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The research, carried out last year, revealed that marriage is no longer a safe haven for those intending to escape the HIV scourge.
In fact, the research is set to open a new debate on the issue of infidelity, considering that married couples are naturally expected to be faithful to their partners.
The stunning revelation from the research is that all is not rosy in marriage as some couples who marry while HIV negative are infected soon after exchanging the sacred vows.
According to the NAC research unit, the majority of the cases of 66 000 new HIV infections recorded last year are from married people.

NAC research and documentation coordinator, Mr Freeman Dube, said the results of the research were bound to change the course of the fight against the pandemic.
“You will be surprised that married couples are contributing greatly to these latest figures of new infections contrary to old beliefs that marriage is a safe haven,” he said.
Mr Dube said that NAC was aiming at working with strategic partners in finding solutions to this newfound equation that has further complicated the HIV dilemma.
He revealed the new figures at a media workshop on HIV held in Kadoma recently.

Some of the figures revealed at the workshop indicated that 1 300 people die per week due to Aids-related illnesses, while the number of orphans due to Aids had risen to more than one million.
“NAC is co-ordinating an evidence-informed behaviour change strategy programme with other stakeholders in the HIV national response, which is meant to reduce incidence of HIV through improved access to prevention services for vulnerable populations,” said Mr Dube.

The virus that causes Aids was first discovered in Zimbabwe in the 1980s and has since turned into a crisis of major proportions.
It has left orphans, street people, widows and widowers in its wake.

This has had the cumulative effect of increasing general poverty in the family institution, with family values depreciating as the struggle for survival after losing a breadwinner took its toll.
The curious mixture of poverty and HIV was further aggravated by an economy that was buffeted by sanctions in the past 10 years.
The sanctions meant that only a few people had well-paying jobs or reliable income.

But the HIV situation is set to be aggravated by the revelations that marriage is also no longer safe in terms of new infections.
Far from its reputation for moral sanctity, the marriage institution is now like the distribution centre in the spread of HIV.
But Mr Dube said they would institute strategies that include what he termed the “one-love campaign”, which promotes the need for one and consistent sexual partner.
Population Services International (PSI) interpersonal communications manager Mrs Patience Kunaka said that research had also revealed that of the total number of people engaged in multiple concurrent sexual partnerships, married men had the highest share of 21,2 percent.

The research showed that women involved with multiple sexual partners contributed 5,1 percent.
Single women, who have passed marriageable age, contribute 14,8 percent of having multiple sexual partners, with most of them having the relationships with married men.
These figures translate into the high prevalence of HIV infection among married couples because those in marriage rarely demand the use of condoms.
“The major complication is that you can not tell if your partner is infected or not unless both of you are tested,” said Mrs Kunaka.
“There is need to allow scepticism that your partner might be having other sexual relationships.”

For men, a major reason for engaging in multiple concurrent sexual partnerships is pressure from friends and relatives, those who attended the HIV media workshop noted.
In women and girls, socio-economic needs may prove more compelling for them to engage in unplanned sexual relationships.
Mrs Kunaka said: “Interventions that are necessary to reduce multiple sexual partners include promoting open communication between couples regarding sexual preferences.
“(People should) discourage cross-generational sexual relations and increase individual understanding of risk by addressing the ‘trusted partner’ myth. We also need to promote consistent condom use within all sexual relationships.”

Prominent talk show host Mrs Rebecca Chisamba said that although HIV trends can be traced to certain practices like polygamy, people tended to “wrap immoral behaviour in the culture cloak”.
“Our culture has common phrases like ‘that’s what men do’ and labelling as taboo instances where the wife calls for protected sex, yet when the same men are told by small houses what to do they oblige without question,” she said.

“People are not communicating in marriages, sometimes when one says ‘no’ they will be meaning ‘yes’. We are not as forthright as other cultures, thus a partner may seem to be consenting when in actual fact they are disagreeing.”

Mrs Chisamba urged aunts, who have the traditional role of advising in the family set-up, to move with the times when preparing youths and counselling conflicting couples. According to her, men usually do not realise the importance of preparing for marriage.

“The sad thing is that while aunts will be busy teaching the girl how to handle her husband at the bridal shower, men will be busy boozing and braaing at the bachelor’s party,” said Mrs Chisamba
“When these two people meet, the wife will seem more experienced than the man, resulting in discord that can eventually send the man out to seek that experience.”
Mrs Chisamba implicated friends and relatives as the major drivers of promiscuity because they were the ones who dictated how the husband or wife behaved.
“In my work as a counsellor, I have found out that most conflicts in marriage are caused by outsiders,” she said.
“To a larger extent friends and relatives are the ones who judge your spouse for you.”

Traditionalists and church leaders have been condemning urbanisation which they say leads to couples getting into marriage without following proper procedures.
Bishop Itai Hove of Elshadai Ministries said modern church leaders were usually allowing people to marry without going for HIV counselling and testing.
“Recently, President Mugabe advocated the compulsory testing for HIV, why don’t the church initiate testing as a pre-marital norm to avoid new infections among newly weds?” she asked.
Bishop Hove said that morally, scripture labelled adultery as defiling of one’s marriage and pointed the finger at the church for being mum on sexual education, yet the Bible was full of sexual teaching, including warning on the dangers of adultery.

“The truth is that some Christians are not sexually satisfied at home which prompts them to go out for other partners because there is no teaching on how to satisfy each other in marriage,” she said.
The other problem, said Bishop Hove, is that if the church does not teach about sexual satisfaction, someone else would do the teaching that could lead married couples astray.
There is no doubt that HIV has ripped marriages and families apart because of its devastating effects.
Observers believe that faithfulness is the only solution to save marriages from suffering the deadly effects of the virus. As a nation faced with such realities, no amount of strategising can help unless individual effort and high standards of moral rectitude complement the efforts.