Cape Town - A 73-year-old woman is expected to appear in the Athlone Magistrate’s Court today for allegedly stabbing her husband to death.
Her family are facing the devastating discovery that she might have been in an abusive relationship with her 72-year-old husband of 35 years.
Her sister told the Cape Argus that the woman was cooking a meal in her home in Silvertown on Thursday, when her husband verbally confronted her.
“She’s listening to this nagging all the time and she asked him to stop, saying ‘your child was in an accident, you must be thankful that he came out of the accident’.
“But as she went to the room – she was making salad and cutting everything – she took the knife and all of a sudden she just saw blood appearing out of his chest. She said it wasn’t intentional, she didn’t go to stab him. Knowing my sister, she wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she said.
“In the beginning it was a very good marriage. I can’t fault (him) because he was a good provider for his family. However, he has always been drinking. As years progressed, it became worse and worse,” she said.
Callas foundation director Caroline Peters is advocating for the woman to be released from custody.
“We do not want (her) to be incarcerated. For (her) this abuse was normal but this was an accident, so we want to advocate for non-custodial measures for her. She has suffered long enough.”
Explaining the implications of abuse that often go unnoticed, Peters said: “Many women don’t see abuse until it’s physical, but after so many years of emotional abuse, it becomes psychological abuse. I’ve seen it in our own homes.
“For many women over the years in that generation, they don’t see it as abuse – verbally, emotionally, psychologically, that is the type of abuse she has suffered over the years.”
Their 34-year-old son said the family waited four hours before the ambulance arrived.
“He was two different people, when he was sober he couldn’t count to 10 but when he was drunk he would bring up things from our past as a family – so the wine made him a different person.
“He wasn’t abusive when he was sober and he was a loving, caring person who did a lot for me,” the woman’s only son said.
rafieka.williams@inl.co.za