Beyond Property and Commercialisation: Reconstructing the Precolonial Cultural Meaning of Lobola

Abstract

Lobola is an important African cultural institution historically associated with the exchange of cattle between families. Beyond their economic value, cattle carried meanings related to fertility, reproduction, ancestors, kinship, legitimacy, ritual and relationships between families. However, contemporary scholarship has often understood lobola mainly in terms of commercialisation, property and material exchange, with limited attention to the precolonial cultural meanings of cattle and bridewealth. This article problematises this predominantly economic understanding of lobola and addresses the resulting gap in its historical and cultural interpretation. Drawing on historical and anthropological evidence, I argue that the transformation of lobola from cattle to money should not be understood merely as an economic substitution or commercialisation, but as a transformation in how cultural meanings, relationships and obligations are expressed. The article concludes that recovering marginalised precolonial evidence provides a stronger historical basis for understanding the cultural significance of lobola and its transformation in contemporary Southern African societies.

1. Introduction

Lobola, commonly referred to as bridewealth, remains an important institution in marriage and family relations in South Africa and other parts of southern Africa. Although its material form has changed considerably, particularly through the substitution of money for cattle, lobola continues to structure negotiations and relationships between families. Scholarship has examined lobola in relation to marriage, family organisation, gender relations, economic exchange, social change and modernisation (Hennon and Wilson 2008, pp. 187–88; Marks and Rathbone 1982, pp. 142–94; Togarasei and Chitando 2021). Yet the historical role of cattle in precolonial bridewealth practices requires closer examination. Understanding lobola as a transfer of wealth or property is not necessarily incorrect: cattle constituted valuable property and were transferred between families as part of marriage arrangements. However, such an interpretation can remain incomplete when it explains what was transferred without considering why cattle constituted the principal medium of the exchange and what they represented within the societies in which bridewealth operated.

Economic interpretations of lobola can therefore explain the transfer of wealth without fully accounting for the wider meanings attached to cattle. Evidence from the Bakgatla indicates that bogadi could express thanksgiving to a bride’s parents and acknowledge the loss of her services, rather than simply representing the purchase of a woman (Schapera 1940, pp. 83–84). Similarly, among the Venda Lovedu, bridewealth was associated with the idea of “building a house”, connecting the exchange to the establishment and continuity of family relationships (Krige and Comaroff 1981, p. 8). Such evidence suggests that bridewealth operated not simply as a transfer of material wealth but as part of a broader system through which relationships between families were established, recognised and sustained. This interpretation can be developed further through the work of Comaroff and Comaroff, whose analysis of Southern African social life draws attention to the ways in which material practices, social relationships and systems of meaning are mutually constituted. From this perspective, cattle should not be treated as economically valuable objects that existed independently of the social relations in which they circulated. Their value was produced within particular institutions of kinship, marriage, reproduction and social continuity. Bridewealth consequently constituted a form of social practice through which material resources and social relationships were simultaneously organised.

This perspective is important for understanding the subsequent transformation of lobola. It introduced a different material form of value into an institution whose meanings had historically been constituted through particular relationships between people, cattle, kin and ancestors. In this sense, the transition from cattle to money can be understood as a transformation in the social and cultural organisation of value. Comaroff and Comaroff’s emphasis on the historical transformation of Southern African social worlds therefore provides an important theoretical basis for examining how colonialism, monetisation and capitalism altered the material and symbolic conditions within which marriage and bridewealth were practised (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, pp. 200, 209–11). The question is consequently not whether the cultural meaning of lobola disappeared when cattle were replaced by money, but how that meaning was reconfigured as the social relations through which value was produced and recognised changed.

The significance of cattle extended beyond their material value to encompass ideas of fertility, reproduction, ancestry and family continuity. In Tswana contexts, cattle were associated with fertility, rain, reproduction, ancestry and family continuity (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16). The expression re nesa pula, associated with bridewealth, connected cattle with rain and fertility, while the expression that “cattle beget children” linked cattle with reproduction and family continuity (Kuper 1982, pp. 16, 21). Cattle were also associated with legitimate personhood and ancestral understandings of conception (Kuper 1982, pp. 22, 117–18). Their importance therefore cannot be assessed solely according to their economic value; their significance was also constituted through the relationships, beliefs and obligations in which they were embedded.

The transition from cattle to money transformed not only the material form of lobola but also the means through which its relationships and obligations were expressed. Where cattle had been associated with fertility, ancestry, kinship, family continuity and social relationships, their replacement by money altered the material medium through which these meanings and obligations were expressed. Evidence from Eastern and Southern African societies indicates that, even where cash replaced cattle in lobola payments, cattle could continue to be valued for more than their economic worth (Das 1993, p. 99). The shift to monetary lobola should therefore be understood as both an economic and cultural transformation rather than simply as a process of commercialisation.

The analysis reveals that the significance of cattle in lobola extended beyond their value as property or transferable wealth. Cattle were embedded in broader systems of fertility, reproduction, ancestry, kinship, legitimate personhood, family continuity and reciprocal relationships between families. From this perspective, the transition from cattle to money cannot be understood simply as economic substitution; it must also be considered in relation to changes in the material forms through which culturally significant relationships and obligations were expressed. By foregrounding precolonial historical evidence, this article demonstrates the importance of situating contemporary changes in the material form of lobola within the longer history of its cultural meanings and social significance in Southern African societies.

The article is organised around two interconnected themes that examine the material and symbolic significance of cattle in lobola and the implications of modernisation, continuity and change, particularly the increasing use of money. The first theme examines cattle as both material wealth and a medium through which marriage, family organisation, gender relations and economic exchange were structured. Although cattle constituted valuable property that could be transferred between families, their significance extended beyond their economic worth. They participated in establishing marriage relationships, acknowledging obligations between families and maintaining kinship ties. Historical accounts illustrate these wider meanings. Schapera (1940, pp. 83–84), for example, discusses bogadi among the Bakgatla in relation to thanksgiving and the loss of services associated with marriage. Kuper (1982, pp. 15–16, 21–22, 117–18) examines the associations between cattle, fertility, reproduction, ancestry and family continuity. Comaroff and Comaroff (1990, pp. 195–216) further demonstrate that cattle and commodities acquire meaning through the social relationships in which exchange takes place. These perspectives show why lobola cannot be understood solely as a transfer of property: economic exchange was embedded in broader systems of kinship, social obligations and cultural meaning. The discussion also considers how these relationships intersected with gender relations and the organisation of marriage and family life.

The second theme examines modernisation, continuity and change, focusing on the increasing use of money in lobola and the implications of this transition for the institution’s economic and cultural meanings. The substitution of money for cattle changes the material form of the exchange and makes its monetary value more explicit, measurable and negotiable. However, this change does not necessarily eliminate the social relationships and obligations historically associated with cattle. Comaroff and Comaroff (1990, pp. 200, 209–11) explore the relationship between cattle and money in Tswana society, demonstrating the importance of understanding monetary exchange within its wider social and historical context. Their discussion complicates the assumption that monetisation represents a straightforward movement from tradition to commercialisation. Instead, the transition raises questions about how the meanings attached to cattle are maintained, adapted or contested when the medium of exchange changes. The historical evidence therefore provides a basis for examining contemporary commercialisation without assuming either that cultural meanings remain unchanged or that the introduction of money necessarily erases them.

The court cases connect these two themes by illustrating how customary marriage practices, family participation and social obligations are interpreted in contemporary legal contexts. Mabena v Letsoalo and Mbungela and Another v Mkabi and Others provide examples for examining the role of families and the practices through which customary marriages are negotiated and recognised. Muvhali v Lukhele and Others [2022] ZAGPJHC 402 provides a further context for considering the ritual and symbolic significance attributed to cattle and customary practices in the integration of marriage partners and their families. The discussions of Tshongweni v Kwankwa and Nduli v Minister of Home Affairs and Others contribute to the analysis of contemporary legal interpretations, insofar as these judgments address the issues examined in the manuscript. Considered alongside the historical evidence, the cases help demonstrate how the social and cultural dimensions of lobola are interpreted and negotiated under changing circumstances. They also provide a basis for considering whether changes in the material form of lobola alter the relationships and obligations associated with it, or whether some of these meanings continue to be expressed in different ways.

Taken together, the two themes establish the relationship between the historical significance of cattle and the contemporary transformation of lobola. The precolonial evidence demonstrates that cattle operated within social systems in which economic value was inseparable from marriage, kinship, reproduction and family continuity. The increasing use of money transforms the medium through which lobola is expressed, while raising questions about the persistence and renegotiation of these wider meanings. The article consequently approaches contemporary commercialisation as a process involving both continuity and change, rather than as a simple replacement of cultural practice by economic calculation. By bringing historical evidence into dialogue with contemporary legal cases, it examines how the material, social and cultural dimensions of lobola are sustained, transformed and contested within changing social and economic circumstances.

