Modernizing Marriage: Balancing the Benefits and Liabilities of Bridewealth in Rural South Africa

The payment of bridewealth or lobola is a longstanding cultural practice that has persisted in South Africa despite significant societal shifts over the past two decades. Lobola has always been a complex and contested practice that both reinforces gender inequalities and, at the same time, provides status to women and legitimacy to marriages. In this paper, we describe rural South African women’s perceptions of lobola, their experiences related to marriage and lobola, and how they reconfigure lobola to fit within modern life course aspirations and trajectories. We draw on interviews with 43 women aged 18–55 in rural South Africa to examine desires related to lobola and the meanings of lobola given current social, economic, and health (HIV) conditions in rural areas. Our findings indicate that lobola offers women a complex set of benefits and liabilities. Although women value the support, social status, and respectability lobola offers, they also lament how lobola curtails their freedom to pursue education and limits their autonomy from husbands as well as in-laws. Women also view lobola as offering a sense of security amidst the uncertainty of the local political economy and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We conclude that the way women incorporate lobola into their desires and plans reflects tension between the expectations and aspirations of “modern” women in a post-apartheid context in which rights feature prominently but economic security is not guaranteed, and cultural scripts reinforce longstanding gender norms but also ensure social support.