Swaziland's polygamous king chooses teenage bride Swaziland's polygamous king and Africa's last absolute monarch Mswati III has chosen a 17-year-old schoolgirl as his new bride, reports said Monday.

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Swaziland's polygamous king chooses teenage bride
DPA

Johannesburg, Sep 26 (DPA) Swaziland's polygamous king and Africa's last absolute monarch Mswati III has chosen a 17-year-old schoolgirl as his new bride, reports said Monday.

Officials at the king's palace confirmed the 37-year-old king selected the girl, identified in the media as Phindile Nkambule.

Mswati III had already been married 12 times.

Rumours that she was destined to join the royal house as a fiancé to the king have been on in the wake of the Swazi reed dance ceremony in late August. Once she becomes pregnant with his child, she can become one of his wives.

The annual event saw around 50,000 bare-breasted virgin girls burn the tassles they have worn since 2000 to symbolise their sexual purity and dance before Mswati who is permitted by tradition to choose a wife from among the girls.

The tassles are a symbol of the centuries-old Swazi "umcwasho" rite for unmarried girls, revived in 2000 by the king to ban premarital sex for girls under the age of 18 years.

It was also intended as a modern day means of fighting the AIDS infection rate in the mountain kingdom of a little over one million people.

The ban did not sit well with many in the country where poverty is widespread and the king is seen to enjoy the best of luxuries including a Maybach car and several modern estates where his wives and offspring live in absolute comfort.

Indo-Asian News Service

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