2. Historical Background: The Problem of Incomplete Accounts of Lobola

The significance of bridewealth becomes clearer when its consequences for kinship are considered. The transfer of bridewealth established rights and obligations extending beyond the immediate marriage arrangement, including claims concerning women, children and wider kin relationships (Kuper 2016, pp. 267–68). Bridewealth could therefore connect individuals and families through reciprocal obligations that continued beyond the moment of payment. Among Sotho-Tswana communities, contributions to a nephew’s bridewealth could create claims over bridewealth received in subsequent marriages within the kin group, while bridewealth obligations could also be inherited and renegotiated in circumstances such as childlessness, separation, divorce and death (Kuper 2016, pp. 268–69). These practices indicate that bridewealth operated through networks of reciprocity extending across households and generations. Its economic dimension was consequently embedded in a wider social system rather than functioning as an independent commercial transaction.

This historical evidence distinguishes the material value of bridewealth from the social purposes that the transfer served. A payment could involve the movement of valuable property while simultaneously creating obligations between families and establishing claims within systems of kinship. Bridewealth received through one marriage could also contribute to another marriage, allowing material resources to circulate through networks of related families (Kuper 2016, p. 269). The economic transfer was therefore part of the reproduction of social relationships rather than an exchange that ended once property changed hands. This distinction is essential for interpreting the subsequent transformation of bridewealth because a change in its material form cannot automatically be assumed to represent a complete change in its social meaning. The distinction between economic exchange and social meaning can be developed further through Comaroff and Comaroff’s understanding of the relationship between material practices and social reproduction. Their work cautions against treating economic practices as analytically separable from the social and cultural relations within which they operate. Applied to lobola, this means that the transfer of cattle should not be interpreted as an isolated economic transaction in which one family simply surrendered property in return for access to another family’s daughter. The exchange was part of a wider process through which marriage, kinship, reproduction and relations between families were constituted and reproduced (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, pp. 195, 98).

Primary historical accounts provide further evidence of this relational character of bridewealth. Bullock’s description of Tsonga marriage practices illustrates a process involving negotiation, mediation, gift-giving and reciprocal interaction between the families of the prospective spouses. The prospective husband (mukwasha) was expected to conduct negotiations through an intermediary, commonly referred to as a dombo or munyai, who approached the bride’s father with a gift or token, which could include hoes. Acceptance of the gift initiated further interaction between the families. Bullock further describes how the prospective husband sent the intermediary with specially prepared firewood to the bride’s mother, whose acceptance was signalled through hospitality towards the messenger. The prospective husband remained nearby during this process, and on the following day the prospective bride located him and brought him food and water, which they shared (Bullock 1927, p. 215). Although material objects were exchanged, the process involved a sequence of negotiations, gestures and reciprocal acts through which relationships between the prospective spouses and their families were established and recognised. The account therefore provides primary historical evidence that the material dimension of bridewealth operated within a wider process of social interaction and family formation.

Bullock’s account becomes particularly significant when considered alongside his discussion of Professor A. R. Radcliffe-Brown’s observations on the meaning of lobola. As reported in the Cape Times in January 1924, Radcliffe-Brown challenged the assumption that Africans associated lobola with “purchase” in the conventional European commercial sense (Bullock 1927, p. 217). He similarly questioned the proposition that payment made a wife the “property” of her husband. Rather, he observed that lobola established particular customary rights, especially in relation to the children of the marriage. Where lobola had not been paid, he stated, children could remain associated with the mother and her people, whereas payment established particular rights and claims over the children (Bullock 1927, p. 217). This observation is important because it shifts attention away from the proposition that cattle were simply exchanged for a woman as an object of property and towards the wider consequences of the marriage payment for children, descent and kinship. Even where the language of property or purchase was used, the social and legal significance of lobola extended into the organisation of familial rights and relationships.

Bullock’s discussion also demonstrates that the material form of bridewealth varied across Southern African societies. In his discussion of the Mashona, he distinguishes cattle associated with ancestral or sacred purposes from cattle transferred as bridewealth and cautions against treating these categories as equivalent. He further records that bridewealth did not necessarily consist of cattle and could include goats, hoes and, increasingly, money. In one community, hoes were reportedly used in a practice involving the symbolic “circling” of the hut as part of the process of obtaining a wife before cattle became sufficiently numerous to assume greater importance (Bullock 1927, pp. 218–19). This evidence is important because it cautions against treating cattle as the universal or exclusive form of bridewealth. The institution existed in different material forms, shaped by particular economic, social and historical circumstances.

At the same time, Bullock’s observations concerning the status of cattle among the Mashona should not be generalised to Southern African societies as a whole. The fact that cattle were not necessarily regarded as sacred qua cattle in every community does not preclude them from acquiring religious, reproductive or ancestral significance within particular systems of social organisation. Evidence concerning Tswana, Ndebele, Pedi, Zulu, Basotho, Venda and other societies indicates that cattle could be associated with fertility, reproduction, ancestral relationships and social continuity (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 21–22; Schapera 1940, pp. 138–40). The significance of cattle must therefore be understood contextually. Their value was not inherent in cattle as a uniform category of objects but was constituted through the particular social and cultural relationships in which they circulated.

Bullock’s description of negotiation, gifts, hospitality and family interaction, the evidence complicates a straightforward understanding of lobola as the purchase of a woman. The primary sources instead reveal an institution in which material exchange was connected to marriage negotiations, family relationships, rights concerning children and wider systems of kinship. Taken together, these historical accounts support a more differentiated understanding of lobola. They demonstrate the need to distinguish between the material form of bridewealth, the social relationships and obligations constituted through its negotiation, and the conceptual categories through which those practices were interpreted. The distinction between economic exchange and social meaning is therefore central to the historical interpretation of lobola. Precolonial bridewealth involved the transfer of material wealth, but that transfer operated through systems of kinship, reciprocity, marriage and social obligation that extended beyond the immediate exchange. The movement towards monetary payments increased the visibility of the economic dimension without necessarily eliminating the wider relationships and obligations associated with the institution. The historical problem is consequently not whether lobola was economic or cultural, but how its economic form was embedded within a broader social institution and how changes in that form affected the ways in which its meanings and obligations were expressed. Establishing this distinction provides the basis for examining why cattle themselves cannot be understood merely as property.

The primary evidence also reveals that African marriage practices were interpreted through competing conceptual frameworks. Henri-Alexandre Junod’s The Life of a South African Tribe provides an important contemporaneous ethnographic and missionary account of Tsonga society, including marriage and bridewealth practices. His observations are valuable as historical evidence because they were based on his engagement with Tsonga communities through observation and interviews. However, his interpretation must be read critically because his understanding of African social institutions was shaped by his missionary position and by European ideas concerning Christianity, civilisation, marriage and morality.

This interpretive framework is particularly evident in Junod’s treatment of lobola. He characterised the institution through concepts of purchase, ownership and the subordination of women, arguing that lobola gave husbands extensive rights over their wives and contributed to the degradation of women (Junod 1927, p. 264). He subsequently described lobola as an “evil practice” and argued for its abolition on the grounds that it was incompatible with Christian marriage (Junod 1927, pp. 268–70). He also situated his criticism within a broader conception of European civilisation, arguing that lobola was incompatible with what he regarded as an enlightened conception of Western political, civil and religious life (Junod 1927, pp. 266–67). These statements are significant not simply as descriptions of lobola but as evidence of the interpretive categories through which African institutions were represented by colonial and missionary observers. Junod should therefore be read by distinguishing his descriptions of observed practices from his normative interpretation of their meaning. His account provides valuable historical evidence of Tsonga marriage practices, but his characterisation of lobola as purchase or ownership reflects a particular intellectual and religious framework.

A significant counterpoint to such interpretations is provided by John Henderson Soga in The Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs (Henderson Soga 1931). Writing from within the intellectual and historical context of early twentieth-century South Africa, Soga explicitly challenged the characterisation of lobola as the purchase of a woman. His intervention is particularly important because it provides an African-authored historical account that directly contests the conceptual equivalence between lobola, purchase and ownership. Soga cautioned against generalising about lobola across African societies, observing that although the institution was widely practised, it operated according to different customary systems among different communities (Henderson Soga 1931, pp. 261–64). This qualification is consistent with the broader argument of this article that the meaning of lobola must be reconstructed within particular historical and cultural contexts rather than reduced to a universal economic category. More significantly, Soga rejected the proposition that lobola constituted the purchase of a woman. Addressing the claim that a woman was “bought” through lobola and consequently became her husband’s slave, he characterised this interpretation as a fundamental misconception of the institution (Henderson Soga 1931, p. 269).

