The April 30 WSJ points out that South Africa has a problem. Jacob Zuma, who is about to take office as president, has two wives and a fiancee. Here's the problem: who will be the first lady?
One of his two ex-wives is the foreign affairs minister now, and is expected to be in the new cabinet as head of Home Affairs. His other ex-wife committed suicide. She left behind a suicide note, describing her time with Zuma as "24 years of hell."
Mr. Zuma paid to wed his first wife, to whom he is still married. The price? Eleven cows! He has fathered nineteen children, says his first wife, but none by her.
4 comments:
His wives and 18 children are the LEAST of our problems!!
He has only a Grade 3 education - mostly learnt his skills in Russia and East Germany!!
VIOLENTLY anti-Gay
never proved innocent on 300 charges of fraud and corruption.
We really have a GREAT new President!!
It's hard to know whether to blame apartheid or anti-apartheid for ruining one of the best countries in the world. I guess you couldn't have the "anti" without apartheid. It's similar to the complex relationship between the old bad Jim Crow South and the evils of Reconstruction in American History.
Without Reconstruction embittering the white southerners, they might not have over-reacted with segregation. The wise leaders like Booker T. Washington would then not have lost out to socialists like DuBois and the NAACP.
Like Mushroom said, when the big pendulum of history tries to right itself it always goes too far.
By African custom, the first wife is the first lady (traditionally she rules the home and the secondary wives).
As for 11 cows: She must not have had a good education. Our nurses were worth 20 cows plus a thousand dollars dowry to their fathers.
The dowry is paid slowly, and helps to compensate the fathers for raising a girl who will leave the family. One "side effect" is that it discourages abortion of female infants and encourages fathers to educate girls, since educated girls will produce more money.
As for Zuma, he is a known rapist and socialist, a demagogue...a scary guy...polygamy is the least of his problems...
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