SWAZILAND: Facing the Culture Shock of Monogamy
MBABANE, SWAZILAND - 21 Jul 2006 (IRIN) - Polygamy is enshrined
as a man's right in Swaziland's new constitution, but women led by King Mswati's
eldest daughter are having none of it, taking on the traditionalists that run
the country.
"Polygamy brings all advantages in a relationship to men,
and this to me is unfair and evil," Princess Sikhanyiso, 18, told the press this
week in an ongoing debate that has stirred deep emotions.
The
constitution signed into law by her father earlier this year recognises
"marriage through customary rites", which includes multiple partners. But it
does not sanction forced marriage, a practice known as "kuteka", another Swazi
tradition condemned as abhorrent by rights groups.
"Polygamy was
instituted for one thing: to create children for the family's and the nation's
survival at a time of low life expectancies and high infant mortality," said
Abigail Mbila, a clerk at an accountancy firm in the commercial town of
Manzini.
Women on Polygamy |
"I am the daughter of a
polygamist, the 11th child of 15 kids. I never knew who my father's
favourite wife was. A man cannot love three women, it is only God who
loves everyone in the same way. Why do some girls marry into polygamy?
Some do it for money, if the man is rich. Some to it to get out of
poverty, just to keep from starving." Spongile Hlope, 25,
administrative assistant |
"I do wish to get married, and
to one man. I can't see sharing a man with other women. We do not live in
the countryside with each wife having a hut of her own, we live in town.
You cannot have one wife and her kids in one bedroom, and another wife and
her kids in another bedroom." Samantha Mthethfwa, 22,
secretary |
"My friends and I don't talk
about polygamy, but none of them say they want to marry into such a house.
I want a husband all to my own. My friends want the same. For those girls
who want polygamy, that is okay. I just don't know any girl who
does." Khanyisile Shongwe, 26,
receptionist |
"Now we have a surplus
population, manual labour is no longer required on farms, and children need
schooling, clothes, healthcare and technologies that did not exist when there
was a purpose for men to have multiple wives - wives whose job was to be
barefoot and pregnant for the duration of their short lives."
Mbila and
many other women across class and generational lines see polygamy as a cultural
fig leaf cloaking infidelity. "Swazi men use polygamy as an excuse to have
socially sanctioned extramarital affairs by making new girlfriends their 'wives'
- then they cast them off for newer girlfriends/wives."
That is high-risk
behaviour in a country with the world's highest HIV infection rate, a point made
by Princess Sikhanyiso. "AIDS comes through in a polygamous relationship ...
when the man suddenly falls in love with other women more than [his wives]," she
said.
Her father King Mswati, 38, is currently married to 13 women.
Sub-Saharan Africa's last abolute monarch, he has insisted that polygamy does
not cause AIDS; it is unfaithfulness that spreads the
virus
Traditionalists have not been shy to take on Princess Sikhanyiso.
"Polygamy is not a fashion, it is part of our culture. I fail to understand how
a person can have the guts to criticise it publicly," said Moi Moi Masilela, one
of King Mswati's appointees to parliament.
Prime Minister Themba Dlamini,
put on the spot to define the government's view of polygamy in the growing
nationwide debate, could only urge Swazi husbands to "satisfy" their wives in
bed, so that sexually unfulfilled spouses would not seek lovers outside the
home.
Illustrating the traditionalists' views on sexual relations that so
infuriate some Swazi women, Masilela submitted, "How does one satisfy a woman in
bed? Once a woman conceives, it shows that she gets
satisfaction."
Thab'sile Ndwandwe, a graduate student at the University
of Swaziland, responded, "This typical view of a man who feels that a woman's
sexual desires are satisfied by pregnancy is out of date: it disregards a
woman's true needs, but how can a man get to know a woman's needs if he has too
many women to know?"
Not only educated urban younger women have turned
against polygamy. Last week a Swazi theatre troupe performed a play for
traditional women's regiments (lustango), which dealt with child and spousal
abuse, and dramatised how HIV could take over a community when polygamous
husbands had affairs. The Swazi press quoted several middle-aged and elderly
women after seeing the play, one of whom said, "Polygamy has no place in today's
society. It spreads AIDS."
Polygamy has often been inseparable from
forced marriage. Family elders would arrange unions, and their children
dutifully fulfilled their familial obligations after an exchange of the
customary cattle dowry.
"Love never entered into the picture. People like
myself want love in our relationship," said Khanyisile Shongwe, a secretary at
the UN's World Food Programme in Manzini.
On Wednesday a magistrate's
court annulled the traditional marriage of a young woman who successfully
pleaded that she was forced into the union against her will. The constitution
states: "Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of
the intending spouses". Women's groups applauded the ruling.
"There is a
grey area in the constitution that says Swazi Law and Custom have some standing,
but the husband in this case - where would he turn to force the woman back into
the marriage? I don't think a chief or council or some other traditional
authority would go against the court ruling in this case," said a Manzini
attorney.
"But in the end, it isn't what the constitution says, or what
Swazi Law and Custom says, it's what women want," noted the lawyer, who asked
not to be named. "Polygamy is going to die a natural death because women want
the devotion of a husband unfettered by other wives. The picture of a man with
as many women as he pleases attending him, with little regard to their needs -
it's medieval."
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