A Leribe woman is suing her husband’s mistress for M1.5 million as compensation for deprivation of conjugal rights. Motšelisi Masupha has asked High Court in Leribe to order Matšeliso Wetsi, a teacher at St Cyprian High School in Butha-Buthe, to pay her M500 000 for contumelia (insult), M500 000 for injuria (invasion of her rights), and a further M500 000 for loss of consortium.
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Masupha, the chieftainess of Pitsaneng Ha-Moshati in Berea district, told the court that she is married in community of property to Posholi Masupha, who is the village chief.
Chief Masupha is working at the government’s Department of Roads.
She said sometime in 2010 she noticed a sudden change in her husband’s behaviour towards her as “he was mostly unavailable, too busy or too pre-occupied by things unknown” to her such that she felt abandoned and alone.
She said Chief Masupha started concealing his finances and she did not know what exactly he was spending his money on.
But she would from time-to-time find receipts of different items that he never brought home.
With the deterioration of their relationship, she then discovered that he was having a romantic affair with Wetsi. She then confronted her husband over the matter.
“Though he initially denied the affair, he ultimately admitted it before his mother,” she told the court.
She said their relationship deteriorated further leading to Chief Masupha leaving their matrimonial home in December 2019 to stay with Wetsi “and he still stays with her to date”.
She said despite that her husband left her, when he occasionally came home they would make love and she conceived their first child in 2020.
Unfortunately, she said, she had a miscarriage and was admitted at Queen ’Mamohato Memorial Hospital for a month.
She said in 2021 her husband told the Roads Directorate, his employer, that he no longer was in need of the house provided to him where they were living together.
She had to leave after her husband told her that he no longer wished to live with her.
She moved back to her maiden home.
She told the court that she has since learnt that her husband built rental flats in Teya-Teyaneng and Wetsi is the one collecting rentals from tenants.
She said she also learnt that Wetsi is the one benefiting from their joint business in Thaba-Tseka and collects its revenue.
She said Wetsi has on numerous occasions telephoned her boasting that she has children with her husband, calling her nyopa (a barren woman).
She said Wetsi “prides herself with the fact that she is living with the plaintiff’s husband and is not intending to let him go for one reason or the other”.
She said Wetsi has made her feel worthless especially as she insulted her about her barrenness.
She said she was “once a dignified wife of the Chief whose reputation and dignity in society has been greatly tarnished by the intentional ill acts of” Wetsi.
She said Wetsi “shamelessly and proudly harbours” her husband, benefits from their joint estate, and insults her such that it has caused her to be deprived of what is rightfully hers.
Chieftainess Masupha said she has been “degraded in society as a chief’s wife whose position in the village ought to be respected”.
Staff Reporter
