Nelson Mandela ducked out of an arranged
marriage when he was a student, then went on to
wed three times. His first two marriages collapsed under the strain of
politics, but the third time around he found enduring
happiness with the widow of Mozambican president
Samora Machel. In sharp contrast to Graca Machel and his feisty
second wife Winnie, Mandela's first wife was a
demure country girl who kept well away from
politics. photo Like him, Evelyn Wase hailed from the rural
Transkei and had come to Johannesburg in the early
1940s to carve out a living in the big city. She was the cousin of African National Congress
(ANC) stalwart Walter Sisulu and met Mandela in
Sisulu's home in Soweto, southwest of
Johannesburg, in 1944. They married months later, in the same year that
Mandela, Sisulu and Oliver Tambo formed the
ANC's Youth League and politics of struggle against
white minority rule came to consume his life. Descriptions of their first years tell of Evelyn as the
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. But by 1954, Evelyn had buried herself in religion
like her husband had in politics and bitterly resented
his absences. When Mandela was arrested for treason the first
time, he came home on bail to find Evelyn had
gone, leaving behind their two youngest children. She returned to the Transkei, ran a shop and
remarried in her seventies. Winnie came into Mandela's life at the start of a
second treason trial, which would see him jailed for
27 years, and they married in June 1958. She too came from the country, but took to the city,
and once she met Mandela, also dived into politics
with alacrity. Soon after their wedding she was arrested for an
incendiary speech, leading Mandela to remark -
proudly and prophetically - "I think I married trouble." The couple had two daughters before the prison
doors slammed behind Mandela in 1964. In the
coming years Winnie would be in and out of jail as
the police hounded her in a bid to demoralise him. In 1969, she was held in solitary confinement for 13
months on terrorism charges and in 1973 endured
another six months in jail, but when the 1976
student riot revolt broke out in Soweto, Winnie was
unbowed, urging crowds to "fight to the bitter end". The police saw her as a mastermind of the uprising.
She was locked up for five months, then banished
to the desolate town of Brandfort for seven years. When she returned to Soweto, the firebrand militant-
martyr became a liability for Mandela and the anti-
apartheid movement. In 1986, at a time when suspected traitors were
being burned alive in the volatile townships, Winnie
declared that South African blacks would be freed
"with our matchboxes". She surrounded herself with a band of thugs
christened the Mandela United Football Club who
murdered a young activist called Stompie Sepei. Her bond with Mandela had endured through letters
and visits to prison and when he was released in
1990, Winnie was there holding his hand, but in
private she rejected him for a young lover. Mandela stood by her when she was convicted for
kidnapping Sepei and only in 1992 announced their
separation. Winnie's six-year sentence was suspended on
appeal and in 1994 she was appointed a deputy
minister in his government, but was later sacked for
insubordination. By the mid-90s, Mandela was courting Graca
Machel - a serious but warm woman 27 years
younger than him who studied in Lisbon before she
became a freedom fighter for Samora Machel's
Frelimo movement, and eventually Machel's
education minister and wife. Graca's first contact with Mandela came in 1986
when her husband died in an air crash many believe
was orchestrated by the apartheid regime, and he
wrote to her from prison. When they met in Mozambique's capital Maputo in
1990, Machel was still in mourning. But two years
later Mandela became the godfather of her
stepchildren and in 1996 they were spotted at
President Robert Mugabe's wedding. Mandela was smitten and 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." On July 18, 1998 - Mandela's 80th birthday - Machel
broke her vow that she would not marry another
president. While clearly a proud husband, Mandela sometimes
found it hard to keep pace with the younger woman. "She is busier than I am. We meet for lunch, go off
and then only see each other again for supper. I
wish I had married a wife who was less busy," he
quipped to students at a ceremony in March 2007.

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