For Soga, the critical issue was the failure to distinguish between a material transfer and the social institution within which that transfer occurred. His argument was not that cattle lacked economic value, but that their transfer could not, by itself, establish that a woman had become the property of her husband. Lobola operated within a customary framework of rights, obligations and relationships that placed limits upon the husband’s authority. Soga’s discussion therefore provides an important historical qualification to interpretations that treat the material transfer involved in lobola as equivalent to a commercial transaction involving the purchase of a person.

This argument is particularly significant for the present study because Soga links lobola to the social status and protection of married women. He argues that customary institutions provided married women with recognised forms of protection and contends that lobola was connected to obligations concerning the treatment and security of the wife (Henderson Soga 1931, pp. 263, 275–79). His formulation that “Protection is the very soul of lobola—protection for the woman” (Henderson Soga 1931, p. 279) is especially significant because it identifies a social function of lobola that is obscured when the institution is analysed exclusively through the categories of property and exchange.

Soga’s account should not, however, be treated as conclusive evidence that customary marriage was uniformly protective of women or free from relations of inequality. His writing was produced within the colonial intellectual environment of the early twentieth century and relies substantially upon the testimony of colonial officials and Native Affairs Commissions. It should therefore be read critically and comparatively rather than as an uncontested description of customary law. Its importance lies instead in demonstrating that the reduction in lobola to purchase was already being challenged in historical debates contemporaneous with colonial representations of African marriage.

Read in this way, Soga provides an important bridge between the earlier ethnographic accounts and the argument developed in this article. His analysis demonstrates that the central historical problem is not whether lobola involved material exchange—it clearly did—but whether material exchange adequately explains the institution. His answer is emphatically negative. Lobola involved material value, but that value operated within a wider system of family relationships, reciprocal obligations, marriage and social protection. This distinction provides an important historical basis for the argument that the later substitution of money for cattle should not automatically be equated with the transformation of lobola into a purely commercial institution.

Historical accounts of lobola often identify the material transfer involved in bridewealth without fully explaining the cultural meanings that made cattle significant within the institution. Terms such as “transfer of property”, “transfer of livestock”, “transfer of wealth”, “cattle transfer” and “transaction of sale” describe important aspects of bridewealth, since cattle were indeed valuable property transferred between families as part of marriage arrangements (Krige and Comaroff 1981; Hennon and Wilson 2008, pp. 187–88; Schapera 1940, pp. 83–84; Marks and Rathbone 1982, pp. 142–94). Yet identifying what was transferred does not, by itself, explain why cattle occupied such an important position in bridewealth or what they represented within the societies that used them. Where historical evidence shows that cattle carried meanings extending beyond material exchange, treating lobola primarily as a transfer of wealth does not fully account for its wider social and cultural significance (Kuper 1982, pp. 10, 15–16, 21–22; Schapera 1940, pp. 83–84). The problem, therefore, is not that economic descriptions are necessarily inaccurate, but that they can become incomplete when the material transaction is separated from the cultural and social relationships through which it acquired meaning.

Precolonial bridewealth cannot be understood as a uniform institution because the meanings and materials associated with it differed across southern African societies. Among the Venda Lovedu, bridewealth was associated with “building a house”, linking the exchange to the establishment of a homestead and the continuation of family relationships, while among the Pedi, the value attached to cattle was reflected in practices surrounding the concealment and subsequent production of additional cattle during negotiations (Krige and Comaroff 1981, pp. 8, 14). The materials used for bridewealth also varied, with barkcloth and goats among the Chopi and cattle or hoes among the Tsonga (Krige and Comaroff 1981, p. 20). Such differences demonstrate that the significance of bridewealth depended upon particular systems of marriage, kinship and social organisation rather than upon a single universal meaning. Historical analysis must therefore avoid treating cattle as possessing one fixed meaning across precolonial Southern Africa and instead examine how their significance was constituted within specific cultural contexts.

The meanings attached to bridewealth also extended beyond the transfer of animals to the relationships and obligations established through that transfer. Among the Bakgatla, bogadi formed an essential part of marriage, to the extent that cohabitation was not regarded as a completed marriage until the required animals had been given (Schapera 1940, p. 83). The Kgatla understood bogadi in terms of thanksgiving to a bride’s parents for raising her and gratitude for permitting her to marry, while some also associated it with compensation for the loss of her services (Schapera 1940, p. 83). These understandings locate cattle within a network of relationships between the bride, her parents, the groom’s family and the wider kin groups involved in marriage. They also challenge interpretations that equate bridewealth straightforwardly with the purchase of women. Indeed, the historical record shows that European observers could interpret the transfer of property as evidence of purchase while overlooking the meanings that the Kgatla themselves attached to bogadi (Schapera 1940, p. 84). The distinction is important because it demonstrates that the material transfer of cattle cannot be separated from the social obligations and relationships that gave the transfer its significance.

In Tswana society, cattle derived their significance from their role in marriage and the continuation of family life, rather than from their economic value alone. Their association with rain and childbearing further situated them within Tswana understandings of marriage and reproduction (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 21).

Cattle also featured in understandings of conception and legitimate personhood (Kuper 1982, pp. 22, 117–18). Kuper notes that they could be regarded as originating from ancestors and that this understanding shaped the exchange of bridewealth. In cases where bridewealth remained incomplete, this could be interpreted as a withholding of reproductive capacity by a woman’s ancestors (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16).

Such evidence demonstrates that the value of cattle within lobola was not exhausted by their capacity to function as wealth. Their material presence was embedded in a wider social and cosmological order through which marriage, fertility and family reproduction were understood. Their significance therefore extended beyond their material form, reflecting the wider meanings attached to marriage and the continuation of social relationships.

The period of industrialisation and social change between approximately 1870 and 1930 provides an important historical context for understanding changing economic conditions and their effects on customary institutions in South Africa (Marks and Rathbone 1982, pp. 142–94). These changes formed part of the broader circumstances in which monetary forms of bridewealth became increasingly possible. Yet the emergence of money as an alternative to cattle does not demonstrate that cattle had previously functioned only as economic assets. Das’s discussion of the Swazi community in the first half of the nineteenth century indicates that, although cash had replaced cattle in lobola payments in several Eastern and Southern African societies, the comparatively limited monetisation of lobola in contemporary Swaziland suggested that cattle continued to be valued for more than their economic worth (Das 1993, p. 99). The historical significance of this evidence lies in the distinction it makes between the economic capacity of cattle to be replaced and the cultural meanings that could continue to be associated with them.

The shift from cattle to money therefore raises a historical question that cannot be answered by tracing economic change alone: what happened to the meanings and relationships previously expressed through cattle when the material form of bridewealth changed? If cattle operated within systems of fertility, ancestry, kinship, marriage and family continuity, their replacement by money represented more than a simple substitution of one form of wealth for another. It altered the material medium through which obligations between families were expressed and potentially changed how those relationships were understood and negotiated. The significance of this transformation can only be assessed by first establishing the historical meanings attached to cattle within the societies that used them as bridewealth. This provides the necessary foundation for examining how colonialism, Christianity, industrialisation, monetisation and urbanisation transformed, displaced, retained or reconstructed those meanings in later periods. The history of lobola must therefore account not only for the movement from cattle to money but also for the cultural and relational system in which that material transformation occurred.

3. The Problem of Reducing Lobola to Economic Exchange

Reducing lobola to an economic exchange obscures the social relationships and obligations through which bridewealth historically operated. Cattle and other forms of bridewealth were undoubtedly valuable and were transferred between families, making economic exchange an important dimension of the institution. However, the transfer of material wealth alone does not explain the wider system in which bridewealth was embedded. In precolonial Southern African societies, marriage, household organisation and kinship were closely connected to economic, political and religious institutions, while relationships among people, cattle and ancestors formed part of the organisation of social life (Kuper 2016, p. 267). Lobola should therefore be understood not simply as the movement of transferable wealth, but as a practice through which relationships between families were established and obligations were recognised.

The significance of bridewealth becomes clearer when its consequences for kinship are considered. The transfer of bridewealth established rights and obligations extending beyond the immediate marriage arrangement, including claims concerning women, children and wider kin relationships (Kuper 2016, pp. 267–68). Bridewealth could therefore connect individuals and families through reciprocal obligations that continued beyond the moment of payment. Among Sotho-Tswana communities, contributions to a nephew’s bridewealth could create claims over bridewealth received in subsequent marriages within the kin group, while bridewealth obligations could also be inherited and renegotiated in circumstances such as childlessness, separation, divorce and death (Kuper 2016, pp. 268–69).

