Husband Has To Pay

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30955, 11 January 1966, Page 1

Husband Has To Pay

<N Z Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 10. A young New Zealander who married an African dancer last month may soon start paying for his choice of wife. Bantu relatives of Miss Cynthia Rabebe, aged 23, expect her husband, Mr Denis O’Neill, of Auckland, to pay lobola—bride-price—for the privilege of marrying her. A report in a South African non-white newspaper, “The World." quotes a relative of Mrs O’Neill as saying she “has cut herself from her home country.

"At least one important thing that the young New Zealander will have to do now is to pay lobola. “It is an age-old custom which must be carried out whatever the case may be,” the relative, Mrs Shiela Yona. is reported to have said. Mr and Mrs O’Neill were secretly married in the Wellington Registry Office on November 6. Mrs O’Neill was then a performer in the stage show "Africa Dances,” which toured New Zealand. PAID WITH CATTLE The lobola is usually paid with cattle. Fat girls fetch better prices than lean girls, and the status of their fathers, the possessions of the groom-to-be and

the bride’s fertility potential are also considered. If the bride does not bear her husband any children, he is entitled to return her to her' family and reclaim his lobola. The usual payment is believed to be between three and seven head of cattle. “It cost me enough to get married as it was,” Mr O’Neill said today. “Specially in my case—l was flying all over the country.” He had not heard about the lobola from his wife, he said. “She’s very slim. Is she worth three head of cattle?” “I guess she is but I don’t think I would send cattle.” He said he intended to discuss the matter with his wife tonight.