

Anderson said he felt bad about his wife’s decision because she never consulted him.

He told the court that he had on several occasion asked his wife to leave the church but that she refused.

He stated that she told him she would rather have their marriage dissolved than stop going to the church.

“I am the head of the house and if my wife cannot respect my decision, then I would rather have her divorced,” Anderson said.

Priscah refuted her husband’s grounds of divorce and told the court that her husband wanted to divorce her because he had found another woman he wanted to marry.

She explained that this made her join a Pentecostal church but that her husband told her that it is a devil’s church.

Priscah, however, told the court that her husband has found another woman and that he bluntly told her that he wanted to marry her.

She asked the court not to grant them divorce because she still loves her husband and that she would like them to take care of their children together.

The senior local court magistrate, Elita Bwalya adjourned the case to a later date.