King Mswati is the only grown man that marries teenagers without getting into trouble with the authorities in Swaziland. Sure, judges tried to stop him from marrying a fifteen-year-old but the Prime Minister ordered them to stop hearing the matter in a statement dated November 2015. In a land governed by a constitution that says everyone should be equal before the law, in a civilized state where a fifteen-year-old can't appreciate physical intimacy, a middle-aged man has defied all odds.
Fountain of Youth
When you're fifteen, the law considers you incapable of providing consent for physical intimacy. Whether you love that fully grown man or woman is irrelevant, there is a legal threshold you must obey. Fortunately for King Mswati, he is above the law, meaning he can take a teenage wife without feeling the full force of the law. Not only is he above the law, but he is also the law because a decree is as good as a statute.
Countless men are rotting in jail because they had teenage girlfriends. Many of them were in passionate, impartial relationships with girls in their tender years. Some were breadwinners for the helpless, with several dependents looking to them for the next meal. Others are barely into their twenties but still qualify as men. As for King Mswati, he's free to wed teenagers without having to worry about the consequences. He can freely consummate marriage with a fifteen-year-old behind heavily-guarded palace walls and no matter what the international community says, nobody can arrest him.
Young Blood
Being a middle-aged man isn't easy, you start to realise you aren't the bull you used to be and you begin to compensate. You go through something called a 'mid-life crisis' and you find yourself buying a Rolls Royce to make you feel young again. The wind might not be blowing in your hair, because you have none, but at least your ego will inflate a bit and you might even feel like an alpha-male. A mid-life crisis usually involves feelings of inadequacy and irrelevance. One would think that such sentiments aren't characteristic of a king but you'd be surprised how needy it can get at the top.
In the Holy Christian Bible, we encounter a young lady by the name of Mary Magdalena. Some apocryphal accounts state that at the time of her betrothal to Joseph, Mary was 12–14 years old. According to ancient Jewish custom, Mary could have been betrothed at about 12. If this is true, by some standards, Joseph can be said to be a pedophile. Since Swaziland proclaims itself as a Christian country, not only is it culturally correct for Mswati to marry teenagers, it might be Biblical as well. Thus, we see that the justification is endless for what many may perceive as a human rights violation.
Do you think it's fair that King Mswati fined himself a cow after marrying a fifteen-year-old in 2015 and that was it? The only reason he did it was because there was an abstinence decree he imposed on all maidens called 'umcwasho'. Should other men be allowed to marry teenagers or should King Mswati be stopped from his youthful indulgences? Is it truly a Christian thing to do; marrying girls whose age you'd have to multiply by three to get yours? Speak now or forever hold your peace and FOLLOW FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE!
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