South Africa: Lobola Calculator – the Thin Line Between Humour and Misogyny
February 6, 2015
By Pontsho Pilane*
A new app used to calculate lobola has has taken South Africa by storm, with many women (and men) using it to find out how much they are worth. PONTSHO PILANE tried it out.
[caption id="attachment_16192" align="alignleft" width="200"] Try this Lobola Calculator to see how many cows you are worth[/caption]
App developer Robert Matseneng has created a Lobola Calculator – an app that enables people to measure how many cows they are worth. The app attempts bring the old-age African tradition of lobola into today’s technology-driven world.
Lobola, or magadi as it is called in my culture, is a longstanding tradition where a man pays a certain price for a woman’s hand in marriage. In earlier times, the price would be paid in the form of cattle, but these days money is a more practical way to pay lobola.
Out of curiosity, I downloaded the app to see what this barometer being used to measure a women’s value in society was about.
Among other things, the app examines a woman’s height, weight and how attractive she is (ranging from “really hot” to “not at all”), attributes I believe have nothing to do with how much lobola a man should pay. In practice, questions about her education and the number of children she has would also be taken into consideration by families involved once negotiations have started.
According to the app, after factoring all of these in, my family could ask for lobola of R74,500 for me – the equivalent of nine real cows. My dad would be so happy.
But in reality, this would be a ridiculous sum of money to ask for. A potential suitor would be around the same age as I am and would not likely be able to afford that kind of money. The affordability of lobola, and planning for life after the wedding, is a factor many families take into consideration before settling on an amount.
Nkemnji Global Tech
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