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MBABANE - A married man has taken his wife to court to stop her from hosting a ceremony for his prospective son-in-law to ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage.

Traditionally, the ceremony is known as kucela umfati. The family of a man, who intends to marry a woman, sends a delegation to her family and pays a beast for their permission to marry her.

It is held at the girl’s parental home, especially if her parents were married. In a situation where the parents were not married and the man never paid a fine for impregnating someone’s daughter before marriage, as per custom, the kucela ceremony can be held at the girl’s maternal home.

In the current matter, Sonnyboy Magagula of Ekutsimuleni in the Manzini Region said his wife, Eunice Magagula (nee Nxumalo) and his brotherin-law, Maxwell Nxumalo, had scheduled to host the ceremony at his daughter’s maternal home tomorrow. He has approached the High Court where he is seeking an order restraining his wife and Maxwell, or anyone acting on their behalf, from making unilateral decisions regarding the manner, place, date and time of the daughter’s engagement.

Sonnyboy wants the court to order that the ceremony be held at no other place but at Ekutsimuleni under Chief Maloyi, which is the late Israel Magagula’s homestead. Israel was Nokwanda’s grandfather.

Decided

Sonnyboy stated that Eunice and Maxwell had decided to hold the ceremony at Nokwanda’s maternal home. He submitted that his wife and brother-in-law were violating his right arising under Eswatini Law and Custom as Nokwanda’s biological father, to receive his in-laws and officially hand his daughter to them. Sonnyboy told the court that he and Eunice got married in 1994 in terms of Eswatini Law and Custom. He said she was smeared with red ochre and sent back to her parental home in the company of an emissary (lincusa).

He said he waited for his in-laws at Nkambeni to return his wife by commissioning a sitsinjana (marriage party), but that allegedly never happened to date. The veracity of these allegations is still to be tested in court. Sonnyboy is represented by Khumbulani Msibi of Dlamini Kunene Associates.

Sonnyboy submitted that he paid insulamnyembeti and his wife, together with her biological father, requested that they registered a marriage certificate and same was done in 1996. He said he did not pay lobola for his wife, because her family never returned her. Sonnyboy alleged that Eunice refused to stay in any of their homes, and hardly visited them. He said his wife preferred to stay at the company house in Mhlume. He alleged that the last time she went to the Mliba homestead was in 2015, where she planted trees and never came back. “She never cared about my parents as a makoti and when my mother fell sick, my late father requested that I marry the woman with whom I had a child with so that she could perform all the makoti functions, as the first respondent (Eunice) was not willing to take her position of a makoti and would not even visit my parental home, let alone our homes, which I built for her and our family,” said Sonnyboy.

Jealous

He told the court that after marrying the mother of his child, LaMadonsela, his first wife, Eunice, allegedly became jealous and evicted him from their house in Mhlume, which they used as their matrimonial home. The applicant further submitted that Eunice acquired land at Nhlambeni allegedly using his name. He said he and Eunice did not communicate until May 16, 2021 when he received a call from her informing him that their younger daughter was getting engaged to a man of Ndlalambi.

He said his wife told him that the man’s family would send a delegation to formally ask for Nokwanda’s hand in marriage and abruptly terminated the call. “I got agitated and sick with this information, because I am husband to the first respondent and we have our two homesteads built for the children and ourselves, hence there is no reason why I should not be the one handing my daughter to the potential son-in-law. I am aware that in terms of Eswatini Law and Custom, a daughter who is born of a married woman must have her marital ceremony and dues paid at her parental homestead; not at her maternal home as if she was born out of wedlock and was an illegitimate child.

Eunice, Maxwell and Nowanda, who are respondents in the matter, raised points of law on the court’s jurisdiction to hear the application. The matter will be argued before Acting Judge Thami Lawrence Dlamini today.