This broader understanding of customary marriage is also reflected in Mabena v Letsoalo 1998 (2) SA 1068 (T). Although the case concerned the validity of a customary marriage, the Court expressly recognised that customary marriage was not purely a matter between the bride and bridegroom, describing it as a “group concern” involving the relationship between two groups of relatives. The Court distinguished between the marriage agreement and the lobola agreement, explaining that different members of the respective families traditionally played roles in these processes. Significantly, the Court held that the absence of the bridegroom’s father’s participation did not invalidate the marriage where an independent adult man had himself negotiated and paid lobola. At the same time, the Court recognised the role of the bride’s mother, who had become the head of her family after the bride’s father had abandoned the family, in negotiating for and receiving lobola (Mabena v Letsoalo 1998 (2) SA 1068 (T) at 1072–1075). The case therefore provides concrete legal evidence that lobola and customary marriage are situated within wider kinship structures rather than being reducible to a private financial transaction between two individuals.

Importantly, Mabena also illustrates that these kinship structures should not be understood as fixed or exclusively determined by historically documented rules. The Court distinguished between the “official version” of customary law recorded by earlier writers and the “living law” actually observed by African communities. On that basis, it recognised the capacity of customary law to develop in response to changing social circumstances, including circumstances in which an adult bridegroom negotiated and paid his own lobola or a woman acting as head of her household negotiated and received lobola. Mabena thus reinforces the view that the economic dimension of bridewealth is embedded within a broader system of kinship, reciprocity and social obligation.

A similar understanding emerges from the Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision in Mbungela and Another v Mkabi and Others 2020 (1) SA 41 (SCA), which provides a concrete example of how lobola operates through relationships between families. In that case, the prospective husband’s family sent emissaries to the woman’s family to negotiate lobola. The families agreed on R12 000 and a live cow, of which R9 000 was immediately paid. The payment was accompanied by an exchange of gifts, including clothing for the bride’s guardian and mother, a blanket, headscarf, snuff boxes, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, while the bride’s family also provided gifts to the groom’s emissaries. Importantly, the bride’s family representative described the exchange of gifts as symbolising “the combination of a relationship between the bride and the groom and the families” (Mbungela v Mkabi 2020 (1) SA 41 (SCA) para. 5). The groom subsequently delivered the live cow to the bride’s family. These facts demonstrate that the material components of lobola were accompanied by symbolic exchanges through which relationships between the two families were created and acknowledged.

Read together with Mabena, the cases demonstrate both the collective and relational character of customary marriage and the adaptability of customary law. In Mbungela, the Supreme Court of Appeal similarly emphasised that customary law is dynamic, flexible and responsive to the lived practices of communities.

This historical evidence distinguishes the material value of bridewealth from the social purposes that the transfer served. A payment could involve the movement of valuable property while simultaneously creating obligations between families and establishing claims within systems of kinship. Bridewealth received through one marriage could also contribute to another marriage, allowing material resources to circulate through networks of related families (Kuper 2016, p. 269). This perspective also complicates the opposition between “economic” and “cultural” interpretations of lobola. The cattle involved in bridewealth were economic resources precisely because they were embedded in a social system that gave them particular value and uses. Their material value and cultural significance were therefore not mutually exclusive. Rather, the two dimensions were historically interconnected. Cattle could be accumulated, transferred and inherited while simultaneously participating in the reproduction of kinship relations and the establishment of marital obligations. The economic dimension of lobola should consequently be understood as one component of a broader social institution rather than as evidence that the institution was fundamentally commercial (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, pp. 195–98).

The relationship between economic exchange and social obligations also raises questions about gender relations. Vengesayi (2018), writing about lobola in Zimbabwe, argues that monetisation and commercialisation can intensify the tendency to assign monetary value to marriage payments, potentially reinforcing perceptions of women as commodities and existing gender inequalities. Although her analysis concerns the Zimbabwean context, it highlights an important question for understanding lobola more broadly: how does the increasing emphasis on monetary value affect the relationships and obligations that the institution establishes between families? This concern reinforces the need to distinguish between the economic dimension of lobola and the wider social meanings through which the exchange is negotiated and understood.

The relational character of lobola is also emphasised by Baloyi (2016), whose discussion cautions against reducing the practice to a monetary transaction. Although the term “payment” is commonly used, Baloyi argues that lobolo is better understood within the network of relationships created between the families of the prospective spouses. In his account, the exchange is associated with gratitude towards the bride’s family, family recognition and the incorporation of the couple into a wider social and communal structure (Baloyi 2016). This understanding is important for interpreting the historical movement from cattle to money. If cattle historically operated not merely as objects of economic value but also as material expressions of relationships, obligations and family continuity, their replacement by money does not necessarily mean that these wider functions disappeared. Rather, the material medium through which lobola was expressed changed, while aspects of the customary institution could remain embedded in family negotiations and social relationships. At the same time, the increasing use of money makes the economic dimension of lobola more explicit, since a monetary amount can be quantified, negotiated and assessed in terms of financial affordability in ways that are less directly apparent when cattle constitute the principal medium. Baloyi’s distinction between lobolo as a monetary “payment” and its wider relational significance therefore provides a useful framework for examining whether monetisation transformed the institution itself or primarily altered the material form through which its customary meanings were expressed.

This distinction becomes especially important when considering monetisation. The introduction and increasing importance of money did not create the economic dimension of lobola; rather, it changed the form in which economic value was represented and negotiated. What changed was the relationship between material value and the social relations through which that value was constituted. In this respect, the transition from cattle to money can be understood as part of a broader historical transformation in which new forms of economic calculation and exchange became increasingly important within existing social institutions. The commercialisation of lobola should therefore be analysed as a transformation of an already materially embedded social institution, rather than as the simple replacement of culture by commerce.

The monetisation of lobola in South Africa made its financial dimension increasingly visible. As monetary payments became more prominent, the value of lobola could be expressed, counted, compared and negotiated in explicitly financial terms. Changes associated with the regulation and standardisation of bridewealth, together with the increasing treatment of payments as financial benefits, contributed to the conditions in which lobola could increasingly be understood in economic terms (Hosegood et al. 2009, p. 283ff.; Posel and Rudwick 2014, pp. 55–56, 62ff.). Contemporary concerns about affordability and financial pressure are therefore important consequences of the changing material form of lobola. Yet the greater visibility of monetary value does not establish that economic value constitutes the whole meaning of the institution. It instead demonstrates how a change in material form can make one dimension of lobola more visible than others.

The distinction between economic exchange and social meaning is therefore central to the historical interpretation of lobola. Precolonial bridewealth involved the transfer of material wealth, but that transfer operated through systems of kinship, reciprocity, marriage and social obligation that extended beyond the immediate exchange. The movement towards monetary payments increased the visibility of the economic dimension without necessarily eliminating the wider relationships and obligations associated with the institution. The historical problem is consequently not whether lobola was economic or cultural, but how its economic form was embedded within a broader social institution and how changes in that form affected the ways in which its meanings and obligations were expressed. Establishing this distinction provides the basis for examining why cattle themselves cannot be understood merely as property.

4. Why Cattle Cannot Be Understood Merely as Property

Cattle cannot be understood merely as property because their role in bridewealth extended into the social and cultural relationships that marriage established between families. Cattle were valuable forms of wealth and their transfer constituted an important material dimension of bridewealth. Yet their significance was shaped by the institutions of marriage, kinship and family life within which they circulated. Among the Bakgatla, for example, bogadi could express thanksgiving to a bride’s parents, gratitude for raising her and recognition of the loss of her services (Schapera 1940, pp. 83–84). The significance of the cattle therefore lay not only in their material value but also in the relationships and obligations expressed through their transfer. Ferguson’s (1985, pp. 653–54, 658–59) analysis of rural Lesotho further illustrates why cattle cannot be understood simply as economic assets interchangeable with money. Despite extensive monetisation of the economy, livestock retained a distinctive social position and were not freely convertible into cash. Ferguson explains that livestock were embedded in relationships between households through bridewealth, reciprocity, patronage and community obligations. Their significance therefore extended beyond productive or market value to encompass the social relationships they helped establish and sustain. He further observes that cattle could provide bridewealth-receiving elders with more visible and socially recognised claims than cash (Ferguson 1985, pp. 666–67). This distinction demonstrates that the form of wealth transferred matters because different forms of exchange can organise social relationships and obligations differently.

Frescura’s (2015, pp. 65–66, 79–82) discussion of material culture provides a complementary perspective. His analysis cautions against assuming that changes in visible material forms necessarily correspond to equivalent changes in underlying social and cosmological systems. Applied to lobola, this distinction helps explain why the replacement of cattle with money cannot, on its own, establish that the institution’s social and cultural significance has disappeared. The relevant question is how changing material forms affect the meanings, relationships and obligations associated with lobola, rather than whether material change automatically signifies cultural discontinuity.

