Murder Sparked by Consanguinamorous Affair?

In South Africa, a confessed murderess blames incestuous cheating by her husband for enraging her enough to commit murder. Emily Zodwa Zulu says her husband was having an affair with his sister. Whether they are full siblings, half-siblings, stepsiblings, or adopted siblings is not explained in this article at iol.co.za by Kamini Padayachee.

Last year Zulu pleaded guilty to the September 2010 murder of her sister-in-law, Sinenkosi Zulu, and the attempted murders of her mother-in-law, Dumazile Zulu, and brother-in-law, Khulekani Zulu.

According to her plea, the day before the murder, Zulu found out that her husband was having an affair with Sinenkosi.

As I’ve said repeatedly, while I fully support consanguinamory and polyamory, I do not support cheating. However, cheating should not be grounds for prosecution nor homicide. If what Zulu says is true, her husband cheated on her, but then she deprived a woman of life, and brothers of a sister and a mother of a daughter.

I would be interesting in hearing her husband’s side. Cheating could be minor in comparison to what Zulu did before. Or, maybe Zulu had been a good spouse.

After she left work at Mtunzini police station, she drove 200km to her sister-in-law’s home in Emahashini, Nongoma, and knocked on the door. When it was not opened, she began shooting at it with her service firearm.

She climbed through a window and shot and killed Sinenkosi. Khulekani was injured in the shooting.

Doesn’t all that indicate premeditation?

She said she had had a tumultuous relationship with her husband and had fled their home on several occasions because of “conflicts”.

As I hinted above, the marriage could have been dead or dying already. Honesty and clean breaks are ideal, but ridiculous anti-incest laws and prejudices don’t foster an atmosphere that promotes honesty when it comes to consanguinamory, and divorce can be mucho messy without such those added complications. For all we know, the husband could have been scared to take any open action, and now we know such fears would have been justified.

Correctional services officer Siduduzo Ntuli testified yesterday that Zulu had an anger management problem and that the victim’s family feared for their lives.

“The family are afraid of her and said she had not apologised to them,” said Ntuli.

He added that Zulu’s husband had obtained an interim protection order against his wife after she was released on bail in July last year.

I will be interested in seeing what sentence she gets.

The article does not cite any evidence that there was actually a consanguinamorous affair in this case, but then it does not cite any denial of such an affair. Maybe there wasn’t such an affair, maybe it started shortly before the shooting, maybe it was going on before the marriage. We just don’t know.

What we do know is that there are siblings who have intimacy that includes sexual contact, and they should not be forced by prejudice and laws to hide their love and to make them feel so pressured that they end up using other people as beards. If we allow adults, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults, we’ll have happier people, more stability, and fewer problems with people hiding their true selves.

We also know that a consanguinamorous bond, especially between siblings, is extremely strong. If one existed in this case, Zulu was not going to be able to stop it any way except the way she did: murder. Someone who finds herself or himself in that position essentially has two choices… 1. leave the relationship or 2. agree to be secondary (at best) in a nonmonogamous arrangement. That is a big reason why the freedom to be honest is critical so that fewer people will end up in such a situation.