Zuma and marriage

President Jacob Zuma has of late returned the discussion of marriage into the public domain, first by marrying his third concurrent wife, then by allegedly having fathered a child out of wedlock last year.

Of course, neither revelation should surprise the South African public. Mr Zuma has always been open about his polygamy, and it was publicly known from his rape trial (in which he was acquitted) that his ethics on nuptial fidelity do not exclude the option of extra-marital affairs.

Knowing all this, the South African electorate nevertheless voted in favour of a Zuma presidency. While the public may have misgivings about Mr Zuma’s adulterous conduct and even his polygamy, most voters saw this as no impediment to his assuming the presidency.

The Catholic Church forbids polygamy as being in discord with moral law. The Catechism states: “The unity of marriage, distinctly recognised by our Lord, is made clear in the equal personal dignity which must be accorded to man and wife in mutual and unreserved affection. Polygamy is contrary to conjugal love which is undivided and exclusive” (1645).

While the Church rules out multiple marriage — saying that matrimony consists of one man and one woman — it does not describe polygamy as intrinsically evil. Still, Pope Benedict ranked polygamy as a threat to African family life, placing it in a 2007 address to Kenyan bishops alongside promiscuity and the transmission of sexual diseases.

In short, Mr Zuma provides a model of marriage which Catholics cannot follow. However, he is not a Catholic, and therefore is not bound by the teachings of the Church. He is answerable to the laws of the country, which permit polygamy where it is culturally entrenched. Mr Zuma’s nuptial situation satisfies the law.

Should Catholics, or others, believe that Mr Zuma’s polygamy disqualifies him morally from the presidency, then it is their democratic right to voice such reservations, preferably respectfully, with a view to motivating for a revision of legislation, and to assert their objection at the ballot box.

While Mr Zuma — an honorary pastor of a charismatic church — is not bound by Catholic teaching in regard to his multiple marriages, his adulterous relationships are of public concern and interest. The president and his supporters cannot claim that his personal conduct is entirely a private matter. Mr Zuma will have been aware when he chose to campaign for the presidency that all areas of his life would be subject to public scrutiny — not for reasons of prurience, but because our president must exhibit personal integrity.

South Africans are entitled to expect from their president a certain level of probity, especially if a lack of judgment in his personal conduct diminishes the country’s reputation, much as the scandals surrounding Italy’s President Silvio Berlusconi are an international embarrassment to his country.

It is particularly disturbing that the president of a country where the frequency of multiple current partners is a core reason for high HIV-infection rates should open himself to allegations of having engaged in such reckless sexual behaviour.

Mr Zuma cannot speak from a position of moral authority on the greatest crisis South Africa has ever faced. No matter what personal responsibility he has taken for fathering a child — and he deserves some respect for publicly acknowledging his fatherhood — his example serves to promote the kind of sexually licentious behaviour that is killing our nation.

While it is unlikely (and politically undesirable) that he resigns his office, as some critics have demanded, he does owe the nation not feeble self-justification, but at least a sincere apology.