Southern Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III of Swaziland, has picked an 18-year-old schoolgirl to become his 10th wife, a news report said Sunday.
The Mbabane-based Times Sunday reported that the 34-year-old king selected Ayanda Nolichwa Ntentesa after seeing her at an annual traditional reed dance held in southern Swaziland last Sunday.
Large numbers of young bare-breasted maidens gather at these ceremonies in the hope of attracting the king’s attention.
The report said two men arrived at Ntentesa’s home in Manzini in central Swaziland on Monday night to fetch her and take her to the royal palace outside Mbabane.
She went to school for the last time on Tuesday morning, and was now reported to be living at the king’s palace. A date for the royal wedding has not been set.
Ntentesa, like all young women in Swaziland under the age of 19 years, was bound by a chastity vow not to have sex for the next four years.
Mswati imposed the ban in September last year on maidens under age 19.
The king said he was reintroducing the traditional chastity rite to curb the spread of Aids in Swaziland, where an estimated 32,5% of adults are HIV-positive and 7 000 people die from the disease every year, in a population of about a million.
In June, Mswati married 18-year-old Nontsetselo Magongo at a secret royal wedding less than a week after his marriage to his longest-serving fiancee, Angel Dlamini. – Sapa-AFP