Swaziland's Strong Monarch

FROM ISSUE # 136 (April 2007) | IN THIS ISSUE
	REFER TO FRIEND		PRINT THIS ARTICLE

What do you know about Swaziland?' asked a Swazi news reporter to me.
"The Swazi King Mswati III," I replied.
"What about him?" came the next question.
"About his thirteen wives."
Ha ha ha , He laughed for a long time.

I wasn't the only one who knew about the King's 13 wives, it was a well known fact in the world. Mswati III became the king in 1986 after his father's demise at the age of 18. His father, King Sobhuza II had 52 wives and had fathered more than 600 children with them. How they recognized their children, is an interesting thing to ponder upon. Born in 1968, King Mswati III was chosen from those 600 children and crowned.

The Kingdom of Swaziland is located between South Africa and Mozambique. It was a British territory at the beginning of the 20th century. The only African absolute monarch, King Mswati held a massive ceremony to find his 13th wife, with more than 50,000 women showing up to the unofficial call for a bride. All potential brides who attended the two-day Reed Dance festival, held annually since 1999, were bare-breasted, wearing short, beaded skirts and were supposedly virgins. A form of abuse for one man's personal satisfaction, the King who has a passion for young women and opulence, takes a wife whenever he wants. That's the culture of Swaziland. At the dance Mswati also repealed the law prohibiting sexual activity for the girls under 18. This law was first passed in 2001 to help fight against AIDS.

Forty-percent of Swazis are HIV positive, which includes 42% percent of pregnant women. How would a country control the spreading of HIV which has a King with 13 wives and definite possibility of the number rising? I wonder how often they meet their husband. May be twice a month, if they are lucky enough. With 40% of the population testing HIV positive are the queens safe from the disease? Now that's the main question. What if one of the queens is HIV positive? "Whether the King has 13 or 30 wives it's not a sexual matter but our royal culture," said the news reporter.

Swaziland doesn't have many tribes like other African countries. They just have one tribe with different family names. The King wants to marry girls from different families and form a stronger bond. This will secure his crown. Is it true that the King marrying many wives will result in a stronger monarchy?

Uhi Pushcycle
Mbabane, Swaziland