Talk:Sihayo kaXongo

executed adulterous wives vs. wives executed for adultery
Hey, ! Women are killed for "adultery" after being raped even now. Or accused of adultery based on nothing but rumor, or just out of malice because someone doesn't like them and wants to do them serious harm. And so goes the oral history; decades later, people will be repeating that she was killed because she committed adultery. I'd love to see the evidence modern male scholars have for what these women actually did versus what they were killed for. I mean, TWO of his wives just happened to be caught at the same time? And the person who caught both of them was the eldest son of the one? What, he walked in on them all having a foursome? Uh-huh. And, huh, the whole thing happened while Daddy was away. I'm sure there couldn't possibly have been any dysfunctional family dynamics in this very large and extremely influential household. And the primary source is oral histories from 75 years later taken by a male interviewer in 1965? It's all very fishy. :)

Are these modern scholars (who btw all seem to be male?) not even questioning whether the oral histories might have been informed by the culture of both the interviewer and the interviewees? Is there any actual evidence that these women were indeed having voluntary affairs and then both absconded with their lovers when discovered? I can think of so many reasons why a couple of women might flee from their husband's eldest son, perhaps taking along a couple of male servants for protection. Like maybe he'd accused them of adultery, which they know carries a death penalty, and that he would be believed? There are so many reasons why men kill women and then blame the women. Even accounts from the British officers might assume the women actually had done what they were accused of doing; in the US even in 2021 the police often don't believe women who say they've been raped unless they've been beaten, and sometimes not even then if the beating isn't vicious enough. I feel like these women were executed for adultery, but does that actually mean they were adulterous? I can see that's the wording modern scholars are using, from the quotes you provided. Are they not saying anything like "according to contemporary accounts" or "according to oral history recorded in 1965" or anything like that? No one is even commenting on whether a wife executed for adultery was actually an "adulterous wife"? And how odd that neither lover ever saw any repercussions. So weird.

I'd love to see what modern feminist scholars are writing about this kind of stuff. —valereee (talk) 11:19, 28 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi —valereee, thanks for the well-thought out points above. I have copies of most major works on the Anglo-Zulu War and am not aware of any contrary opinions on this particular subject, though, as you say, all of them are written by men.  I have Greaves' latest work The Zulus at War: The History, Rise, and Fall of the Tribe That Washed Its Spears on my wishlist; it is a wider history of the tribe but his co-author is Xolani Mkhize, a Zulu man, and it apparently contains some new insights on the war from the Zulu point-of-view.  Rest assured I will update this article with any new information - Dumelow (talk) 12:16, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for listening. I know this all represents speculation/OR and really is iffy even for discussion here. If you ever do come across a feminist critique of this story, or find scholarship that characterizes it as "according to oral history" or some such instead of simply treating it as fact, I would love to read it. I'm actually finding it a little surprising that modern scholars aren't saying 'two wives executed for adultery' instead of 'two adulterous wives were executed.' The language just sounds kind of out of date. No one is saying they were killed by 'murderous family members'...oh, but yeah. The murderous family members were all men. Silly me. :) —valereee (talk) 17:07, 28 July 2021 (UTC)