Soga’s account provides an additional historical basis for distinguishing the material value of lobola from the social meaning of the institution. His rejection of the proposition that a woman became the property of her husband following the payment of lobola is significant precisely because it separates the transfer of cattle from the legal and social status of the woman. In his account, the payment generated obligations concerning the woman’s welfare and treatment rather than conferring unrestricted ownership upon the husband (Henderson Soga 1931, pp. 269, 275–79). Lobola could therefore involve the transfer of valuable property without reducing the woman herself to property. This distinction is central to the argument developed here: the economic character of cattle and the social meaning of their transfer were not mutually exclusive. Cattle could constitute material wealth while simultaneously participating in a system of marriage, kinship, reciprocity and social obligation.

This relational character of bridewealth is particularly clear in the testimony recorded by the 1883 Cape Commission on Native Laws and Customs. When questioned by colonial administrators, Thembu and Mpondo elders defended the institution against European interpretations and described the transfer of cattle as an agreement intended to bind two extended families together (Cape of Good Hope (Colony) Government Commission on Native Laws and Customs 1883, p. 68). Their testimony provides direct historical evidence of how African authorities explained the social purpose of lobola to colonial officials. The cattle were understood as part of a formal arrangement carrying consequences beyond the immediate transfer, including the protection of the wife against mistreatment, the legitimacy and lineage placement of children, and continuing obligations between the respective kin groups (Cape of Good Hope (Colony) Government Commission on Native Laws and Customs 1883, p. 68). The evidence therefore locates lobola within a system of marriage, kinship and mutual responsibility rather than treating it simply as a commercial exchange.

Cattle also participated in systems of reciprocity that extended beyond the immediate families of a married couple. Bridewealth could establish rights and obligations involving women, children and wider kin, while contributions to a marriage could generate claims within subsequent marriages (Kuper 2016, pp. 267–69). Such practices demonstrate that cattle circulated through relationships that connected households and generations. Their movement through bridewealth consequently had social consequences that could continue long after the initial transfer. Cattle were therefore not simply assets whose ownership changed between families; they formed part of a system through which kinship relationships and reciprocal obligations were maintained.

The significance of cattle becomes more distinctive when their association with fertility and reproduction is considered. In Tswana contexts, cattle were connected with rain, fertility and the continuation of the family, while expressions linking cattle to children associated them directly with reproduction (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 21). The expression re nesa pula, for example, connected bridewealth with rain and fertility, while the idea that “cattle beget children” linked cattle with reproduction and family continuity (Kuper 1982, p. 16). These associations placed cattle within a wider understanding of marriage as a process through which families reproduced themselves. Their importance in bridewealth therefore cannot be explained solely by their capacity to provide material wealth.

The relationship between cattle and reproduction also extended to the social recognition of children. Marriage was connected not only to the relationship between husband and wife but also to the position of children within systems of descent, kinship and social belonging. Bridewealth was consequently associated with legitimate personhood and with the rights attached to legitimate children (Kuper 1982, pp. 21–22, 117–18; Schapera 1946, p. 115). Cattle were thus implicated in a process through which biological reproduction acquired social recognition. Their significance extended beyond the production of children to the establishment of their recognised place within families and communities.

These reproductive meanings were also embedded within relationships with the ancestors. Schapera observes that a beast was slaughtered in order “to secure for the bride the blessings of her ancestors” (Schapera 1946, p. 115). The ritual significance of the animal therefore extended beyond its material or economic value, situating the marriage within a relationship between the bride, her kin and the ancestral realm. A contemporary judicial example of this connection between cattle, marriage and ancestral relationships appears in Muvhali v Lukhele and Others (21/34140) [2022] ZAGPJHC 402. In that case, the respondents described Swati marriage practices in which the groom’s family slaughtered a cow as a sign of acceptance of the new makoti, followed by the pouring of cow bile on her head in the ukubikwa ritual, which represented her introduction to the ancestors of the groom’s family (Muvhali v Lukhele [2022] ZAGPJHC 402 para. 35). The bride’s family was similarly expected to slaughter a cow and pour bile on the groom as a sign of recognising him as their mkhwenyana, with the exchange of portions of the slaughtered cattle completing the acceptance and integration of the marriage bonds between the families (para. 36). These practices provide concrete evidence that cattle used in marriage rituals could operate as more than transferable property: the slaughtered animal participated in processes of acceptance, ancestral recognition and the integration of families.

The Court ultimately emphasised that customary law is a living, flexible and pragmatic system and recognised the significance of the parties’ conduct and the families’ acknowledgement of their relationship (Muvhali v Lukhele [2022] ZAGPJHC 402 paras 55–64). Although the Court did not decide the validity of the marriage solely on the performance of the cattle rituals described by the respondents, its discussion demonstrates the wider social meaning attached to cattle within the customary marriage practices at issue. The cow was connected simultaneously to the acceptance of the bride, the recognition of the groom, the relationship between the two families and the introduction of the bride into the ancestral world. This accords with Kuper’s observation that conception could be understood through ancestral intervention and that cattle were associated with ancestral sources of generative power (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 22). Cattle involved in marriage could thus participate in a wider symbolic and social system in which reproduction was understood not simply as a biological process, but as one mediated by relationships between the living and previous generations. Bridewealth consequently had significance beyond the transfer of livestock or property: it formed part of a broader process through which marriage established social belonging, facilitated reproduction and reaffirmed continuity between ancestors. Cattle involved in marriage could thus participate in a wider symbolic and social system in which reproduction was understood not simply as a biological process, but as one mediated by relationships between the living and previous generations. Bridewealth consequently had significance beyond the transfer of livestock or property: it formed part of a broader process through which marriage established social belonging, facilitated reproduction and reaffirmed continuity between ancestors, families and descendants. The meanings attached to cattle were not identical across precolonial Southern African societies. Their significance was shaped by particular systems of marriage, kinship and social organisation. Among the Venda Lovedu, for instance, bridewealth was associated with the idea of “building a house”, connecting the exchange to the establishment of a social and familial unit, while different communities used different materials and attached different meanings to bridewealth practices (Krige and Comaroff 1981, pp. 8, 14, 20). Zulu social organisation likewise placed cattle within broader structures of marriage, kinship and social status (Krige 1965, pp. 148–50). Such variation makes it inappropriate to assign cattle a single universal meaning across Southern Africa. It does not, however, undermine the broader argument. Rather, it demonstrates that the significance of cattle was historically produced within particular cultural institutions and relationships.

The economic value of cattle therefore constituted one dimension of their significance rather than its complete explanation. Cattle could function as wealth, generate material claims and contribute to the economic organisation of marriage and family life (Hennon and Wilson 2008, p. 187). At the same time, they were embedded in kinship, reciprocity, fertility, reproduction, legitimate personhood, ancestry and family continuity. The distinction is therefore not between economic and cultural meanings as mutually exclusive categories. It is between recognising economic value as one aspect of cattle and treating that value as sufficient to explain their position within bridewealth.

This distinction is crucial for understanding the later transformation of lobola. If cattle functioned simultaneously as material wealth and as part of relationships and cultural understandings surrounding marriage, reproduction, ancestry and family continuity, their replacement by money cannot be interpreted simply as the substitution of one economically valuable object for another. The change in material form altered the medium through which bridewealth relationships and obligations were expressed. Evidence that cattle could continue to be valued for more than their economic worth even where cash increasingly replaced them reinforces the need to distinguish material substitution from cultural transformation (Das 1993, pp. 23, 99). The historical significance of the transition therefore lies partly in what happened to the meanings and relationships that had previously been expressed through cattle.

Cattle were consequently more than transferable wealth within precolonial bridewealth systems. Their significance was produced through the relationships in which they circulated and through understandings of marriage, fertility, reproduction, legitimate personhood, ancestry and family continuity. These meanings varied across societies, but their variation demonstrates precisely why cattle should be understood within their particular historical contexts rather than reduced to property. Establishing this wider significance is necessary for assessing what changed when cattle were increasingly replaced by money and for determining whether that transformation should be understood as economic substitution alone or as a change in the ways cultural meanings and social obligations were expressed.

The connection between cattle and bridewealth is also explicit in the Comaroffs’ discussion of Kuper. They note Kuper’s argument that the exchange of women for cattle constituted a central social transaction among Southern Bantu-speaking peoples and was connected to exchanges between the male domain of pastoral production and the female domain of agriculture, as well as to wider exchanges of goods and services (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 198). This interpretation supports the argument developed in this article that lobola was simultaneously economic and relational. The cattle transferred in bridewealth represented material wealth, but their circulation also connected productive activities, gendered social domains, marriage relationships and wider systems of reciprocity.

Comaroff and Comaroff’s argument is particularly significant because they do not romanticise precolonial cattle by treating them as purely sacred or non-economic. On the contrary, they explicitly analyse cattle through the concept of the commodity. Their point is that cattle possessed a distinctive capacity to connect material and social forms of value. They could serve as currency and capital while also embodying social relations and meanings (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 210). This provides a stronger basis for rejecting a simple opposition between “traditional” cultural lobola and modern economic lobola. The economic dimension was already present in precolonial bridewealth; what distinguishes the cattle-based system is that economic value was deeply embedded in a wider social and cultural order.

