He was the quintessential gentleman while courting her, waiting on her hand and foot.
But once behind the newlyweds' front door, the monster was unleashed.
When Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya's husband doused her in benzine and threatened to set her alight, she finally summoned the courage to walk out.
Sixteen years later, Mayende-Sibiya is at the helm of the National Education Health and Allied Workers' Union, recently leading a crippling countrywide strike to demand a living wage for tens of thousands of workers.
"I refused to be burnt. Instead of choosing to die, I chose life," said Mayende-Sibiya, addressing students and academics at Wits University during a Women's Day celebration titled "Women of the World: claim your right to be you".
There was silence inside the University's Great Hall when she urged women to guard against men who behave like angels before marriage and later "turn into brutes in your home, where a woman is supposed to be safe".
She was joined by Patricia de Lille, who became the first woman to establish and lead a political organisation in South Africa when she formed the Independent Democrats.
De Lille said mothers were treating their boys like kings of the household and girls as their subordinates.
"We teach our daughters to play with dolls and tea sets so that they become domestic goddesses, and they grow up feeling that their purpose in life is to cook, clean and bear children.
"We buy our boys toy cars and teach them to make wire cars: that is how they learn to drive at an early age and want to become mechanics," she said.
Accusing women of being partly responsible for the stereotypes, De Lille told the audience she suffered hostility from women journalists while representing the Pan Africanist Congress during South Africa's negotiation settlement in Kempton Park ahead of the democratic elections in 1994.
De Lille said her marriage was based on mutual respect and her husband understood she was not "a waitress or personal assistant".
"That is why I can go away for weeks and not come home to a beating because my husband thinks I've cheated on him.
"My family realised that if they waited for me to come home and cook, they would grow very thin, and that if they waited for me to come home and do the washing, they would smell of dirty socks every day."
She, like Mayende-Sibiya, appealed to women to break the silence and free themselves from the cycle of abuse.
De Lille also appealed to mothers not to pay bail for children accused of violent and sexual crimes.
Earlier, before Mayende-Sibiya took to the podium, the audience danced to thrilling music provided by Basadi Women of the Drums.
Their songs and dance led to many of the people wanting to capture them on their cellphones, but the jovial mood changed when the trade unionist recounted her ordeal.
Apart from her broken marriage, Mayende-Sibiya, who became president of Nehawu in 2004, also recounted how she fought against male counterparts in the union who did not want the union to pay for 315 female members who attended courses on women's development at the University of the Western Cape.
She also complained about the poor representation of women in Nehawu's leadership, saying women accounted for 60 percent of its membership but there was only one woman in its national executive.
Mayende-Sibiya acknowledged that much had been achieved in post-apartheid South Africa but said a lot had to be done about the number of women who could not read or write.
"We cannot afford to be quiet. We must rally against being second-class citizens. We must fight against living under conditions of unemployment. We must fight against woman and child abuse. Nothing is impossible. We must not be afraid to challenge the obstacles facing us," she said.