IT seems an odd sort of New Year's resolution - not to mention a swerving departure from cultural tradition - but President Jacob Zuma has declared that he won't be taking another wife in 2015. 

The news is bound to disappoint those senior citizens who had attended the annual presidential consultative beano in Savannah Park, Durban, just before Christmas. 

They seemed quite thrilled when Zuma told them, "Angakayakhi indlu yokugugela ... laba ngisabathathile nje" ("I do have wives but I'm yet to marry my last one") and broke out in applause, laughter and ululations.

They were just as excited down at the local newspaper and reporters were duly despatched to bother the requisite experts.

According to Professor Sihawu Ngubane, head of African languages at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, it was fairly standard among Zulu people for a man who practises polygamy to take a last wife for his final years, sometimes the younger sister of one of his other wives. 

He told the Mercury: "They call the last wife ‘indlu yokugugela' (‘the home in which I will age in') because the responsibility of looking after the husband in their old age predominantly lies with the junior wife, who is often younger than the other wives and more agile in case there is an emergency."

But now the Presidency has stepped up to deny that some nimble gazelle-like maiden is shortly to become the number five First Lady. 

According to Mac Maharaj, the journalist who first broke the news had misunderstood this isiZulu idiom and had interpreted it as "a hint" about taking another wife. "It is unfortunate," Maharaj said, "that such misrepresentation clouded the reporting of an otherwise beautiful occasion in which senior citizens were honoured and feted."

This was not the first time that Maharaj has had problems with journalists' interpretations of the President's idiomatic language. Here at the Mahogany Ridge we can recall the many times he's had to tell us what Zuma really meant to say when he wandered off script with such revealing statements to the effect that the law was "not the African way", that opposition parties had less rights than the ANC "because you are a minority", or that "a wise businessperson will support the ANC ... because supporting the ANC means you're investing very well in your business."

But back to that last wife the President has yet to marry. Could financial considerations have been a decisive factor in what many of his supporters no doubt hope is merely a short-term postponement? 

You need access to deep pockets, after all, to run a bunch of first wives. In October, for example, it was reported that it cost the country a staggering R54.6-million to support all the Mrs Zumas during their husband's first term in office.

Which is roughly what the government forks out each year to King Goodwill Zwelithini for nothing other than being an utterly useless wastrel. 

The king married his sixth wife in July, incidentally. It's unclear whether or not Queen Zola Mafu will be the 66-year-old Zwelithini's last wife, or what her status is in the agile department, but at 28, she's got the bokkie bit down pat. 

Their wedding was certainly lavish - a traditional knees-up with more than 10 000 guests. Some 60 cows and scores of sheep were slaughtered for the occasion. Typically, Zwelithini's royal household trust has yet to settle the R1.6-million reception bill.

Earlier this month it was reported that Zwelithini was so broke that he was unable to buy groceries for his wives and 27 children. The R54.2-million allocated for the 2014-15 financial year has been spent - and this moth-eaten monarch will now have to be bankrolled by the KwaZulu-Natal government until the next financial year. 

The trust's chair, Judge Jerome Ngwenya, has bravely admitted there is a financial crisis - but has unhelpfully neglected to mention that this could be due to the sort of greed and irrational behaviour last seen when Caligula was emperor of Rome.

Be that as it may, and notwithstanding Maharaj's statements to the contrary, there may yet be a Zuma wedding next year. Science has proven that only about 23 per cent of those who make New Year's resolutions ever see them through to completion. As many as 35 per cent of us break them by the end of January.

Bad news, you could say, for those who want to quit smoking in 2015 or lose weight or start that novel. The odds are stacked against you. 

But for some agile younger woman? Her singing, dancing prince is out there - along with our deep pockets.

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