The impossibility of dispensing with lobola

Guest column: Miriam Tose Majome

THIS is a continuation and emphasis of last week’s discussion about the significance of roora and why it cannot be done away with as proposed and wished for by some. This week, we look at the actual draft proposals.

The Customary Marriage Act contains the proposed amendment to make the payment of roora optional. The proposals are contained in sections 2 and 5 of the Customary Marriages Act as follows:

(2) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in customary law—

(a) the payment of marriage consideration, or an agreement to pay such consideration, shall not be a requirement of a valid customary marriage;

(b) the consent of the person who, in customary law, is or was regarded as the guardian of the bride shall not be a requirement of a valid customary marriage.

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And,

(5) In addition to the customary marriage officer, there shall be present at the solemnisation of a customary marriage in terms of this Act—

(a) both parties to the marriage; and

(b) a witness who can verify the fact that the parties have contracted a marriage according to customary law and the terms and conditions of such marriage including, where applicable, any marriage consideration paid or payable.”

Section 2(a) proposes the optional aspect, but the improbability of this was discussed in detail last week. In short, the spiritual and social centrality of roora in African marriages eliminates such a possibility.

Section 2(b) proposes dispensing with the role of the woman’s male relatives’ consent in her customary marriage.

While this is perfectly understandable for the cause of advancing women’s emancipation, it is another proposal which cannot be implemented for its impracticality.

It is borne out of an innocent misunderstanding of African culture and mistaken equation to an impossibly Eurocentric status.

It is true that it is the woman’s male relatives who traditionally preside over customary marriage ceremonies and undertake the charging of the roora.

However, they do not charge the roora exclusively for their own pockets. Female family members — the mother specifically does not preside over customary marriage ceremonies, but has a significant part to play and receive essential non-negotiable portions of the roora — (mombe yehumai, mafukidzadumbu, mbereko, hembe dzamai, among many others).

Despite the common perception, roora is not a single once off lump sum paid exclusively to the father of the bride. Rather, it is an intricate tapestry of spoken and unspoken nuances and components.

Some portion of roora is meant exclusively for the bride’s mother and her relatives and some exclusively for the father or his male relatives in his absence.

There is also a special component reserved for the bride herself, that is, nhongwa yemusikana, which she shares with her paternal aunts and sisters.

It is a complete misnomer to take roora as an exclusive payment to the father of the bride because he never gets all of it.

Roora is a complex collaborative affair between the brides’ father and mother and their respective families.

Roora is the sum of its many parts and intricate nuances such that if the father’s components are fulfilled, it will be incomplete if the mother’s components have not been paid, and vice versa.

If any one of the components is outstanding, the roora is incomplete and the woman will not be considered as fully customarily married even though she may be allowed to live with her husband.

No matter how long it takes, her husband will have to pay off the outstanding components, even after she dies or they get divorced.

If the bride’s womenfolk were to ever convene and preside over a roora ceremony, they would still have to charge the father’s components for it to be an authentic and complete roora ritual.

For this reason, even if they do not want to involve the bride’s father’s side, they are still compelled to engage someone from his family.

In the Shona culture, the representative can even be a woman and she will receive the roora components meant for the father or male relatives, that is, the rusambo, mombe dzedanga, matekenyandebvu, among others.

The presiding women will only be able to charge what is traditionally charged for the mother, that is, mombe yehumai, mafukidzadumbu, mbereko, hembe dzamai, among others.

They cannot ursurp the father’s components as their own even if the mother raised her daughter single-handedly.

It is not at all possible to dispense with the involvement and, indeed, consent of the male relatives in customary marriage processes because that father role is indispensable.

Conversely, if the bride’s mother or her relatives are not available, the mother’s component still has to be charged and given to someone from her side of the family.

There are variations, depending on culture, but this is the main template from which Shona marriage customs are derived.

Anything which departs widely from this is not an African customary marriage, at least in the Shona context. Section 5 proposes that only four people need be present at the solemnisation of a customary marriage in court.

The required people are the presiding officer, the two people getting married and a witness.

Various foreign and local scholars who have studied roora all acknowledge that marriage in an African cultural context is not an individual or private act between two people.

Rather, it is a communal act that actively involves the different families.

A customary marriage is regarded as valid only when certain marriage rites centred around the payment of roora have not only been performed, but witnessed and attested to by family members from both sides.

There has to be consensus by the majority of relatives from both sides to acknowledge that the customary marriage rites were performed to at least an agreed minimum expected standard.

So it is not conceivable that only one witness can verify and witness an African customary marriage.

This can work for a civil marriage under the Marriages Act Chapter 5:11, but not for traditional customary marriages.

Section 5(b) requires the witness to verify that the customary marriage took place in terms of the customary law.

However, if the couple opted out of roora payment, it is not known what the witness will verify and attest to when no traditional marriage rites took place.

African customary marriage rites converge around the payment of roora and all its various aspects and nothing else.

The sole purpose of a customary marriage ceremony and performance of marriage rites and rituals is for the sole purpose of negotiating the payment of roora.

Getting to know each other is just a consequence of the roora process because representatives from the two families will be present.

All marriage rites and rituals which occur after the payment of roora do so only as a result of its payment or the pledge to pay it at a later date.

It is not feasible that two African families will gather around to do absolutely nothing except to talk and bear witness to nothing if nothing material has been negotiated or exchanged as a symbol of roora.

This topic is vast and inexhaustible, but we will conclude it next week by looking at the validity and sufficiency of customary marriage certificates where roora has not been paid.