The News Is Cuckolded

The Nairobi News as well as other African news sites reported in February 2017 that Tanzanian policeman Darius Makambako, had been married for six years to wife Precious, when a doctor told the couple, that the husband was sterile. 

Sleeping With My Friends Wife For Money

Wanting a child he hired fellow officer and neighbour Evans Mastano to impregnate his wife, for a fee of Sh10,000 (Tsh2,000,000 ~ £662.62). Officer Evans was already married and the father of two beautiful daughters, so the plan seemed good. Anyway, 75 attempts over 10 months in 2016 later, and Precious was still not pregnant.

Officer Makambako didn’t understand why his wife was not getting pregnant and becoming suspicious, he insisted that his friend goes for a medical examination, which he did in January 2017. Lo and behold, Officer Evans was also pronounced by the Doctor as also sterile. They all went round to question Officer Evans wife, Angela, who was forced to confess that her husband was not the real father of her two children, but his cousin Edward. “I was forced to secretly sleep with his first cousin for these two children after realizing that my husband could not impregnate me for two years.”

 

The outcome of this tangled web of deceits, was that the whole sorry tale wound up in court after Officer Makambako, sued Officer Evans for his money back, under breach of contract. Officer Evans insists that he did not guarantee conception, but only that he would give an honest effort .... which after 3 nights a week for 10 months, I think we can all agree that he gave.

I came across a briefer version of this story reported in columnist Jeremy Clarkson's latest column in the Sun newspaper (14th July 2018).... to be fair he didn't say it was true, but implied it was a recent story .... Except that further investigation showed that in 2012 the temasektimes reported a 29 year old German man Demetrius Soupolos was suing his neighbour 34 year old Frank Maus for breach of contract after the latter failed to impregnate his wife in 72 different attempts to do so.

Soupolos had hired Maus to impregnate his former beauty queen wife Traute, as he was sterile and Traute wanted a baby badly. He thought Maus would be a good choice, as he resembled him and was a father of two. Soupolos paid Maus $2,500 for the job, and for three evenings a week for the next six months, Maus tried desperately a total of 72 times to impregnate Traute.

False News Travels Faster Than Real News ....

When Traute did not get pregnant after six months, Soupolos insisted Maus go for a medical examination, which revealed he was sterile as well. Mau’s wife was then forced to confess Maus was not the real father of her two kids. In his defence, Maus said he did not ‘guarantee’ conception, but only that he would give a ‘honest’ shot at it.

And further digging showed the same German version of the story posted in Apr 7, 2009. I then traced a number of versions to websites dated 1st April 2009  .... false news travels faster than real news and April Fools are found even when its not April. Actually much though I would like to end on that pithy thought, I was interested enough to trace the German version of the tale way back to Jet magazine 25th July 1978 .....

Version of Story - Jet magazine - 25th July 1978

.... so this trope is as old as the hills (and I'll bet as old as the institution of marriage itself). So probably an urban myth from the earliest of trash newspapers.

There is a similar one doing the rounds about the man who orders a prostitute, only to find that its his wife who turns up. This does the rounds as a 'news story' periodically, sometimes its his daughter who turns up. The location changes from South Carolina USA (2017 Newspapers), to Germany, China, Italy or the old Czechoslovakia in 2001 ... even earlier incarnations appeared in 1989/90 when the locations changed to Norway, Israel, Italy and Australia. 

 

Who knows, beneath both these versions of this second story, there could actually be one true account, but if so, its long been hidden beneath the dozens of versions passing forever across the web, occasionally to surface in various reputable news reports. Snopes suggests both story versions are urban myths.