Of Bridewealth, Brideprice, and Dowry

"One finds that there are African women who want to keep the bridewealth, who want to keep what is called 'lobola' in Southern Africa. The bridewealth formerly called the 'brideprice,' was not a price, until the colonials tried to set prices in order to be able to do their books, making marriage gifts a kind of taxation, rationalizing the system that 'a man must pay ten pounds or so many hundred francs.' The colonialists introduced commercialization. Usually, the bridewealth was a kind of material benefits compensation to the family of the wife from the family of the groom. This is very different from the dowry, as in India, which goes from the bride's family to the groom's family to compensate the groom for taking on the responsibility of a woman. The dowry is a very different concept, in fact, opposite, concept. Bridewealth was a symbolic expression of the respect and valuation of a woman. There are African married women, African middle class and westernized women, who will argue that they want to have their bridewealth no matter how corrupted and commercialized it is; if they do not, their husbands will not respect them and treat them with the appropriate recognition that their family had officially and ceremoniously handed them over. Yet, we in the feminist movement are saying that this attitude is an indication of lack of self-respect and independence because the modern corruption promotes the commodification of women."

Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994, 211

"Stiwanism: Feminism in an African Context" 

in Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations