Lefatshe Moagi
Pretoria - Lobola has been practised for ages in Africa and has withstood the test of time.
The socio-economic changes that seem to catapult women above their male counterparts serve to challenge male dominance and weaken the lobola institution.
In the past, it was in a form of cattle and then the modern cultural practices changed it into monetary form. Due to the pressures of social distancing, lobola may be virtually conducted via Zoom or other digital communication tools.
Other ethnic groups have started to accept lobola through the banking system. This feeds in to the argument that technology is not an enemy of men, but is meant to minister to the needs of modern men, the 21st century men.
The existing unadulterated digital divide in Africa seems to favour urban dwellers and disadvantage remote rural constituencies with poor ICT infrastructure.
Virtualisation of the lobola negotiations, coupled with migration from the use of cattle to the use of money, and the banking system confirm the conformation of the lobola practice to the capitalist system.
Due to the unemployment rate in the country, lobola negotiations at present have been compromised despite the use of money for lobola transactions serving to diminish women to the status of mere commodities on the shelves of a supermarket with a price tag.
The current wave of women abuse in South Africa has its roots in corrosive masculinity and the objectification and commodification of women.
Lobola arrangements guaranteed economic, political and social security to the bride’s family. It is, however, worth noting that some parents are now enterprising with their girl child, charging exorbitant lobola fees that can bail them out of their economic miseries and consign them to upward socio-economic mobility.
With the increasing unemployment rate in South Africa, in many households unemployed men are unable to provide for their families, thereby leaving the women as breadwinners. This dynamic brings in conflicts of gender roles and power struggle within households, as we have witnessed under pandemic an increase in gender-based violence during lockdown.
The generational control of women through lobola will begin to be problematic and loosen, as many households currently depend on women for economic support. Power clashes become inevitable when men are unable to provide for their families and begin to feel inferior to their women. Due to the shifting of gender roles within households, lobola becomes a contentious and conflictual issue.
The affirmative action policy in South Africa, which exposes black women to more employment opportunities than men, white and coloured women, poses a threat to the sustenance and viability of the lobola institution.
Are we slowly approaching an era of the economically powerful women paying lobola for their financially flaccid husbands and confining them in the domestic sphere as house-husbands?
Lobola must not be a practice that leads to the commodification and objectification of women.
Owing to the reality that culture is not static, but changes over time, let us embrace the change and efficiently use it to minister to our needs in the 21st century.
If these changes are not properly manipulated to serve the cultural needs of the modern men, the lobola practice might degenerate into an occult of self-punishment and thus lose its value and meaning.
* Moagi is in the Department of Political Sciences, Gender Transformation Unit, College of Human Sciences at Unisa.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.