Absolving men of responsibility

It was an incident that shocked most of society, well not exactly shocked because women being killed by their husbands is not particularly shocking. In any case, Qamo Matela’s alleged murder of his wife still garnered public attention. Perhaps it was through social media prominence of members of the family, the people who shared or the story behind the alleged murder. In any case enough of the public cares such that when the alleged murderer sought to bury his wife many of us were offended. It was an audacious act to be allegedly involved in someone’s death and then through lengthy court processes delay the burial of that person. They say laying the dead in their final place of rest brings a measure of comfort to the family and letting the deceased’s family bury their daughter would have been the humane thing to do. Whether the aforementioned husband is indeed guilty of murder is something for the courts to decide. The decent thing to do would have been to respectfully let the grieving family have peace and dignity not drag them through the courts. Imagine the collective sigh of relief we had as a nation, well those of us who had been following the matter, to hear that the High Court had granted the deceased’s family an order to bury their daughter. Finally, she could be buried with dignity. The matter of who did what could be discussed later but she could have a decent burial and the family could start the grieving process. It appears we celebrated too soon as an appeal has been lodged by the erstwhile husband to prevent the family from burying her. I could go on and on about this particular case, but this is just one in a thousand. The issue it raised, on social media and in conversations, at least the ones I have been privy to, has been: is this man sane? A lot of people, perhaps in their naivety cannot comprehend that anyone would willingly frustrate something so sacred as a burial. In their minds, only a person with diminished mental capacity can sink to such unimaginable lows. The answer, however, is much more sinister. We have a society that has normalised finding excuses when men behave badly. It is not even a conscious defending anymore. It is an inbred way of thinking the world over borne by years of patriarchy and it is quite insidious how we find it normal to absolve men of responsibility for their wrongdoings whilst at the same time not affording the same largesse to anyone else. The man must not have been in his right mind, we say when a man has murdered his spouse. “She must have done something to provoke him,” we argue when a man has assaulted his girlfriend. We continue to ask questions like what were rape victims wearing? In every instance we look to put the blame on someone else and if we cannot find anyone in the vicinity, we would rather diminish capacity than place the blame squarely on the shoulders to which it belongs. Our collective need to absolve men of blame and accountability is not only limited to the criminal. In our daily lives, when a husband cheats we will look always to the two women involved and never at him. Perhaps the wife is cold and quarrelsome. Maybe the other woman seduced him with her feminine wiles. It is never simply that he decided with a full and sound mind to betray his marital vows. Even when a young bride is not happy in her new marital home, we assume it is the mother or sisters-in-laws. Always someone else except the person who should be accountable. So here we are as a nation faced with an ever-rising femicide toll and even in this instance we are doing all we can to not hold the perpetrators accountable. It is honestly not surprising that the men in our lives solve their marital disputes with murder when we have raised them to always look to put the blame on someone else. Of course, if the belief is that their wives are always in the wrong, are we surprised that they lash out in anger at those wives? Or girlfriends? Or whoever else they may decide to slay instead of facing what is really wrong in their lives and addressing that. Until we raise our sons to be accountable and we hold them accountable from an early age we will continue to breed generations of men who cannot fathom that they are responsible for their actions. This lack of accountability will continue to manifest in men leaving their children fatherless, broken families, rape culture and sadly intimate partner violence and murder. The current case that has gripped the nation’s attention can only be decided on by the courts but one thing that we must never do is give the alleged perpetrator mental illness as a defence when he has not even pleaded it. It is insulting to people who actually deal with mental health problems and do not go around killing anyone. We must stop treating men as children with diminished capacity when they do wrong. Men like any of us know exactly what they are doing and they count on a society that refuses to hold them accountable to continue causing the harm that they do. Thakane Rethabile Shale