Who's the First Lady When the President's a Polygamist?

[question everything]

APRIL 30, 2009

Altared State: Who's the First Lady When the President's a Polygamist?
South Africa's New Leader Has Two Spouses And a Fiancée, but Only One Can Reign

By MICHAEL ALLEN
WSJ

NKANDLA, South Africa -- Now that 67-year-old Jacob Zuma is about to become president, the question is: Who will be First Lady? And Second Lady? And will there be a Third Lady? Mr. Zuma, who led the African National Congress party to an overwhelming victory in last week's elections, is a onetime goatherd who enthusiastically embraces his Zulu roots. That means, for the first time, an avowed polygamist will be occupying the Cape Dutch-style presidential palace in Pretoria. Mr. Zuma has been married four times and currently has two wives and one fiancée waiting in the wings.

It's "Big Love," South African style.

Competing for the top role will be first wife Sizakele Khumalo, about 68, whom he married in 1975 after his release from the apartheid regime's notorious Robben Island prison. She could be found one recent morning picking dried maize in a scraggly field here in Mr. Zuma's childhood village, helped out by local women and a bodyguard. Also in the running is Nompumelelo Ntuli, more than 30 years his junior, whom he wed at a raucous traditional festivity last year that featured him dancing in a loincloth and leopard-skin robe. And then there's Thobeka Mabhija, a Durban socialite reported to be in her thirties. Earlier this year, local press reported that Mr. Zuma paid lobolo -- an offering of cattle or the cash equivalent -- to her family, making her his bride-to-be. Not that this guarantees a wedding: Mr. Zuma reportedly paid lobolo in 2002 for a princess from the royal family of Swaziland, but she still hasn't sealed the deal.

The marital connections extend beyond the presidential palace. Ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the mother of four of his children, is foreign affairs minister. Political watchers believe she'll retain a role in the Zuma administration, perhaps heading the Home Affairs Ministry. Her spokesman calls that speculation and wouldn't comment on the couple's divorce. The ANC has routinely declined to comment on Mr. Zuma's personal life, and spokesmen didn't respond to messages. Mr. Zuma has defended polygamy, which is legal here. There's plenty of cultural precedent. Zulu monarch King Goodwill Zwelithini has six wives, and the prior ruler of Swaziland is said to have taken 70. Both tribes feature a reed-dance festival each year in which young maidens parade topless, many of them hoping to catch the royal wandering eye.

Mr. Zuma's embrace of Zulu traditions helped cement his popularity, particularly in the countryside. Badly treated under British and apartheid rule, and somewhat marginalized afterward, Zulus are South Africa's largest ethnic group. Most are jubilant to see one of their own assume the highest office. But some social activists are aghast, saying Mr. Zuma is setting a terrible example in a country where women have yet to enjoy the full fruits of freedom. Colleen Lowe Morna, executive director of Gender Links, which promotes equality of the sexes, calls polygamy "unconstitutional" because men are allowed to have more than one wife but women aren't allowed more than one husband. And she worries that more men will embrace the practice. "It goes with the flaunting of wealth and power," she says.


(snip)

Speaking Zulu, Mrs. Zuma, who goes by the name Sizakele Khumalo, described how her husband-to-be -- as an impoverished boy who lived over the next hill -- had pursued her. "He was easy on the eyes," she said, but she put him off until he was 20. Before they could marry, though, he was swept up by security forces and thrown into prison with future president Nelson Mandela. Though he had only a few years of schooling, he used to write her letters -- first in Zulu, then in English, which he mastered in prison. "It was difficult to be apart, but we coped," she said. After his release, they delayed some more, finally tying the knot in 1975. The price: 11 cows. Other wives came later, including the future foreign minister, now divorced, and another wife who committed suicide, leaving behind a scathing note describing her time with Mr. Zuma as "24 years of hell." All told, says the first Mrs. Zuma, her husband has fathered 19 children that she's aware of, though none with her. The first Mrs. Zuma stuck it out, and defends the institution of polygamous marriage. "It's a Zulu custom and if there's respect between the husband and the wives and among the wives themselves, and if he's able to treat us equally, then it's not hard," she said.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124104966891471003.html (subscription)

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

[imdjh]

1. Nice to see South Africa's in such good hands.

[marybourg]

2. The more hands the better apparently. nt.

[tabatha]

3. A whole heap better than

Verwoerd, Botha, etc.

[imdjh]

4. Yeah, who wouldn't trade them in for the present day murder, crime, rape, and car jacking stats?

[tabatha]

5. Prior to 1994

those stats only applied to Blacks.

Crime occurs where there is poverty.
There is poverty in South Africa mostly amongst Blacks - because the Whites afforded them little opportunity to be anything other than impoverished. I know - I saw it with my own eyes.

It is going to take a generation before the Blacks come anywhere close to the financial status of Whites. And you have only Whites to thank for that situation.

You seem to ignore cause and effect.

[imdjh]

6. Explain to me how rape is caused by poverty.

[tabatha]

9. Please read "Kaffir Boy", and then try and answer it yourself.

Rape, BTW, occurs in every society - just check the US military, college campuses, etc. Look what happened in Iraq by a few of our supposedly superior military personnel - whose upbringings were like day and night compared to black kids in SA.

In societies where kids have been brought up properly, rape occurs less than where children have not been brought up properly.

Try reading "Frontiers" by Neil Mostert to understand the society of blacks before is was shattered by whites.

What happened during apartheid years was that many men went to work in the cities and mines, with their children and wives left behind. Often the wives went to work - getting up at 4 in the morning, catching a bus to the white areas, working there all day, and returning late at night. How much parenting do you think those kids got? Why does everyone stress the fact that parent have to be involved with their kids? Because if they are not, their kids can go astray.

There was an observation about elephants, whose family life is well known. Young males who were brought up without parental discipline when released to the wild, became thugs. The comparison is apt.

Those kids in South Africa lived in appalling conditions without stable families, without decent food. Lack of food also contributes to poor IQ, and those with poor IQ sometimes follow their instincts rather than their intelligence. Without jobs, many of them have nothing to do but drink, mess around without any aims or goals in life.

Please do a bit of reading and thinking.

[imdjh]

10. You are just a little smug and a lot disingenuous.

Your first response declares your superior knowledge on the subject with the caveat that a person has to live another "generation" to prove you wrong. Well, some would day that we have ample evidence of where South Africa is headed, and frankly I think it's a little racist on your part to suggest that the now majority black government of South Africa is less capable of containing and reducing crime than the white government was.

Then you smugly go on that one must complete your reading list before having your superior level of understanding. Education is a good thing, but a pseudo intellectual wall of bullshit is a suitable footing for a failed belief system.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. I'm not convinced "better than Verwoerd or Botha" is a sufficient qualification to run a country...

N.T.

[dustbunnie]

7. I thought the first wife always gets first dibs on everything?

Doesn't tenure count for anything?

[imdjh]

8. I did too. Like Queen Debsirindra or Lady Thiang

[question everything]

11. Depends. Where money and living expenses, yes, I suppose

But if you want to "counter" Michelle, youth and beauty could win. Why else get a trophy wife?

Of course, at 67, he should not be surprised if the young model would seek a higher octane fuel...