Every culture cherishes its own long-standing marriage traditions. Rituals, even superstition that had their origin hundreds or even thousands of years ago, still exist in many Western, Eastern and African traditions.
Zacharia Nale, a senior reporter at MooiVaal Media, told Ster more about the interesting rituals of a traditional Sesotho wedding. He says it usually starts with lobola negotiations when the prospective bride and groom’s families sit together to discuss the joining of the two families through marriage.
Before (and even since) money has become mainstream barter in Africa, one’s wealth was determined by the size of your herd of cattle. It is therefore expected that following the successful negotiations, the groom should make payment in cows in order to get his bride’s hand in marriage. This form of compensation is still widely used in rural areas where the size of one’s cattle herd does indeed reflect wealth.
After successful negotiations both families would exchange gifts in the form of a bottle of wine or whisky, dishes or blankets. The two families will then agree on the date of the traditional wedding when they will bring the bride to the groom’s parents’ home. The two families will then slaughter cows and exchange some of the blood to each other. The bride would then be given a new first name by the groom’s family, indicating that she has been accepted into the family. This new name might be a female family name, like a grandma’s name.
The bride’s official first name in her ID book, however, won’t change but as is the case with most Western marriages, the wife usually also takes the husband’s surname.
Usually only close friends and relatives are invited to the traditional wedding to celebrate with the now married couple. “But again, in our culture, community members can also attend the traditional wedding even if they were not invited,” says Zacharia.
The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, 1998 (Act No. 120 of 1998) is a South African statute in terms of which marriages performed under African customary law, including polygynous marriages, are recognised as legal.
After the rituals of the traditional wedding are fulfilled, many modern Sesotho couples opt to also have a white wedding, where the bride is dressed in a white gown and the groom in a suit.
