Bride price, better known as lobola or roora in Zimbabwe, is a customary marriage
requirement for most Zimbabweans. This text discusses lobola and its impact on women’s
equality. Over and above the fact that Zimbabwe is a member state to a number of
regional and international instruments that enjoins it to observe equality between men
and women, it also enacted a women’s rights friendly Constitution. This paper argues that
the payment of lobola infringes the rights of women from two dimensions. Firstly, women
are discriminated against as a category because they get little from lobola payment as
compared to their male counterparts. Secondly the bride is discriminated against for she
is not treated equally to her husband during the lobola negotiations.
Furthermore brides
are not given the same status in marriage as their husbands. Lobola creates a hierarchy
in the marriage institution which forms the basis for unequal power relations between
husbands and wives. It is thus argued that lobola culture constitutes a blunt unfair
discrimination against women on the basis of sex, gender and culture. Despite the
existence of traditional reasons that are in support of lobola the harm it causes on women
status and equality warrants the call for its abolition.
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