MOROCCO: King Mohammed VI of Morocco signed his own marriage certificate in Rabat yesterday when he married Salma Bennani (24), a computer engineer and the daughter of a teacher from Fez.
Morocco has no queen, and the former Ms Bennani will be called "royal highness". A statement from the palace called the bride "the radiant pearl, in her chastity, virtue and nobility".
The Moroccan press hailed the marriage as a sign of hope and modernity. It marked the first time in the 335-year-old Alaouite dynasty that a sovereign's marriage has been announced and the bride identified.
King Mohammed's mother Latifa has never been seen in public. The late King Hassan II married her secretly a few hours after his father's death in 1961, and it was only after the birth of Mohammed and his younger brother that she received the official title of "mother of princes".
King Hassan also kept a harem of some 50 concubines, some of whom he inherited from his father.
The palace hopes the monarch's marriage will end the widespread belief that he is a homosexual, and mollify Moroccan feminists. King Mohammed (38) promised to grant women equality, but he has hesitated for fear of an Islamist backlash.
The royal marriage will be officially celebrated in Marrakesh for three days in mid-April. On the first day the King will dispatch female servants carrying candles, dates, milk, dried fruit and fish to the home of his betrothed. On the second day she will send a meal to her new husband and his friends. On the third she will bathe seven times before she is carried to him on a palanquin.