Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel
When President Nelson Mandela married Graca Machel in 1998, Madiba had already planned on retiring from active politics after his term ended.
It is hard to say Mandela’s decision to marry Machel was tailored towards some political end. Whatever political meaning it had was what people read into it.
Mozambique, Machel’s native country, had had a relationship with South Africa that dated back to the 1920s. What the marriage of Mandela and Machel meant, therefore, was a symbolic but not impotent gesture.
