That question was as confounding as it was impertinent. In the government’s latest budget, about $30 million was set aside for “royal emoluments.”

But surely the king’s income exceeds that, people said. The royal family also controls a corporate business empire “in trust for the nation,” investing in sugar cane, commercial property and a newspaper. Forbes.com recently listed Mswati III as the world’s 15th wealthiest monarch, estimating his fortune at $200 million.

But is this not the way of the world? The king, after all, is the king. The poor, after all, are the poor. Percy Simelane, the government’s spokesman, was quoted by Agence France-Presse last week as saying: “Poverty has been with us for many years. We cannot then sit by the roadside and weep just because the country is faced with poverty. We have made great strides as a country that gives us pleasure in celebrating 40 years of independence and the king’s birthday.”

Indeed, most of Swaziland’s 1.1 million people love their monarch. God gave the country to the king, many of them say, and the king was given to the people by God. Mswati III’s father, Sobhuza II, had been especially revered. He was more frugal than his son, transporting the royal family in buses instead of BMWs. But he, too, liked to marry. It was said that he took 70 wives, though some put the number as high as 110.

Image Maidens carrying reeds in Ludzidzini on Monday. Credit... Jon Hrusa/European Pressphoto Agency

Sobhuza II was king when the nation shed the yoke of colonialism, finally free of Britain yet left with a British-style Constitution. The esteemed monarch did not abide by this document for long. In 1973, he dissolved Parliament and rid himself of the annoyance of political parties.

In the years ahead, political reformers, primarily city people, pushed for democracy. Mswati III succeeded his father in 1986, and in 2005, after much give and take, signed a new Constitution. But it was a peculiar document, guaranteeing individual liberties with one hand and preserving the absolute monarchy with the other. The king would continue to appoint the prime minister and members of the governing cabinet and the judiciary.