By Alexandra Wexler and Nthabiseng Gamede
Wednesday December 27, 2017
South African President Jacob Zuma dances with his wife Thobeka Madiba during a traditional Zulu ceremony in 2010. PHOTO: SIMPHIWE NKWALI/THE TIMES SOUTH AFRICA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
SOWETO, South Africa—Sisi Seloane’s family was ecstatic when she got engaged to her boyfriend of six months. Then her fiancé asked to deliver her traditional bridal price by electronic transfer, to avoid carrying wads of cash in a city notorious for crime.
That’s when the trouble started.
For three months, Ms. Seloane says her family begged her to insist on a physical cash exchange. Counting—and burning incense over—the bridal price money to alert ancestors to the new family member is an unshakable tradition for many South Africans. It can’t be done when money pops up via a smartphone banking alert.
Ms. Seloane’s uncles threw fits. Her father, a priest, pleaded with her to change her fiancé’s mind, but she refused.
“At some point my husband and I wanted to elope because our families were disagreeing about everything,” said Ms. Seloane, who lives in the bustling township of Soweto, famous for its resistance to white-minority rule during apartheid.
Three months after the negotiations came to a standstill, her family begrudgingly accepted the electronic funds transfer, with one provision: The fiancé’s family had to buy them a sheep, as an apology.
In South Africa’s lobola negotiation, tradition and increasingly ubiquitous technologies, such as electronic money transfers, email and mobile messaging, are clashing in spectacular fashion across income levels and tribal divides.
Lobola is a bridal price traditional among many southern Africans. It is a token gesture of appreciation meant to cement the fusing of two families—often it is the first time the two sides meet—and is customarily paid in cattle.
The payment of the bridal price is still widely practiced among South Africans, including by President Jacob Zuma and his predecessor Nelson Mandela. The Zuma family reportedly paid lobola in the more traditional form of 120 cows—in addition to cash—in October for a princess from neighboring Swaziland, who was made the second wife of one of Mr. Zuma’s sons. Mr. Zuma’s spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Many young people want quicker and simpler ways to manage the negotiations, including payment that doesn’t require grazing room, while some parents hope to recoup a portion of the money they’ve spent raising an eligible, educated daughter. Messaging and payments technology should make lobola much easier: speeding communication across a country around twice the size of France, and helping endure negotiations that easily stretch into monthslong affairs where dozens of family members barter over the cost, and even the cow-to-cash conversion rate.
But attempts to drag lobola into the modern age have left many families—and couples—smarting, from the method of payment to the valuation of a future wife.
More than 110,000 have downloaded the Lobola Calculator, an app that asks for a bride’s age, education, employment status, number of children as well as whether she can bake and her inclination toward housework—one choice is “Someone must do it for me”—before making its calculation, in cash as well as cows. The groom isn’t left out though: The app calculates his ability to pay, asking whether he has a skilled job, lives at home with his parents, or owns a car.
“The app echoes society’s sentiments on lobola,” said Robert Matsaneng, the app’s creator. “The practice has been distorted by consumerism. It really can break a relationship.”
Mr. Matsaneng knows this first hand: A recent engagement didn’t work out so he bought a motorbike with the money he had saved for lobola.
Technology is changing the custom of lobola in other ways, including the traditional element of surprise surrounding the figure. The desire for clarity, and preparation, has led more South African families to connect in advance, discussing lobola via messaging apps like WhatsApp. “In the olden days, there were no pre-negotiations. Now it is common,” said Kedibone Mooi, an executive and business coach, who has been involved in about a dozen lobola negotiations for family and friends.
“[I’ve] been involved in mergers and acquisitions and it is no different. We want to buy you out and we know you’re in trouble…it’s the same thing,” she said.
When couples disagree over lobola, however, it can be terminal for the relationships.
Thozi Mbabane’s engagement to Lebogang Mahibila fell apart after months of negotiations last year. Mr. Mbabane, 40, a part-time lecturer, typed up a letter requesting that his family be allowed to visit 38-year-old Ms. Mahibila’s family to officially begin the negotiations for lobola, and emailed it.
That’s when Ms. Mahibila’s family had a cow of their own.
“My family rejected the typed letter because it is not the way lobola is done,” said Ms. Mahibila, who works as a chef in a canteen. “It is not our culture to type such letters; it is disrespectful. It has to be handwritten. And they did not want a letter that was sent via email.”
“We had to end it,” said Mr. Mbabane, who took his family’s side. “I do not want to deal with people who do not believe in innovation. That’s the future.”
Other technology evangelists say the introduction of algorithms takes the sentimentality out of the exchange. Kadi Lehoko, 31, an electrician who lives in south Johannesburg, consulted the Lobola Calculator during his own negotiations—his girlfriend’s family wanted 50,000 rand, ($3,922), but Mr. Lehoko insisted he could only afford 20,000 rand. “The app actually gave me round about 58,000 rand,” he said.
In the end, Mr. Lehoko paid 48,000 rand for his now wife, with two different payments over two years. “I think I got a good deal,” he said.
Not everyone is keen on the practice. In Harare, Zimbabwe, lawyer Priccilar Vengesai recently asked the country’s highest court to make a ruling on the constitutionality of lobola, saying it reduces women to assets and opens them up to abuse.
“This tradition is against gender equality,” she said. “A woman’s future is being decided by negotiations between two men: her father and future husband. That should change.” The court has yet to make a ruling.
For now, the bridal price remains an unshakable tradition for many across Southern Africa. A recent local radio advertisement for preowned Hyundai Motor Group cars, touted the vehicles as a safer investment than lobola, because if things go south, the car has a warranty.
And a second marriage? “It’s like you’re a used car,” Ms. Mooi said with a chuckle, noting that her second husband, who also paid her family lobola, tried to argue depreciation. “I said to him, ‘What depreciation? Do you know what I’m worth?’ With my husband, we have a joke now: ‘You needed to pay more lobola.’”
—Bernard Mpofu contributed to this article.