
He also openly kept a concubine, a socially accepted practice in the Dutch East Indies at that time. Rudolf was an alcoholic and regularly beat Margaretha, whom he blamed for his lack of promotion. The marriage was overall a disappointment. Her children Louise Jeanne and Norman-John, with his father They had two children, Norman-John MacLeod (1897–1899) and Louise Jeanne MacLeod (1898–1919). She moved with her husband to Malang on the east side of the island of Java, travelling out on the SS Prinses Amalia in May 1897. The marriage enabled Zelle to move into the Dutch upper class and placed her finances on a sound footing. He was the son of Captain John Brienen MacLeod (a descendant of the Gesto branch of the MacLeods of Skye, hence his Scottish surname) and Dina Louisa, Baroness Sweerts de Landas. Zelle married MacLeod in Amsterdam on 11 July 1895. Dutch East Indies Īt 18, Margaretha answered an advertisement in a Dutch newspaper placed by Dutch Colonial Army Captain Rudolf MacLeod (1856–1928), who was living in what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and was looking for a wife. A few months later, she fled to her uncle's home in The Hague. Subsequently, she studied to be a kindergarten teacher in Leiden, but when the headmaster began to flirt with her conspicuously, she was removed from the institution by her godfather. The family fell apart, and Margaretha was sent to live with her godfather, Mr. Visser, in Sneek. Her father remarried in Amsterdam on 9 February 1893 to Susanna Catharina ten Hoove (1844–1913). Soon after Margaretha's father went bankrupt in 1889, her parents divorced, and her mother died in 1891. Her father owned a hat shop, made investments in the oil industry, and became affluent enough to give Margaretha and her siblings a lavish early childhood that included exclusive schools until the age of 13.


Indonesian, descent, scholars conclude she had no Jewish or Asian ancestry and both of her parents were Dutch. Despite traditional assertions that Mata Hari was partly of Jewish, Malaysian, or Javanese, i.e.

She was affectionately called "M'greet" by her family. She had three younger brothers Johannes Hendriks, Arie Anne, and Cornelis Coenraad. She was the eldest of four children to Adam Zelle (1840–1910) and his first wife Antje van der Meulen (1842–1891). Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born 7 August 1876 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
