Morganatic Marriage - Transkei

Transkei

Standards of both social classification and marital rules resembling the traditions of dynastic Europe can also be found in places as far afield as Africa. Here, a number of its constituent sovereign nations have legalized traditional authority as manifested in the recognized hereditary transmission of chieftaincy in historically relevant regions of the continent (e.g. the Asantehene of Ghana). For an example of the form that morganatic unions tend to take amongst African royalty, we have only to look at the biography of the continent's favourite son: President Nelson Mandela, the former leader of South Africa.

Mandela, a nobleman by birth of the Xhosa Thembus that reside in the Transkei region of the Cape coast, is nevertheless unable to ascend the throne of the Inkosi Enkulu (or king) of the entire Thembu clan, even though he descends in the legitimate, male line from the holders of this title. Nearly two centuries ago, Ngubengcuka (d. 1832), who ruled as the Inkosi Enkulu of the Thembu people, married and subsequently left a son named Mandela, who became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. However, due to the fact that Mandela was only the Inkosi's child by a wife of the Ixhiba lineage, a so-called "Left-Hand House", the descendants of his cadet branch of the Thembu royal family remain ineligible to succeed to the Thembu throne, which is itself one of the several traditional seats that are still officially recognized by South Africa's government. Instead, the Mandelas were given the chiefdom of Mvezo and made hereditary counsellors to the Inkosi (i.e., privy counsellors) in deference to their royal ancestry. Following the loss of this chiefdom (which has since been restored to the family) in the Apartheid era, the Mandelas retained their positions as nobles of the Transkei. This status entailed, however, a degree of subjugation to the head of the dynasty, in particular in the matter of marital selection, which proved so onerous an issue to Nelson Mandela that it prompted the departure to Johannesburg that eventually led to his political career. Like the House of Battenberg in Europe, Mandela's family has since rehabilitated its dynastic status to some extent: Mandela was still in prison when his daughter Zenani was married to Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini in 1973, elder brother of both King Mswati III of Swaziland and of Queen Mantfombi, Great Wife of Goodwill Zwelithini, King of the Zulus.