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."