CULTURAL experts are fully behind King Misuzulu after he promised men that if they behave, he will negotiate for them to have the amount of lobola cows reduced.
On National Men's Day, Saturday 22 July, the King called on men to stop gender-based violence (GBV).
He said he was worried that there were few weddings in the Zulu nation and instead GBV was on the rise.
Misuzulu promised men that if they behave well, he'd negotiate for them to have lobola decreased so that there would be more weddings.
Cultural experts said the lobola decrement is long overdue as the standard lobola cows’ quantity was imposed by British colonisation in KZN in 1869.
They said before colonisation, there was no limit and men were negotiating and paying what they have and then get married.
Cultural expert Professor Jabulani Maphalala told Daily Sun that during the British colonisation in Mzansi, the KZN, British administrator Sir Theophilus Shepstone, imposed lobola rules.
“He is the one who said Zulu people are disorganised, because they paid anything they want to pay and imposed his rules to make it harder for them to get married.
“He then imposed that for a commoner’s daughter men should pay 11 cows for lobola, for Induna and Inkosi’s daughter, men should pay 15 cows for lobola, while for the King’s daughter, men should pay 20 cows upward for lobola” he said.
ALSO READ: Mangosuthu Buthelezi hospitalised!
Maphalala said the Zulu people should have set these lobola restrictions long ago when Mzansi got democracy.
“Now it is becoming difficult because other people are doing business with their daughters and asking for even more lobola because they say they have given their daughters a better education.
“Others do not care about lobola. They just go to Home Affairs and get married, which is against the culture,” Maphalala said.
University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) cultural expert Dr Gugu Mazibuko told Daily Sun that before British colonisation, men even paid a cow or two for lobola and then get married.
“The late King Zwelithini died in 2021 when he was reviewing this matter, and King Misuzulu has limited his powers because it was imposed on the Zulu nation,” she said.
