The women Mandela loved

These are sad moments for the people of South Africa, Africans and the whole world as they prepare to bury former South African President, Nelson Mandela.

But amid the outpouring of emotion around the world, it is easy to forget that there is a woman or women mourning a man who at one point or another they called husband, lover, friend and father of their children.

In his lifetime, it will go on record that the late Nelson Rohlilahla Mandela married three times. What remains undisputed is his eye for spirited women each bearing their own unique strengths.

And the fact that two of Mandela’s wives worked in the medical field one as a nurse and the other as a social worker is purely coincidental or the man was pulled towards women who served the society. Never mind that his third wife was a former first lady and a human rights activist in her own right.

Twice first lady, twice widowed

Graca Machel who is 27 years younger than Mandela is the widow of the late Mandela. As fate may have it, she has known the pain of the loss before. Her first husband, Mozambican president Samora Machel, died in a mysterious plane crash in 1986.

Graca’s first contact with Mandela came around the time she was mourning her first husband. Then they met briefly in Maputo in 1990. But two years later Mandela became the godfather of her stepchildren and in 1996 they were spotted at President Robert Mugabe’s wedding. Mandela referred to her as a very impressive woman with a striking personality.

Obviously smitten, Mandela let the press in on their love story, telling reporters: “Late in life, I am blooming like a flower because of the love and support she has given me.”

Indeed there was chemistry between Mandela and Machel, and they were not afraid to express their love in public holding hands or exchanging kisses.

“I cannot describe my joy and happiness to receive the love and warmth of such a humble but gracious and brilliant lady,” Mandela wrote at the time. “It gives me unbelievable comfort and satisfaction to know that there is somebody somewhere in the universe on whom I can rely, especially on matters where my political comrades cannot provide me.”

In a 2008 interview with CNN, Machel called Mandela a wonderful husband. “He is simply a wonderful husband,” she said. “We met in life at a time we were both settled. We were grown up, we were settled, and we knew the value of a companion, of a partner. Because of that, we have enjoyed this relationship in a really special way.”

“It’s not like when you are still young, you are too demanding. No, no. We just accept each other as we are. And we enjoy every single day as if it is the last day. Because of that, it has been wonderful to have him as a husband.”

Graca confesses to have been a little confused at first having a relationship with a man people believed was larger than life. Asked by CNN: “Do you look at him and go, ‘I married Nelson Mandela?’” the former first lady replied: “At the beginning, yes. I already had this very deep involvement with him. It’s … there was a sort of conflict between the man I loved and the myth. Particularly because people were saying things, and I couldn’t figure out the two would go together. “I know him as a human being, a person, and this myth surrounding him. The aura around him was a bit confusing, but then I learned to live with it, in terms of separating the two.”

Born in Mozambique in 1945, Graca, also a trained soldier, became the country’s first education minister after independence from Portugal in 1975 and held the post for 14 years. She is the founding member of The Elders - a group of eminent global figures promoting peace and human rights.

Machel got married to Nelson Mandela on his 80th birthday on 18 July 1998. She has the unique feat of having been First Lady of two countries. She could be the only one in history. Twice married and twice widowed, she has never allowed herself to be defined by Samora Machel and Nelson Mandela.

“Mother of the nation”

Prior to Machel, there was Winnie, a village girl born on September 26, 1936, in Bizana, a rural village in the Transkei District of South Africa. She eventually moved to Johannesburg in 1953 to study at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. Then, South Africa was under the system known as apartheid, where citizens of indigenous African descent were subjected to a harsh caste system in which European descendants enjoyed much higher levels of wealth, health and social freedom.

Winnie completed her studies and, though receiving a scholarship to study in America, decided instead to work as the first black medical social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg.

Winnie came into Mandela’s life at the start of the second treason trial in mid-1950s, which would see him jailed for 27 years. She was 22 and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when he first saw her and charmed by her. At the time, Mandela, then an attorney was leader of the African National Congress, an organisation with the goal of ending South Africa’s apartheid system of racial segregation. They married in June 1958. The couple had two daughters Zenani and Zindzi before the prison doors slammed behind Mandela in 1964.

Winnie is the wife who fought for their love, bled for it and had to give it away before she could enjoy it. Despite enduring years of physical separation, their marriage survived through letters and visits to prison. When Mandela was released in 1990, Winnie was there holding his hand. Winnie not only had to endure Mandela’s absenteeism but also carved her own name in struggle lore. During Mandela’s imprisonment, she would be in and out of jail as the police hounded her in a bid to demoralise him. She was regularly detained by the apartheid government, tortured, subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, held in solitary confinement for a year and banished to a remote town.

Her actions continued to cement the title bestowed upon her, “Mother of the Nation.” But Winnie also became known for endorsing a deadly retaliation against black citizens who collaborated with the apartheid regime.

Additionally, her group of bodyguards, the Mandela United Football Club, garnered a reputation for brutality and in 1989, allegedly abducted and killed a 14-year-old boy named Stompie Moeketsi.

This incident blew up Winnie’s image as the mother of the nation with a few people referring to her as ‘murder of the nation’. All the years spent fighting against the system of apartheid were erased from people’s mind and replaced by that of a monster who didn’t deserve to be their first lady.

All the same, Mandela stood by her when she was convicted for kidnapping Sepei and only in 1992 announced their separation. Years of separation had fractured the couple’s bond and they divorced in 1996.

Her tarnished image notwithstanding, Winnie became president of the African national congress women’s league in 1993, and was elected to Parliament the following year. She was re-elected to Parliament in 1999, but resigned in 2003, under a new financial scandal.

Despite the conflicts, Winnie Mandela is still widely revered for her role in ending South Africa’s oppressive policies. At 76, Madikizela-Mandela is a giant of South African history, the subject of books, films and controversy.

The little known first wife

Before Winnie there was Evelyn Mase. In sharp contrast to Graca Machel and Winnie, Mandela’s first wife was a demure country girl who kept well away from politics.

Evelyn came from rural Transkei. They married months later after meeting at Walter Sisulu’s home. She was lucky to have enjoyed the presence of the fallen hero as a husband and father of their two children. Descriptions of their first years tell of Evelyn as a happy housewife with Mandela bathing their three babies and helping with the cooking when his work at his law practice and political meetings were done.

The same could be said about Mandela’s widow, Graca Machel who got married to Nelson Mandela in his old age. Even though there were no children to bath and coupled with Mandela’s failing health, it has been said that the former first lady of Mozambique provided an unexpected romantic epilogue to an epic life.

In 1998, They bought a house together and married. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who had previously complained about them living in sin, said at the wedding: “Graça has made a decent man out of him.”

First divorce

Unfortunately, Mandela and his first wife Evelyn lost the plot of their marriage with each person getting lost into what they strongly believed in. By 1954, Evelyn had buried herself in religion like her husband had in politics something she bitterly resented by action.

When Mandela was arrested for treason the first time, he came home on bail to find Evelyn gone, leaving behind their two youngest children. Mandela and Evelyn grew distant, in part because of Mandela’s involvement with an anti-apartheid group, the African National Congress (ANC).

Eventually, the couple’s marriage crumbled when Mase demanded that Mandela choose between her and the ANC. In 1958, she moved out and took their children with her. It is reported that she returned to the Transkei, ran a shop and remarried in her 70s. She died in 2004 aged 81.

[email protected]