SWAZI COURT ORDERS WIFE TO HAVE SEX

A woman has been ordered by a magistrate in Swaziland to have sex with her husband within seven days or face divorce.

Her husband had gone to court to seek a divorce on the grounds his wife was no longer giving him his ‘conjugal rights’.

The Manzini Magistrate Phathaphatha Mdluli ordered her to have sex with her husband or the divorce would be granted, the Swazi Observer newspaper reported last Wednesday (29 March 2017).

In 2013, King Mswati III who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, told his subjects that divorces were not permitted in marriages made under Swazi Law and Custom. Only death, the King said, could bring a customary marriage to an end.

The King also said married women should seek the consent of their husbands in everything they did. 

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper reported (12 August 2013), ‘The King said he was aware that there were complaints from some quarters who argue that the country was being taken backwards by instances where women were turned back by certain institutions because they came seeking help without the involvement of their husbands.

‘“It is not a problem to involve your husband in everything you do. Instead, this is meant to show cooperation between the two of you. If a woman is allowed to do things all by herself, that would create disharmony within the family,” said the monarch.’