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_ The Rev. L. Grout says in his _Zululand_:
"So long as the government allows the custom called
_ukulobolisha_, the selling of women in marriage for
cattle, just so long the richer and so, for the most
part, the older and the already married man will be
found, too often, the successful suitor--not indeed at
the feet of the maiden, for she is allowed little or no
right to a voice as to whom she shall marry, but at the
hands of her heathen proprietor, who, in his
degradation, looks less at the affections and
preferences of his daughter than at the surest way of
filling his kraal with cattle, and thus providing for
buying another wife or two."
So purely commercial is the transaction that if a wife proves very fruitful and healthy, a demand for more cattle is made on her husband. Should she be feeble or barren he may send her back to her father and demand compensation. A favorite way is to retain a wife as a slave and go on marrying other girls as fast as the man's means allow. Theal says that if a wife has no children the husband has a right to return her to her parents and if she has a marriageable sister, take her in exchange. But the acme of commercialism is reached in a Zulu marriage ceremony described by Shooter. At the wedding the matrons belonging to the bridegroom's party tell the bride that too many cows have been given for her; that she is rather plain than otherwise, and will never be able to do a married woman's work, and that altogether it is very kind of the bridegroom to condescend to marry her. Then the bride's friends have their innings. They condole with her parents on the very inadequate number of cows paid for her, the loveliest girl in the village; declare that the husband is quite unworthy of her, and ought to be ashamed for driving such a hard bargain with her parents.
Leslie's assertion that it is "a mistake to imagine that a girl is sold by her father in the same manner and with the same authority with which he would dispose of a cow," is contradicted by the concurrent testimony of the leading authorities. Some of these have already been cited. The reliable Fritsch says of the Ama-Xosa branch:
"It is characteristic that as a rule the inclination
of the girl to be married is never consulted, but
that her nearest male relatives select a husband
for her to whom she is unceremoniously sent. They
choose, of course, a man who can pay."
If she is a useful girl he is not likely to refuse the offer, yet he bargains to get her as cheaply as possible (though he knows that a Kaffir girl's chief pride is the knowledge that many heads of cattle were paid for her). Regarding the Ama-Zulu, Fritsch says that the women are slaves and a wife is regarded as so much invested capital. "If she falls ill, or remains childless, so that the man does not get his money's worth, he often returns her to her father and asks his cattle back." Older and less attractive women are sometimes married off on credit, or to be paid for in instalments. "In all this," Fritsch sums up, "there is certainly little of poetry and romance, but it cannot be denied that under the influence of European residents an improvement has been effected in some quarters." He himself saw at Natal a young couple who "showed a certain interest in each other," such as one expects of married persons; but in parts untouched by European influence, he adds, true conjugal devotion is an unusual thing. _
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