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I saw this paragraph in news

19日、殺人未遂の疑いで逮捕された、仙台市内に住む 大学生 佐々木楓容疑者24歳。刺した相手は、44歳年上の交際相手の男性でした

I know 刺した相手 refers to the person who was stabbed. But I don’t know why the sentence uses 刺した instead of 刺された? As my understanding, the victim is the person who received the action, so you should use 受け身 form。

The below is two examples show how I understand 受け身.

  1. 刺した男性 means the men who stabbed
  2. 刺された男性 means the men who was stabbed

What is wrong with my understanding?

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I think you got the meaning, both are about the 68-year-old man being stabbed.

The reason for using 刺した相手 is that the suspect佐々木楓has been introduced earlier, the subject of this sentence is the victim 男性. The complete sentence should be (容疑者が)刺した相手は、44歳年上の交際相手の男性でした

However, if using された, the subject is usually omitted (regardless of whether it is yourself). And the complete sentence would be (44歳年上の交際相手の男性は)容疑者に刺された This can cause a duplication, as she has already been introduced

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  • Hello! I'm not sure where there's a mistake that would prevent it from being updated as my answer or score. If you need further clarification, please let me know. Thank you~
    – Rookie
    Commented Jan 23, 2023 at 21:41
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    I think the first thing you need to do is make it clear to OP that 刺した男性 can mean two things ("the man who stabbed (someone)" and "the man who (she) stabbed"). OP is clearly unaware of the latter interpretation. Before understanding this point, I doubt if OP can understand 刺した相手.
    – naruto
    Commented Jan 24, 2023 at 7:08

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