No correlation between lobola, woman’s worth

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I know a lot of men were mesmerised when they caught a whiff of President Robert Mugabe’s daughter Bona on Dali Tambo’s People of the South.

I know a lot of men were mesmerised when they caught a whiff of President Robert Mugabe’s daughter Bona on Dali Tambo’s People of the South.

Cross Border Chronicles with Sukoluhle Nyathi

Many were already formulating campaigns to win her heart.

However, those ambitions can now be officially cast aside as she was married in a “traditional” wedding ceremony in Zvimba last Sunday, it was reported.

In essence lobola or roora was paid. Lobola is an age-old custom, an underlying variable in many African marriages.

Kirsty Coventry, a white African embraced the practice when she insisted that, Tyrone, her fiancé pay lobola, to which he did and they have since concluded the “white wedding” or “Western” wedding as it’s often referred to.

Aneas Chigwedere (1982) defined lobola as a form of marriage payment in which the brides’s family receives payment of goods, money or livestock to compensate for the loss of a woman’s labour and the children she bears into her husband’s family.

The payment also demonstrated the ability of the man to take care of his wife. Lobola is meant to bring the two families together and cement ties. Full payment is never demanded upfront; if anything it is taboo.

The lobola can be paid in installments so to speak, over a lengthy period of time, spanning years even.

Procedurally, long back customs were conducted with dignity and mutual respect. Negotiations could easily be conducted over two days until the bride price was agreed on. Traditionally, cattle were used as the tender of exchange as cattle were the primary symbol of wealth in African societies.

However, as society has become urbanised and modernised cattle have been replaced with cash.

When done right, lobola elevated the status of a woman in her community and accorded her profound respect.

However, the commercialisation of lobola in modern circles has belittled this practice into a “Get-rich quick” scheme. Lobola is now similar to an open market where bonds and equity are traded where women are bought and sold to the highest bidder amid boisterous and sometimes vociferous negotiations.

I am told there are “munyai for hire” or “negotiators” who make their services available if you don’t trust your kith and kin to negotiate a good deal on your behalf and they get a five-10% of the bride price.

What I find interesting is the same men who cry foul about lobola are the same men who are central to lobola negotiations.

I have read assertions that blame the economic meltdown of 2008 to the highly-commercialised nature of lobola.

This is not entirely true; South Africa did not experience the meltdown of 2008, but many complain of how lobola has now evolved into a lucrative money-making scheme.

Some men refuse to marry because they insist they can’t afford it and resort to vat en sit arrangements or cohabitation, which sounds more palatable.

Similarly many women are against lobola because at its worst it’s been seen to disempower and leave many vulnerable to domestic violence and marital rape.

There is talk of banning lobola completely as it is no longer seen as relevant.

I, however, disagree with this view. Yes, lobola has become commercialised, but so have many things in this world like Easter and Christmas. Easter has been overtaken by selling chocolate eggs and hot-cross buns and has very little to do with commemorating the death of Jesus and the subsequent resurrection.

The same can be said for Christmas and other “holy days”. Yet no one talks of discarding Easter and Christmas.

Furthermore there is nothing substantive to demonstrate that in societies where lobola is not paid there is absence of domestic violence, marital rape and other forms of abuse in those marriages.

I think let us agree that lobola as practiced currently in some quarters is not tenable.

I discard the notion that places a higher value on a woman because of an exorbitant amount of lobola that is paid for her.

As far as I am concerned there is no correlation between the amount of lobola paid and a woman’s worth. I know my worth and it can never be quantified in monetary terms. However, I also know that I won’t leave my father’s house to live with a man who hasn’t even paid a chicken for me.

However, I appreciate lobola for what it is and it remains an integral part of our culture and heritage which needs to be maintained and celebrated.

Done right, lobola can be a beautiful ritual which can even supercede the pomp and ceremony of a white wedding.

What we really need to do is to call for the regulation surrounding this practice and restore this custom to its former glory.

 Sukoluhle Nyathi is the author of the novel The Polygamist. You can follow her @SueNyathi