South African leader weds

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South African President Jacob Zuma now has three wives — after his latest wedding today. South Africans are divided on their attitudes toward polygamy. Jeb Sharp speaks with South African professor Penny Andrews about reactions to Jacob Zuma’s multiple wives.

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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  Today South African leader Jacob Zuma was married for the fifth time.  One of his wives is no longer alive and he’s divorced from another.  But that still leaves President Zuma with three wives.  Today’s wedding was a traditional Zulu ceremony.  Zuma dressed in animal skins and performed a Zulu wedding dance.  The Zulu tradition includes polygamy and Zuma’s belief in that has divided South Africans.  Penelope Andrews is a professor of law at Valparaiso University in Indiana.  She’s from South Africa.  Penny just what are the main reactions to Jacob Zuma’s marriage today in South Africa and what’s the range?

PENELOPE ANDREWS: Well, I think that the range is so see Jacob Zuma is a polarizing figure.  His history on gender equality, which is what we’re talking about when we talk about polygamy, his history on gender equality is a history that has generated a lot of controversy.  He was charged and acquitted on rape and he also during the course of the trial admitted to having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman.  The question of polygamy also raises the issues in South Africa with a large HIV epidemic in which monogamy appears to be the default position.  There’s a lot of campaigns around the idea that people should only have one partner.  So to some extent the idea that the President has all these partners, you know many wives, you know creates some tension.  So I would say that you know people who are not African or people who are African and see themselves as living in a modern society would probably think that this is not so kosher.  And there are others who think that South Africa is an African country and Jacob Zuma is an African President and so therefore this is a good thing.

JEB: Where does the practice of polygamy in South Africa fit into its identity as a modern state?  Is this a tradition at odds with the way South Africa would like to be seen by the rest of the world?

PENELOPE: Well I think that the idea of the modern state in South Africa is linked to what South Africa was going to be after apartheid.  And South Africa during the apartheid years was a European country or so the ruling elite saw themselves as a European country in Africa.  The modern South Africa is supposed to be about an African country in Africa.  So the idea that the President has several wives as a polygamist sort of is a reflection of that African identity, because polygamy is part of traditional Zulu culture.  And so there are people who make the argument that it’s a country that incorporates both western values as well as African values, and that the modern state should be comfortable with that dual identity.

JEB: Does that dual identity help people resolve the conflict?  I mean how do you think this shakes out in terms of gender equality in particular?

PENELOPE: I think that it shakes out, there are some people may be able to accept the dual identity but I think that people are polarized.  I think that there are people probably in South Africa who are slightly awkward, maybe embarrassed, or do not approve outright.  And then there are people obviously who approve.  So I think that people in South Africa and outside South Africa, particularly people outside South Africa, I think who are sort of sympathetic and who recognize that one has to take a nuanced approach, a more liberal view of it would see this hybridity as necessary part of the new South Africa.

JEB: And we’re focusing in on Jacob Zuma here because of who he is but how common is this across South Africa?

PENELOPE: You know there hasn’t been any statistics done and in my research I’ve not come across numbers.  But I think that a significant proportion of South Africans have lived their lives according to customary norms.  If one also looks at this, if you take a step back historically with the migrant labor system under apartheid where men were forced to go to the cities to seek work, and they left behind wives and families, polygamous relationships became the norm in South Africa because men would have families in the cities and families in the rural areas.  So to some extent polygamy is almost a legacy of apartheid as well as being part of traditional African culture.

JEB: Thank you for helping us think about this.  Professor Penny Andrews of Valparaiso University, thanks again.

PENELOPE: Thank you.

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