5. Lobola, Fertility and Legitimate Personhood

The relationship between lobola and fertility demonstrates that bridewealth was connected to the reproduction and continuity of families rather than functioning solely as a transfer of wealth. In precolonial Southern African societies, marriage was closely connected to expectations concerning childbirth, family continuity and the incorporation of children into kinship systems. The significance of cattle within bridewealth must therefore be considered in relation to the reproductive purposes of marriage and the social recognition that accompanied them.

The connection between cattle and reproduction was expressed through cultural understandings that associated cattle with the continuation of families. This was not a literal claim about biological reproduction. Rather, it reflected a social understanding in which cattle formed part of the institution through which marriage, fertility and family continuity were organised. The association is significant because it demonstrates that the value of cattle within bridewealth extended beyond their capacity to constitute material wealth. Their presence in the marriage exchange was connected to the reproductive purposes of the institution itself.

Fertility acquired further significance through the relationship between bridewealth and legitimate children. Bridewealth was associated with the recognition of children and with the social conditions under which children acquired recognised positions within families and communities (Kuper 1982, p. 22). Marriage therefore involved more than establishing a relationship between husband and wife. It also provided a framework within which children could be incorporated into systems of descent, kinship and belonging. Bridewealth consequently participated in both biological and social reproduction: while biological reproduction produced children, the social institution of marriage helped determine how those children were recognised and to which family relationships they belonged.

This distinction between biological and social reproduction is central to understanding the historical significance of lobola. Cattle transferred through lobola participated in a system in which marriage, childbirth, descent and social belonging were interconnected.

The reproductive significance of lobola also extended beyond the married couple to relationships with ancestors. Conception could be understood through ancestral intervention, while cattle were associated with ancestral sources of generative power (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 22). Reproduction was consequently not necessarily understood as a purely biological process occurring between two individuals. It could also involve relationships between the living and the ancestors and contribute to the continuity of the family across generations. Within this framework, cattle were situated within a broader understanding of marriage and reproduction that incorporated both social and ancestral dimensions.

These associations help explain why legitimate personhood is important to the historical interpretation of lobola. Bridewealth was connected to the establishment of recognised marital relationships and to the status of children produced within those relationships. It therefore participated in determining who belonged within particular families and kinship systems. The significance of cattle extended beyond the immediate marriage transaction because the obligations and relationships associated with bridewealth could shape the social incorporation of subsequent generations. Lobola was consequently concerned not only with establishing a marriage but also with the reproduction of the social relationships through which families and communities continued themselves.

The historical evidence does not, however, support treating these meanings as a single or universal Southern African conception of fertility or personhood. Ideas about reproduction, descent and social belonging were shaped by particular cultural systems and differed across communities. The significance of cattle must therefore be reconstructed within the specific historical contexts in which bridewealth operated rather than presented as an identical symbolic system throughout the region. What the evidence establishes more broadly is that, where cattle formed part of bridewealth, their significance could extend into questions of fertility, reproduction, descent and social belonging.

The relationship between fertility and legitimate personhood therefore adds an important dimension to the argument developed in the preceding sections. Cattle participated in a social system in which marriage was connected to reproduction, the recognition of children, descent and family continuity. Their significance consequently lay partly in the relationships and processes of social reproduction within which they circulated.

This history is essential for understanding the later transformation of lobola. If cattle were connected to fertility, reproduction, legitimate personhood and continuity between generations, their replacement by money involved a change in more than the economic medium of payment. It altered the material form through which these historically constituted relationships and obligations could be expressed. The significance of this change cannot be determined simply by observing that cattle were replaced by cash. It requires asking how the meanings historically associated with bridewealth were affected when the material form through which they had been expressed changed. That question provides the basis for the article’s later examination of monetisation and commercialisation.

6. What Happens When Cattle Become Money?

The movement from cattle to money represents a transformation in the material form of lobola, but it does not necessarily amount to a transformation from a cultural institution into a purely economic transaction. The preceding discussion has shown that cattle were embedded in relationships involving marriage, kinship, fertility, reproduction, ancestry and family continuity. Their replacement by money therefore changed the material medium through which bridewealth was expressed. The central historical question is consequently not simply why cattle were replaced, but what happened to the relationships, obligations and meanings that had been expressed through them. The transition from cattle to money is particularly revealing when examined through the work of Comaroff and Comaroff. Their study of the Tshidi demonstrates that colonial incorporation transformed the relationship between cattle, money and social life. By the late twentieth century, cattle ownership had declined substantially, and ordinary Tshidi described this transformation through the expression “money has eaten our beasts” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 200). The expression captures more than the economic decline of cattle. It describes a transformation in which the expansion of monetary relations undermined the social and material conditions through which cattle had previously operated as important media of social value.

The Comaroffs show that the transformation did not simply result in the disappearance of cattle from social meaning. Even where cash increasingly replaced livestock, cattle remained an important symbolic and conceptual reference. Marriage transactions, court fines, patronage loans and payments to healers continued to be reckoned in terms of cattle, even when the cattle themselves existed only as nominal values. The Tshidi referred to these as “cattle without legs” (dikgomo tse di se nang maoto) (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 209). This is particularly significant for the history of lobola because it demonstrates that monetary substitution did not immediately eliminate the cultural framework associated with cattle. Rather, the monetary payment could continue to be expressed through a bovine idiom.

Comaroff and Comaroff explain that these “cattle without legs” were used in transactions involving changes in status, including bridewealth, initiation, fines and damages (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 209). Unlike ordinary market transactions, their nominal values were deliberately disconnected from prevailing commercial prices. Their value was therefore not simply their market equivalent. The discrepancy between the nominal value of the symbolic animal and the commercial price of actual cattle served to distinguish these transactions from ordinary market exchange (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 209). In this respect, symbolic cattle continued to mark relationships and transactions as belonging to a distinctive social domain.

This evidence is crucial to understanding the transformation of lobola. The replacement of cattle by money did not necessarily mean that bridewealth became an ordinary market transaction. Instead, monetary value could be incorporated into an existing cultural system in which cattle remained the conceptual measure of socially significant relationships. The “cattle without legs” can therefore be interpreted as a form of cultural translation: money entered the institution, but the meaning and social significance of the transaction could continue to be articulated through cattle (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, pp. 209–10).

At the same time, the Comaroffs demonstrate that monetary incorporation had profound consequences. They distinguish cattle from cash by arguing that cattle possessed a particular capacity to embody a biography and to carry within them a “grammar of social relations”, whereas money possessed a much greater capacity to detach goods and services from their particular contexts and make them commensurable (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 210). This distinction provides an important theoretical basis for understanding why the movement from cattle to money involved more than economic substitution. Money could perform the function of expressing a monetary amount, but it did not necessarily reproduce the same material capacity of cattle to embody particular social relationships.

The transformation was therefore neither complete rupture nor simple continuity. As Comaroff and Comaroff demonstrate, monetary exchange could increasingly dominate social life while symbolic cattle continued to operate as a means of protecting particular relationships from complete reduction to market value (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, pp. 209–11). In the case of lobola, this suggests that the movement from cattle to money should be understood as a transformation in the material expression of value. Some functions of cattle could be converted into monetary terms, while other meanings associated with cattle could persist through language, ritual practice and the continued conceptualisation of monetary payments in bovine terms.

The significance of this transformation lies in the fact that cattle carried economic value within a wider social and cultural system. Their role in bridewealth was connected to marriage, family relationships, reproduction and social continuity rather than being limited to their exchange value (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 21–22; Schapera 1940, pp. 83–84; Krige and Comaroff 1981, pp. 8, 20). Replacing cattle with money therefore changed more than the object transferred between families. It changed the material medium through which an institution’s relationships and obligations were expressed. The historical significance of monetisation must therefore be assessed in relation to this wider system rather than treated simply as a change in the form of payment.

Money makes the economic dimension of lobola more visible because its value can be stated numerically, divided, compared and negotiated directly as a financial amount. A payment expressed in money can therefore be assessed in terms of affordability and financial capacity in ways that are less immediately apparent when bridewealth is expressed through cattle. The description of lobola as wealth traditionally measured in cattle captures its material dimension, while the increasing use of money allows that value to be expressed more explicitly in financial terms (Hennon and Wilson 2008, p. 187). Monetisation consequently creates conditions in which the economic value of lobola can become more prominent in both negotiations and interpretations of the institution.

