Can you help me in information of Zulu?

Question

Im not able to find informations on Zulus customs about there how there marriage. Can you give me some informations about it? Thank you

Answer 1

Today in South Africa, the Zulu people are free to choose almost every aspect of their lives and aren't bound to traditional marriages. Here are some notes on the marriage customs of the Zulu people:

The wedding celebration is a fairly complex process. It begins with the lobola agreement. A man may have many wives (polygamy) as he can raise lobola for. He can even have unmarried ‘sweethearts’, but a wife may only be married to one man, and should she have an affair, the consequences are dire.

Lobola is commonly known as the price paid by the bridegroom’s family for a wife, but is more correctly a compensation for the loss of the girl by the father and his kraal. It is also a way of the bridegroom and his family to lay claim to any children produced in the marriage. In fact, if the wife is barren, lobola may be returned to the bridegroom, and the wife returned to her father. In other circumstances, the bride’s father may send a sister to provide children for the husband. Lobola is usually paid in head of cattle - an amount agreed upon by the two families.

After a formal engagement has been made, and the terms of lobola settled, the cattle begin to be delivered in ‘instalments’ to the father. This may continue for a year or two until the bridegroom’s family insists on wedding.

The date of the wedding must be a night when the moon is bright, because a faint moon signifies bad luck, and also makes the celebrations less festive. The wedding is held in the open in the bridegroom’s kraal. The parents of the bride do not attend, as the occasion would be too sad for them.

A few days before the wedding, the bride arrives with a retinue of bridesmaids, all carrying parts of her trousseau on their heads. She often brings gifts from her father to the bridegroom’s father with her. On the morning of the wedding, she and her bridemaids bathe naked in a river, which is a sign of cleansing from impurity. She now works through two or three days of complex rites. She eventually carries her sleeping mat and other goods to the bridegroom’s hut. When the guests arrive, the two families stand on opposite sides to each other, and there is great tension between them. This continues for two or three days, and is eventually dissipated with the slaughter of two head of cattle. The clans are now united through the symbolic exchange of meat.