Urban lobolo attitudes: a preliminary report

SYNOPSIS

Lobolo is far from dying out amongst urban Africans, in spite of the fact that in the European form of marriage, which is increasingly entered upon by urban Africans, it must lose what some writers have considered its primary function, namely the transfer of the status of the children to the lobolo‐payer's group. This indicates that the lobolo has assumed other functions, some of these apparently new functions, by which new urban needs find, at least temporarily, some satisfaction. At the same time the changing urban social structure and the changed kinship relationships have necessitated considerable changes in procedure, owing to the fact that an institution deeply embedded in a tradition is being adapted to the requirements of an increasingly individualized society. This results in a number of new features in the procedure and the operation of the lobolo‐institution. In this paper only the new functions are indicated, whilst in a later paper the new features will be dealt with.

In her analysis of these new functions and new features the writer distinguishes between lobolo‐as‐such and lobolo in‐marriage, and it is only the latter she discusses here. As a starting point the attitudes of a group of professional women have been analysed, and the point of view of the women has been stressed since the writer believes that the changing status of the women as daughters, wives and mothers is the key factor in most of the changes in the urban lobolo. This study, a first exploratory investigation, reveals that lobolo in its modern setting is still—in the less detribalized strata of the population—a child‐price, in so far as it transfers the custody of the children to the husband, and again—in the most detribalized strata—an instrument for uniting the two families. It also functions to stabilize urban marriage, to compensate the girl's parents for educational expenses and the loss of their daughter, to provide them with economic security, to create a security‐link for the daughter with her parental home, to express social status, to pay for the wedding expenses, and finally, as a symbol of Africanism.