Marriage is a beautiful thing

Andile Tshuma
Marriage is a beautiful thing.

The institution of marriage brings people together, it unites families.

Different cultures have different traditions and practices of solemnising marriages and most of these cultures in Zimbabwe, Africa and across the globe involve the payment of dowry or exchange of gifts, marking the union of two people, and their families.

The process of the dowry payment, lobola in Zimbabwe is often a key part of the marriage traditions.

However, this practice came under spotlight over the past week, after a certain pronouncement on lobola payment was misunderstood.

No. lobola has not been outlawed in Zimbabwe.

It is just no longer a pre-requisite for people who want to register customary marriages.

Parliament has since 2019 been on a process to amend the marriage laws framework, and to fully align it with the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land. A number of amendments have been made, at one time we had the infamous Section 40 which dealt with civil partnerships, which has since been done away with. The Bill continues to be amended and debated in Parliament.

Many families have been accustomed to lobola negotiations and payment of bride price for both civil and customary marriages. Legally, lobola has not been a requirement in the Civil Marriage Act Chapter 5:11.

However in the Customary Marriages Act, there has been a clause that gives power to the marriage officer to decide to grant a marriage depending on his satisfaction about the bride price paid.

This has been problematic because women in these two marriages have been living in different worlds, yet another piece of legislation legally allows women aged 18 years and older to exercise their full rights, including choosing who to marry and what type of marriage to enter into.

Bride price payment has not been outlawed. However, the existing legislation on customary marriages requires and grants permission for marriage officers to ‘satisfy themselves’ with proof of payment of the traditional bride price before the formalisation of a customary union. Some families have been exploiting this loophole and were not consenting to any solemnisation of customary marriages until a groom paid the amount of bride price that his in-laws would have charged.

In a way, therefore, the Marriages Bill does not outlaw the payment of bride price but seeks to level the playing field so that women both in civil and customary marriages enjoy their full rights.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi explained earlier this week that the need for there to be a payment of bride price before a couple can register a marriage should no longer be a requirement for people to fully enjoy the same rights and benefits of the law.

This Bill also seeks to promote gender equality and to protect women in both civil and customary unions who have often been treated differently in the case of divorce or death of a spouse.

I think the law has too many loopholes that allow for different treatment of women in society. For instance, it has not been fair that in the case of a civil marriage, a couple is not asked questions about bride price, while in the customary union, an unsatisfactory dowry could hinder a couple from enjoying life within the marriage institution. While it may have been a part of preserving culture, since the marriage was a customary union after all, culture evolves and it is time some of these laws moved with the times.

Lobola payment should not hinder people from getting married. While it is a significant practice that acts as a bond that stiches two families together, it must be a private arrangement that does not threaten the future of two people who want to start a life together.

A lot of misinformation has been circulating about the bill and the issue of bride price, which has opened up dialogues in many communities on varied perspectives on the traditional marriages and the place of bride price in modern societies.

What I found problematic about this clause on the current Customary Marriages Act and the issue of lobola is that the fact that a marriage officer holds the power to formalise a union, or not, depending on the issue of how he or she, but mostly he, in these patriarchal societies, actually strips a woman of her rights to determine her own future and what she wants.

This is in contrast to the Legal Age of Majority Act of 1982 which awarded women majority status, which also meant that once a female person turned 18 years old, she was considered an adult, and was awarded the liberty to exercise her full rights within the law, which included, but was not limited to rights to marriage, choosing the type of marriage, and property ownership rights.

Women were, before this pronouncement of 1982, considered legally and customarily perpetual minors with need of the assistance of a male figure in their life to enter into a marriage partnership, and after marriage, would need the assistance of a husband to perform activities such as acquiring of a property.

So while the 1982 pronunciation was celebrated and women were empowered, the Customary Marriages Act still reduced their power as their fate on the formalisation of a customary marriage still largely lay in the hands of a man.

On one hand, the 1982 pronunciation empowered a woman and stripped her father of the power to approve or disapprove of her marriage, or rights to demand the payment of bride price prior to a marriage, however it was only applicable to the civil marriages and women getting married in the customary union were not as empowered.

It is encouraging that the Marriages Bill attempts to cure these existing injustices within the law through stating that all marriages shall be equal before the law and that they will enjoy equal protections which was previously reserved mostly for civil marriages.

This Bill also seeks to address the issue of child marriages and forced marriages as people entering into marriages will be required to verify their ages first and to declare that they consent to the marriage.

This will enable consenting adults to decide who they want to marry and the type of marriage contract they want to choose.