Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini says men taking their wives’ surnames is “the end of the world”, and while I don’t want to make light of his majesty’s trauma, I would like to offer a few words of comfort and, perhaps, perspective.
During Heritage Day celebrations on Wednesday, the Zulu monarch told a crowd that the Constitutional Court’s decision to allow men to take their wives’ surnames was a catastrophe.
“Do not allow this to happen,” he said. “How can a man use the surname of his wife? This is the end of the world.”
His people, he insisted, need to “stick to our culture and customs that have guided us since the time of King Shaka and all the other kings”.
I understand his anxiety, and I’m not just saying that because I remember how the king recently challenged cultural expert and critic Prof Musa Xulu to a traditional stick fight after Xulu criticised the royal family, and I am aware how fast my soul would leave my body if the king came at me with his kingly kierie.
Instead, I’m saying I get it because I think we all do: whether or not you like the idea of monarchy, it’s fairly clear that its survival depends on keeping all sorts of traditions out of the reach of modernity, or, indeed, out of the reach of the laws of the country in which it exists, and I think it’s entirely reasonable for the beneficiaries of monarchical power and privilege to express fear and hostility towards anyone who wants to tinker with those traditions.
Certainly, in this case, the Constitutional Court’s ruling must have resounded like the crack of doom through the royal court. After all, if men are given the choice to take the surnames of their wives, what’s next? Equality?
After enduring thousands of years of monarchy, we all know that it’s exactly what it says on the box: this family has magic blood and you don’t, so they get to have the big house and you get to smile and nod.
Again, I’m not being entirely facetious, and I’m certainly not singling out the Zulu royal family. All monarchies are founded on systemic, ingrained, endlessly replicated inequality, and, to their credit, very few have ever tried to gaslight us or somehow hide the rules by which they exist. After enduring thousands of years of monarchy, we all know that it’s exactly what it says on the box: this family has magic blood and you don’t, so they get to have the big house and you get to smile and nod.
All of which is to say that things must be feeling a bit grim in the royal court right now.
But, at the risk of being bliksemmed in a stick fight, I would like to remind the king and his court that he and they are far more adaptable than they give themselves credit for, and have already withstood some profound changes to tradition.
Consider, for example, the R86m given to them by South African taxpayers in the 2025/26 financial year.
Was it traditional for “King Shaka and all the other kings” to live off the charity of people who, by an overwhelming majority, were not their subjects and who generally supported a democratic system of government that is by definition opposed to monarchy? Of course not.
And yet King Goodwill Zwelithini was willing to swallow that bitter pill, setting aside centuries of tradition to take that terribly difficult decision to say yes to free money forever from people who derive almost no benefit from the transaction.
He took that hit for his people, defying tradition and custom, and yet the monarchy didn’t crumble.
So take heart. As long as there are taxpayers in the democratic Republic of South Africa, some of whom gladly take their wives’ surnames, our kings and their traditions will prosper.
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