An alternate software familiar with estimate lobola has had Southern Africa by storm, with lots of female (and men) deploying it to determine exactly how much he could be really worth

Application designer Robert Matseneng has generated a beneficial Lobola Calculator – a software that enables men and women to measure just how many cows it are worth.

Lobola, otherwise magadi as it is called inside my community, try a longstanding lifestyle in which a guy pays a specific speed for good female’s hand-in relationships. Previously, the purchase price would be paid-in the type of cattle, but these weeks money is an even more simple solution to spend lobola.

Of attraction, I installed the brand new application observe what so it barometer getting used to measure a ladies’ worth https://kissbrides.com/american-women/portland-ia/ in community involved.

However in facts, this would be an absurd amount of cash to inquire about to possess

Among other things, brand new app explores a female’s peak, weight and exactly how attractive this woman is (between “very sizzling hot” in order to “not”), functions I think have absolutely nothing regarding how much lobola one is shell out. In practice, questions about their training therefore the level of college students she’s got would be studied under consideration by family inside it immediately after deals have begun.

Depending on the app, just after factoring all these in the, my family you will ask for lobola away from R74,five-hundred in my situation – the same as nine real cows. My dad might possibly be therefore pleased.

A possible suitor will be within exact same many years when i have always been and you may won’t be in a position to afford one type of money. The new cost off lobola, and you will planning for lives following the matrimony, is actually a very important factor of a lot family to take into consideration prior to buying a price.

Matseneng need to have kudos in order to have new app query profiles in order to mean whether or not they try men and women. This shows that the app is not especially directed at women. That being said, we can not disregard the simple fact that that it application aims at women more than it’s at dudes.

A Nigerian same in principle as the fresh new lobola application, Fiance Rate, was released a year ago. Bride-to-be Speed uses an even more certain barometer in calculating a beneficial woman’s worth; it considers her preparing efficiency, skin, if or not she has tattoos, and if or not she’s “prayer warrior” otherwise “bar girl”.

We have arrive at keep in mind that lobola isn’t about buying a lady, but alternatively regarding the integrating parents up until the wedding – during my people, fulfilling the target groom along with his moms and dads constantly merely goes immediately following defines lobola have taken place (otherwise when one or two drops expecting outside relationship). Getting Mandla or Tshepo household to possess a week-end is extremely frowned on inside my family relations, because it’s in a lot of most other black colored parents.

Although there are noble, cultural reasons for having lobola that lots of anyone however want to keep to, one cannot deny the latest patriarchal character of one’s habit – a good woman’s worth is claimed to decrease according to amount away from students she’s and you may, sometimes, if or not this woman is a great virgin or perhaps not. Which standard is never applied to men.

There’s a clue out-of humour so you’re able to programs like these (Matseneng claims you to “really it actually was all the a tale”) but, since perceptions of morality and you will respectability are often used to police ladies habits, it is extremely disturbing.

That will disregard the diving teacher, Tim Osrin, just who pummelled a women who are strolling off the trail, after that justified his strategies because of the stating the guy believe she was an excellent sex staff (on implication you to definitely sex professionals ask and you will have earned physical violence), or even the men just who removed and you will beat an early woman within a Johannesburg taxi rank simply because they she dared to put on a great micro top.