Zimbabwe: Paying bride price is now mandatory in customary marriages.

The Herald of Zimbabwe (10/3) reported that payment of lobola – bride price, also known as roora in Shona communities – before marriage under customary union is now mandatory in Zimbabwe after Parliament passed the Marriages Amendment Bill on March 8th with a clause empowering marriage officers to ascertain whether bride price was paid.

The Bill will also protect a spouse in a civil partnership from the legally married partner so that he or she does not unfairly lose property acquired during the subsistence of their union in the event that the union has been terminated either due to death or other reasons. Another new clause in the Bill requires that traditional leaders should undergo training in administering marriage rites before becoming marriage officers.

Traditions such as lobola form part of customary law, a system which is recognised to different extents in most sub-Saharan African countries alongside other forms of law. For example, South Africa has a “hybrid” or “mixed” legal system, formed by the interweaving of a number of distinct legal traditions: a civil law system inherited from the Dutch, a common law system inherited from the British, and a customary law system inherited from indigenous Africans.

The practice of paying a bride price is seen throughout Africa, and many other parts of the world, but varies in status and tradition from country to country. It differs from a dowry which is contributed by the bride or the bride’s family to the groom and his family; bride price is paid by the groom’s family to the bride and her family. Bride price can be in the form of money, or in the form of cattle, especially in pastoral communities, and can vary from a small symbolic gift to a large amount negotiated between members of the two families involved.

Traditional South African wedding, 2016: Wikimedia Commons

In South Africa, for example, the groom’s family presents either money or cows or both to the bride’s family as a gesture of his willingness to marry her and a sign of his commitment to take care of his wife, and is seen as a symbolic act and a necessary part of upholding culture, rather than a purchase.

In Senegal the payment of bride price is customary but also largely symbolic; a small amount of money and a kola nut is given to the bride’s family at the mosque, after which the sum handed over can be anywhere from less than $100 to tens of thousands.

In Kenya the constitution outlaws the obligation to pay a bride price but it is widely understood that it will be paid. Pastoral communities insist that it is paid in cattle and it has been cited as a cause of cattle rustling, whereas families in other communities will accept cash. There is a sense that a transaction has taken place over the bride.

In Niger there is an official maximum rate for a bride price of CFA francs 50,000 (about US$84.00) but many pay much more than this. The price is agreed between the families, but it is seen as a symbolic act rather than about “buying” the wife.

The BBC reported in August 2015, that Uganda’s Supreme Court ruled that the practice of refunding a bride price on the dissolution of a customary marriage was unconstitutional and should be banned. The judges said it suggested that women were in a market place, and infringed on their right to divorce. But they rejected the argument that the bride price itself was unconstitutional, even though campaigners said that it turns a woman into the husband’s property.

The ruling was seen by those behind the case as a major step in chipping away at a tradition that is detrimental to women. But as most of the judges acknowledged many Ugandans support the idea of a bride price, which they do not see as a commercial transaction. The women’s rights organisation Mifumi, which brought the case, welcomed the ruling, despite not getting everything it campaigned for. “This is a momentous occasion… and this ruling will aid the fight against women and girls’ rights abuses,” spokesperson Evelyn Schiller told the BBC at the time.

A study in Ghana conducted by Stephen Baffour Adjei of Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, reported in theconversation.com (28/07/2019) discovered that both male and female participants thought bride price practice was necessary for achieving desired masculinity and femininity in Ghana. Female participants saw it as an important part of womanhood, bestowing respect and dignity in marriage. Men, on the other hand, viewed it as a necessary condition for male identity in society. Failure to fulfil it could greatly undermine their identity and dominance in marriage.

Participants suggested that the definition of women’s identities, and their sense of self-worth in marriage, was determined by men through the payment of bride price. It was evident in the study that bride price could lead women to appear worthless unless paid for, and to be treated however a man wants. Also, male participants in the study described bride price tradition as a material condition for maintaining culturally assumed masculine identity and authority in marriage. Having a bride-priced wife was seen as a masculine accomplishment.

The study also found that paying the bride price meant there was an implicit moral obligation on a woman’s part to respect and obey her husband’s commands and wishes. Psychologically, the practice created an ownership mentality in men. This may lead them to see their wives as their ‘purchase’ over whom they exercise unfettered authority, including physical and psychological abuse.

Also, the exchange of items and money for a bride, particularly a high bride price, created indebtedness in the minds of both the bride and her family. This meant that when the husband mistreated his wife in marriage, the family felt they couldn’t intervene.

The payment of bride price was also associated with the perception of women as ‘acquired properties’ over whom men exercise authority and control. Based on the participants’ comments, we found that the transactional character of the practice could ‘objectify’ and ‘commoditise’ women in marriage.

Though the study showed that bride price tradition could reinforce negative stereotypes about male domination and female subordination in marriage, comments from the participants suggested that the practice is not regarded by women in Ghana as demeaning because they think it does not offend any communal morality or societal ethos. There was a communal sense of ownership of the bride price practice among men and women.

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