HomeOld_PostsWhat is the value of Lobola?

What is the value of Lobola?

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By Farayi Mungoshi

“IS this why you married me so you can beat me up whenever you feel like it?
I would rather return to my parents’ house than be your punching bag!” shouted a lady at her husband who was bound in handcuffs along Rufaro Street in Zengeza, on their way to St Mary’s police station.
The policeman urged the man not to retaliate and warned the woman he was also going to handcuff her if she continued taunting her husband and poking at him.
I did not follow the couple to the police station to find out what happened because this was not a strange sight here.
Domestic fights are the order of the day in high density suburbs across Chitungwiza where I live.
Divorce rates have gone up and in every street you will find a single mother or two who have now turned to prostitution as a way of providing for their children while others have resorted to becoming ‘small-houses’ for men who can pay their rent.
If you are to ask what happened, many would tell you: “I was married once, he was such a dog I had to leave,” or “Baba Dee would beat me up, and would remind me that I was the wife and I should do as he says because he paid lobola.
“I couldn’t take it anymore so I left.”
It is because of such acts during these changing times that put some of our cultural practices under scrutiny from the self-appointed Western human rights groups policing the world.
Arguments in recent times have surfaced as some are advocating the abolition of lobola, saying it contributes to domestic violence and abuse women face from their husbands who feel that because they paid lobola, they now own these women.
“It is demeaning and it downgrades women,” said one Zimbabwean woman based in Australia.
“How different is it from the slave trade?
“You are still trading a human being, are you not?”
“Women should stand up for their rights and refuse to be sold — all in the name of love,” another one said.
If you ask me I would say there are many money-making schemes going around, whereby one even consciously makes the decision to go against his/her beliefs in order to make some money.
For example; you are not gay and you disapprove of it, but somebody offers you a lot of money to sleep with you and because you are broke and your son needs school fees, you give in and before you know it, you have been converted to something you do not believe in.
We also have families that are known to charge hefty lobola, ranging from US$10 000 to US$15 000.
“What is US$15 000,” they say.
Sadly, instead of trying to negotiate, you get men who just pay the money requested, whether from pride or the fear of being labelled poor I don’t know, but once in the home they start abusing their wives.
And because the woman’s family cannot really pay back the money should the couple divorce, the woman is told to endure the abuse.
Can one then say lobola is good after having been told such a story?
While we are entitled to our own opinions, issues of lobola transcend the individual to the collective. Lobola custom defines who we are.
It is part of our tradition and culture.
While the women and men, crying foul because of hefty amounts charged and the repercussions of such acts, are making noise across social media platforms labelling lobola an evil, I contend this is an indictment on the institution of marriage.
Should lobola be abolished on the basis that it is seen as one of the root causes of domestic violence and abuse?
Is it?
Or it is the love for money and adopted Western cultures by some of our people?
In old times, lobola was more about uniting families than making money out of the other party and in some cases prior the cattle bride-price request, the woman’s family would request a hoe as the bride-price.
Now don’t take this lightly because now you look around and you see hoes everywhere and you think it was like that back then, no.
One had to actually go and work to get a hoe, or a man had to find a smelter of iron first and that could mean travelling for days on foot to get one.
So whichever way you look at it, there was a bit of manual labour in it as a form of sacrifice for the one you loved.
It is important for us today to go back and redefine lobola according to its true meaning so that we do not have other people coming in and telling us that our practices are immoral.
Even Europe’s dowry practices are now fading.
The question is: Do we want others to define us and tell us what is best for us or rather we need to address this issue as it is getting out of hand?

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