At the end of the unprecedented legal challenge to his right to choose his brides, King Mswati secured the hand of 18-year-old Zena Mahlangu as his liphovela, or fiancee. As the girl’s mother, Mbabane executive Lindiwe Dlamini, pressed the case to get her daughter back as a matter of urgency, the royal house expedited the rituals that transformed the maiden into a member of the ruling family.
“Once a girl officially becomes the king’s fiancee, there is no turning back legally or culturally,” said a Manzini attorney who observed the trial as a friend of the plaintiff.
An ad hoc gender rights consortium, consisting of the Swaziland branch of Women in Law in Southern Africa and the Swaziland Action Group against Abuse, showed up at the high court wearing black mourning outfits, not in anticipation of the outcome, which seemed preordained, but in protest against women’s minority status in the country.
The mother, who was suing two royal aides for her daughter’s return, ended the three week attempted lawsuit by seeking an indefinite postponement of the matter. Chief Justice Stanley Sapire assented, while cautioning that a resumption of the case at a later date would diminish any likelihood of punishment.
The case attracted more international media attention than any previous event of Mswati’s reign. But while CNN, BBC, SABC and other parachute journalists followed the proceedings as if new developments were significant, Swazis knew the case was over on October 22. That was the day Mswati moved into the guesthouse where his prospective fiancee was staying. Last weekend Mahlangu appeared twice at public events with the king. By custom, this confirmed her status as imminent royalty.
“She appears to be resigned to her fate,” her mother’s attorney, Lucas Maziya, told reporters after the case was suspended. He said the mother had had one telephone conversation with her daughter, two weeks after she disappeared from her school.
Director of Public Prosecutions Lincoln Ng’aura summed up the opinion of most legal observers: “This is the end of the matter. The mother has no further recourse in law. The daughter is 18 years of age, and is not covered by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, so there is no case to be made at the International Court of Justice.”
However, members of banned opposition parties said at the court the case highlighted human rights problems in the kingdom.
“The way a king chooses his wives must now change. Some of these girls are under age, and human rights and children’s rights are violated,” said Obed Dlamini, a former prime minister who is now president of the Swaziland Democratic Alliance.
The alliance, an umbrella body of politically progressive trade unions and illegal political parties seeking a constitutional monarch under a democratic system, believes the choice of a Swazi girl to become one of Mswati’s wives should be voluntary rather than compulsory.
Senior Prince Mfanasibili spoke for many of the royal family when he insisted the king’s prerogative to choose his wives is a private matter, and it is unseemly for outsiders to intrude in the process. “This tradition goes far back. Swazis understand it.”
Indeed, many Swazis in this conservative country were scandalised that a mother would turn to the courts to address a grievance they felt was best handled in traditional forums.
This was also Mswati’s view when last weekend he announced a new administrative headquarters for Swazi women’s regiments, the distaff side of the traditional male warrior regiments. He promised the women’s regiments would correctly advise mothers how to bring up their children according to Swazi custom. He condemned Swazis who stray from traditional ways. “Women should raise issues the right way,” Mswati said, alluding to the mother’s court case against the palace.
Of the three teenage girls taken by palace aides from their schools last month to become prospective wives, the Times of Swaziland reported that one girl was found inappropriate for queenly status and was given to a 60-year-old chief to be his fourth wife.
From the start, the lawsuit against the palace was tainted by the possibility that Mahlangu was smitten by Swaziland’s ruler, whom she met in September after the king spotted her at the maiden’s reed dance. In cellphone conversations with friends, she expressed her love for her “husband”. At her public debut she exchanged her schoolgirl’s uniform for the traditional attire worn by four of Mswati’s other nine wives, who were in attendance.
Nor will she be lacking in material luxuries many girls covet in the impoverished nation. A palace aide told the press: “She has been allocated her own Mercedes-Benz, which she will use until delivery of her own brand-new X5 BMW.”