The transition from cattle to money was also embedded in wider transformations of African social and economic life. Yarbrough (2018) shows that the increasing monetisation of lobola cannot be separated from the development of wage labour, colonial economic restructuring, migration and changing relations between generations. As rural economies were increasingly disrupted, young African men entered wage labour and gained greater access to cash with which they could negotiate and pay their own lobola, reducing their dependence on fathers who had traditionally controlled cattle and marriage arrangements. Yarbrough notes that the increasing proportion of lobola paid in cash also contributed to its inflation, while migrant labour and the resulting separation of husbands from rural households placed additional pressures on marriage and family life (Yarbrough 2018). The movement from cattle to money was therefore not simply a substitution of one object for another. It formed part of a broader transformation in which the economic basis, generational authority and social organisation surrounding marriage were being reshaped.

This historical context is important because it complicates any interpretation of monetisation as a purely commercial development. The emergence of cash within lobola was partly enabled by the very economic processes that transformed African family life more generally. At the same time, Yarbrough’s account demonstrates that the persistence of lobola should not be understood as evidence of complete continuity. Lobola was retained while its material form, economic context and relationship to family authority changed. The resulting institution was therefore neither simply the continuation of a precolonial cattle system nor its complete replacement by a monetary transaction. Rather, the increasing use of money represented one component of a wider historical reconfiguration of marriage, labour, kinship and legal authority.

The increasing use of money also altered the way in which the value of lobola could be understood and negotiated. The distinction between material change and deeper cultural transformation is also important when considering the historical movement from cattle to money.

Masondo’s (2015) discussion of African responses to Christianity and colonial modernity provides a broader context for understanding these changes. He associates missionary activity with wider transformations involving education, colonial administration, commerce, industry and new forms of material life, including the growing significance of money (Masondo 2015, p. 97). However, Masondo also emphasises African agency, arguing that communities adapted and incorporated external influences into existing cultural frameworks in response to colonialism, industrialisation and modernisation (Masondo 2015, pp. 88–92). His discussion of missionary efforts to discourage practices such as lobola among the AmaXhosa, despite their continued presence in community life, further illustrates the tensions between external pressures for change and the persistence and adaptation of customary institutions (Masondo 2015, p. 99). Although this evidence does not establish that missionary activity directly caused the monetisation of lobola, it situates the growing importance of money within broader economic and cultural transformations. The shift from cattle to money can therefore be examined as part of a process of social change in which African communities negotiated new economic circumstances while adapting existing practices.

The relationship between the material form of lobola and its social function is particularly clear in Tshongweni v Kwankwa (21530/2016) [2021] ZAWCHC 126. In that case, Prince Zolile Burns-Ncamashe, an expert on Xhosa customary practices, described lobola as a gift of cattle offered by the suitor’s family to the bride’s family “to build the bonds of affinity between the families”. The same witness explained that “nowadays money is generally used as a substitute for cattle”. He further described the negotiations themselves as a process through which a relationship between the families was built, with the welcoming of the son-in-law into the bride’s family forming part of ukwenda (Tshongweni para. 38). The significance of this evidence is that it places cattle and money within the same institutional process without treating them as identical in meaning. Cattle were historically a material means through which affinity between families was built, while money has increasingly assumed their place as the medium through which the lobola obligation is expressed.

This distinction is important because the substitution of money for cattle does not necessarily remove lobola from the sphere of customary family relationships. In Tshongweni, the negotiations remained negotiations between representatives of two families, and the agreement on lobola formed part of a wider process through which the woman would leave her family and be incorporated into the groom’s family (Tshongweni para. 40). Money could therefore function as the medium of payment while the surrounding institution continued to involve family representatives, negotiation, incorporation and marriage. The material form changed, but the payment remained situated within a customary process that was relational rather than simply individual or commercial.

Nduli v Minister of Home Affairs and Others 2023 (ZAKZPHC 24) provides a further illustration of this point. In Nduli, the parties agreed to lobola consisting of R85 000 together with five live cattle. The cash amount was paid immediately, while the cattle were not delivered. Nevertheless, celebrations followed the negotiations, the bride was taken to the deceased’s home, customary rituals were performed, including the use of cow bile in the process of accepting her as umakoti, and the parties thereafter lived together as husband and wife. The Court recognised that, although livestock had traditionally been the preferred form of lobola, cash payment had become acceptable in modern practice and that the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act defines lobolo as property “in cash or in kind”. The Court ultimately held the customary marriage to be valid despite the non-delivery of the live cattle.

Nduli is significant because it demonstrates in concrete terms that the acceptance of money does not necessarily sever lobola from customary marriage. The cash payment existed alongside negotiations between families, celebrations, the incorporation of the bride into the groom’s household and customary rituals. The case therefore supports a distinction between material medium of lobola and the institution within which that medium operates. Money may substitute for cattle without making the resulting practice simply a financial transaction. At the same time, Nduli also illustrates that replacing cattle can involve a genuine material change: the agreed livestock were not delivered, even though the marriage relationship and customary processes continued.

The increased visibility of economic value therefore does not establish that economic value has become the whole meaning of lobola. Money makes the economic dimension of lobola more visible because its value can be stated numerically, divided, compared and negotiated directly as a financial amount. A payment expressed in money can therefore be assessed in terms of affordability and financial capacity in ways that are less immediately apparent when bridewealth is expressed through cattle. The evidence in Tshongweni is particularly revealing in this respect: although money was increasingly used as a substitute, the customary explanation remained that cattle had served to build “bonds of affinity between the families” (Tshongweni para. 38). Nduli similarly shows that a substantial cash payment could operate within a process that remained recognisably one of customary marriage. Monetisation therefore makes the economic value of lobola more explicit without demonstrating that economic value has become its only social meaning.

This distinction also helps explain why money cannot automatically reproduce every meaning historically associated with cattle. Cattle were materially present within systems of fertility, reproduction, ancestry, kinship and family continuity, and their physical transfer could itself form part of ritual and social practices. Money can represent the economic value of cattle, but it does not necessarily reproduce the material and symbolic associations of the animal itself. Tshongweni makes this distinction particularly clear: the evidence identifies cattle as the means through which bonds of affinity were built, while simultaneously acknowledging money as their modern substitute. The substitution may therefore preserve the lobola obligation while changing the manner in which particular meanings are materially expressed.

The shift in emphasis is important for understanding the emergence of the language of “bridepricing”. As lobola becomes increasingly represented through a monetary amount, attention can shift towards the price of the payment rather than the relationships within which the payment operates. The distinction between lobola as a family relationship and the increasingly commercialised practice described as “bridepricing” captures this shift in emphasis (Cock 1991, p. 42). The emergence of this language does not mean that earlier forms of bridewealth were economically neutral. Rather, it demonstrates how changes in material form can alter the relative visibility of different dimensions of an institution.

The financial pressures associated with contemporary lobola further demonstrate the increasing prominence of its economic dimension. Monetary payments can create significant burdens, particularly where unemployment and low incomes make the payment difficult to meet (Hennon and Wilson 2008, p. 187). Such pressures help explain why contemporary discussions of lobola frequently focus on affordability and financial difficulty. These concerns are historically significant, but they should not be treated as evidence that economic value has displaced every other dimension of the institution. The persistence of lobola in monetary form, together with cases such as Tshongweni and Nduli, suggests that its financial character does not, by itself, explain its continuing social significance.

The transformation from cattle to money should therefore not be understood as either complete continuity or complete rupture. Money can substitute for cattle as the material medium of bridewealth while some of the institution’s social purposes remain significant. At the same time, meanings historically connected to cattle may become less visible or be expressed differently when cattle are no longer central to the payment. The change is consequently better understood as a process of reinterpretation in which material substitution, cultural continuity and cultural transformation occur simultaneously.

Commercialisation should therefore not be treated as an all-or-nothing process in which lobola simply moves from culture to commerce. Different dimensions of the institution may change at different rates. Its economic dimension can become increasingly prominent while relational and cultural meanings remain significant. The institution can consequently become more explicitly monetary without becoming exclusively economic. What changes is not simply whether lobola remains “cultural”, but how its different meanings and functions are expressed under new material and social conditions.

The movement from cattle to money therefore represents a transformation in the material expression of lobola rather than a straightforward transition from “traditional” culture to commercial exchange. Tshongweni provides the clearest conceptual link: cattle were described as a gift offered to build bonds of affinity between families, while money is now generally used as their substitute. Nduli provides a contemporary legal illustration of the same transformation, showing that cash can constitute the agreed material form of lobola while the parties remain engaged in negotiations, customary rituals, family incorporation and a customary marriage. Cattle → family bonds → money is therefore not a movement from relationship to pure economics. Rather, it is a movement in which the material form changes while the relational institution can persist, even though some meanings attached specifically to cattle may become less visible or be expressed differently.

The argument of this article therefore rests not on rejecting the economic dimension of contemporary lobola, but on placing it within its longer historical context. Money is clearly central to its contemporary material form. The problem is that the monetary payment can obscure the wider institution of which the payment is only one component. Recovering the precolonial significance of cattle makes it possible to distinguish between the replacement of a material medium and the transformation of the relationships and meanings historically expressed through that medium. Tshongweni and Nduli demonstrate why this distinction matters: the acceptance of cash does not, by itself, establish that lobola has ceased to be a customary institution. The historical question is therefore not simply how cattle became money, but what changed, what persisted and what became less visible when that transformation occurred.

Material change nevertheless has cultural consequences because cattle possessed meanings that were connected to their particular material and social position. Their associations with fertility, reproduction, ancestry, kinship and family continuity developed within systems in which cattle were part of everyday economic, social and ritual life (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 21–22). Money can replace cattle as a medium of economic value, but it cannot automatically reproduce every meaning associated with cattle themselves. The substitution may therefore make some historical meanings less visible, weaken particular associations or provide conditions in which existing meanings are reinterpreted. Monetisation should consequently be understood as a transformation in the material expression of lobola, with consequences for how its different dimensions are experienced and understood.

The movement from cattle to money therefore represents a transformation in the material expression of lobola rather than a straightforward transition from “traditional” culture to commercial exchange. Cattle had carried economic value within a wider network of relationships and meanings, whereas money makes economic value more readily measurable and negotiable. At the same time, the replacement of cattle may alter the visibility and expression of meanings historically associated with their material and social role. The significance of monetisation therefore lies not merely in the substitution of one form of value for another, but in the changing relationship between the economic, relational and cultural dimensions of lobola.

7. What the Precolonial Evidence Reveals About the Contemporary Commercialisation of Lobola

The precolonial evidence changes how contemporary commercialisation of lobola should be understood. Contemporary lobola can legitimately be examined in terms of cost, affordability, financial pressure and monetary exchange. However, treating these features as the defining characteristics of the institution risks confusing its contemporary material form with its historical meaning. The preceding sections have shown that bridewealth operated within relationships involving marriage, kinship, fertility, reproduction, ancestry and social recognition. Commercialisation must therefore be understood against this longer history rather than treated as a complete explanation of lobola.

The historical evidence demonstrates that the economic and cultural dimensions of bridewealth were interconnected. Cattle constituted valuable wealth, but their movement through bridewealth was also connected to relationships between families and wider systems of marriage and kinship (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16, 21–22; Schapera 1940, pp. 83–84). The replacement of cattle by money therefore did not involve the substitution of a purely economic institution for a previously non-economic one. Instead, it changed the material medium through which an institution with both economic and social dimensions was expressed.

Soga’s early twentieth-century account provides an important historical baseline against which this contemporary transformation can be assessed. His rejection of the characterisation of lobola as a purchase transaction demonstrates that the economic transfer involved in bridewealth was not necessarily understood by its African proponents as constituting ownership of the woman. Instead, he situated lobola within a framework of reciprocal obligations, family interests and the protection of the married woman (Henderson Soga 1931, pp. 269, 275–79). The significance of this evidence for contemporary commercialisation is not that precolonial or early twentieth-century lobola was devoid of economic dimensions. Rather, it demonstrates that economic transfer and social meaning were historically capable of coexisting. The contemporary prominence of monetary value should therefore be understood as a transformation in the material and economic expression of an institution whose social meaning was historically broader than the payment itself.

Money nevertheless makes economic value more visible. Monetary payments can be counted, compared and assessed in terms of affordability and financial capacity, helping explain why contemporary discussions of lobola often emphasise financial burden, particularly under conditions of unemployment and low income (Hennon and Wilson 2008, p. 187). The increasing prominence of monetary value can therefore encourage a commercialised understanding of the institution. Yet the greater visibility of economic value does not establish that other meanings have disappeared.

The change in material form can, however, affect how those meanings are expressed. Cattle occupied particular positions within systems of fertility, ancestry, reproduction and family continuity (Kuper 1982, pp. 15–16). Money can replace cattle as a medium of payment, but it cannot automatically reproduce every meaning associated with cattle. Some meanings may therefore become less visible, while others may persist or be reinterpreted. Monetisation thus involves cultural transformation as well as economic substitution.

The language of “bridepricing” illustrates this shift. It directs attention towards the monetary value attached to the payment and can move the focus from relationships between families towards the price of the exchange (Cock 1991, p. 42). This does not mean that earlier forms of bridewealth were free from economic calculation. Rather, it indicates that monetisation can alter the relative prominence of different dimensions of lobola. The institution may become more explicitly monetary without becoming exclusively economic. The analysis of Comaroff and Comaroff provides a useful way of understanding this tension between monetary transformation and cultural continuity. Their study of the Tshidi shows that the incorporation of Southern African societies into increasingly monetised economic relations did not simply erase earlier social meanings. Instead, money entered social transactions that had previously been materially and conceptually organised around cattle. Among the Tshidi, this transformation was expressed in the statement that “money has eaten our beasts” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 200). The expression captures not only the decline of cattle as a form of wealth but also the weakening of the social and material conditions that had enabled cattle to operate as important media of social value.

At the same time, the incorporation of money did not eliminate cattle from the conceptual organisation of socially significant transactions. Comaroff and Comaroff show that marriage transactions, court fines, patronage loans and payments to healers could continue to be reckoned in cattle even when actual animals were no longer transferred. The Tshidi referred to these as “cattle without legs” (dikgomo tse di se nang maoto) (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 209). Such transactions were particularly significant because their nominal cattle values were distinguished from prevailing commercial prices. The discrepancy between the nominal value of the symbolic animal and the market value of actual cattle helped mark these transactions as belonging to a distinctive social domain rather than to ordinary market exchange (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 209).

This evidence is particularly relevant to contemporary lobola. It demonstrates that monetary substitution does not necessarily mean that a social institution becomes an ordinary market transaction. Monetary value can be incorporated into an existing cultural framework in which cattle continue to provide a conceptual language for expressing socially significant relationships. The persistence of cattle terminology therefore suggests that cultural meaning can survive a transformation in material form. At the same time, such continuity should not be mistaken for the preservation of an unchanged social order.

The Comaroffs’ distinction between cattle and money is important in this respect. They argue that cattle could embody a biography and carry within them a “grammar of social relations”, whereas money possessed a greater capacity to detach goods and services from particular contexts and make them commensurable (Comaroff and Comaroff 1990, p. 210). The significance of this distinction is not that cattle were outside economic exchange while money was economic. Rather, cattle could simultaneously function as economic resources and as material embodiments of social relationships. Money, by contrast, could make economic value more readily calculable and transferable across different contexts. The movement from cattle to money therefore altered not simply the object used in payment but the relationship between material value and the social relations through which that value was expressed.

Commercialisation should therefore not be understood as a simple transition from “traditional” lobola to commerce. Precolonial bridewealth already involved economic exchange, while contemporary monetary lobola can retain relational and cultural meanings. What has changed is the material medium through which these dimensions are expressed and their relative visibility within contemporary practice. Some meanings may persist, others may change, and meanings associated specifically with cattle may become less visible. Recovering the precolonial evidence is consequently important because it provides a basis for identifying what has actually changed. Without that historical perspective, the monetary form of contemporary lobola can appear self-explanatory, and commercialisation can be treated as though it accounts for the institution as a whole. The earlier history demonstrates instead that the economic form of lobola has always operated within broader social relationships.

The movement from cattle to money therefore represents neither the disappearance of cultural meaning nor its unchanged preservation. It represents a transformation in the material expression of lobola. Monetary payment increases the visibility and negotiability of economic value, while some relational and cultural meanings may persist, change or become less visible. The significance of commercialisation lies not simply in the fact that cattle became money, but in what happened to the relationships, obligations and meanings that cattle had historically helped to express. This perspective allows contemporary lobola to be understood as a changing institution whose monetary form remains connected to its longer social and cultural hist.

8. Conclusions

This article has argued that lobola cannot be adequately understood as a simple transfer of property or as an increasingly commercialised financial payment. Its precolonial history shows that cattle were embedded in a wider cultural system connecting marriage, kinship, fertility, reproduction, ancestry, legitimate personhood and family continuity. Their economic value mattered, but it did not exhaust their meaning. The movement from cattle to money therefore represents more than a change in the form of payment. It is a transformation in how relationships, obligations and cultural meanings are expressed. Money may make the economic dimension of lobola more visible, but its use does not automatically mean that cultural meaning has disappeared. At the same time, continuity should not be mistaken for an unchanged institution. Lobola continues to be negotiated and reinterpreted within changing social and economic circumstances. The central contribution of this article is to show why contemporary lobola must be understood through both continuity and transformation. The important question is not simply whether lobola is becoming commercialised, but what is retained, what changes, and what may be lost as cattle are replaced by money. Ultimately, lobola is not defined only by what is transferred but by the relationships and social obligations that the transfer represents. Its contemporary meaning lies in the continuing interaction between economic value, cultural meaning and changing social relationships.