19 MARCH 1983, Page 10

Love for sale in Zimbabwe

Richard West

Harare When Joshua Nkomo last week fled to Botswana 'disguised as a fat old woman', as it was written here, a govern- ment spokesman made a sarcastic apology to the women of Zimbabwe that such a use should be made of their national dress. The women of Zimbabwe are much in the news this month, providing a welcome relief from the sorrows of Matabeleland. First, some of the heroines of the liberation strug- gle performed a traditional dance, led by Comrade Sally, wife of Comrade Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, and Comrade Janet, wife of Comrade the Revd His Ex- cellency President Canaan Banana. (The etiquette on how to address Zimbabweans needs an article of its own.) Then came the Sunday Mail's Bride of the Year competition, won by a black girl, with runners-up of mixed and European stock. The supplement told us much about life in emergent socialist Zimbabwe. On black hair style: 'Forget the frizz. The natural look Afro is out, out, out. Perms and relaxers are making a return'. An arti- cle on lobola, or bride price, reveals that, 'The price of marriage has risen since the days when a young man presented five mice or a dry log to his prospective in-laws while asking permission to marry their daughter'. A modern bride can fetch more than $2,000 (the Zimbabwean dollar is worth about 79p). In country districts, payment is usual- ly made in cattle, cash and clothing. Of the eight or so cattle usually handed over, one goes to the bride's mother, who also gets gifts of clothing equal to those given her husband.

In the city, lobola is ndw in cash, hence the cartoon in the Sunday Mail of a man gazing into a meter showroom, while his nagging wife, with infant and small daughter, jeers: 'Well, if you're waiting for Getty's lobola to buy that car, you have a long time to wait, haven't you'. The lobola system is unlikely to win applause from the Guardian Woman's Page, yet it in some way enhances the status of girls. It means that female infants are not, as in some countries, greeted with sheer dismay. Although it may mean that a girl whose boy friend cannot afford lobola is forced to elope, causing general unpleasantness, it also prevents an unscrupulous man from seducing a girl under a promise of marriage. A Harare policeman was last week fined

$250 with costs for cheating a girl in this way.

Westerners who condemn such laws for setting a price on romance, might well con- sider our own rapaciousness in obtaining alimony or even, in the United States, 'palimony' from unmarried lovers or even from homosexual partners. The Africans set a price on virginity in a bride and on faithfulness in a marriage partner, which is not quite the same as forcing a man to pay a discarded mistress or catamite. African customary law on divorce is often more fair than ours, because it is more specific. In England or the United States, the lawyers can wrangle for ever on how to divide the property. In Harare's community court last week, the presiding officer, Mrs Lucy Watungwa, ruled that all the property of the kitchen and bedroom belong to the wife. The husband's lawyer argued that the wife was entitled only to a fridge, a double bed and a carpet — property she had bought with money earned as a dressmaker. The wife's lawyer argued that all the pro- perty had been jointly bought and should be equally shared. The presiding officer agreed and then decided how the sharing ought to be done: she ordered the husband to let his wife take the bedroom suite, dou- ble bed, dressing table, a four-plate stove, a kitchen unit, all the utensils and a dustbin, while he was to keep two cars, the house, a plot of land, a suite and an ironing board.

This ruling, which seems to imply that a woman belongs in the bedroom and kit- chen, would doubtless offend the half- dozen feminists who took part in a 'street theatre' last week in Harare, in honour of something called International Women's Day. The picture in the Herald showed them doing a skit on the beauty industry. Each of them was holding in front of her face the identical photograph of a model, proving how the 'individual you' fashion made women look the same. It would be unfair to say that, from what one could see of their faces (one, in full-face, was built on the lines of a Rugby forward), they might be better off with the 'individual you' look; but it is not unfair to point out that all six women were European. What business was it of theirs to try to impose on African women their idiot notions from England or the United States?

One of their skits showed 'a lazy boss blowing a whistle which keeps the "career

girl" jumping around from typewriter to kettle, all enacted to the strains of the Dolly Parton hit song "Nine to Five" % Another skit showed a man being refused at a bar because he might be a prostitute. Has Africa not suffered enough from England without having to suffer the Great El Vino Dispute? Another skit showed a newspaper cameraman taking salacious photographs of the thighs of women footballers. On the latter point, it seems that the government goes along with the feminists. In the boxing matches here, the girls who used to parade about between rounds in bra and knickers now have to be clothed from neck to knee, out of deference to the attendance of Com- rades Mugabe and Banana. Some bars will not admit girls on their own, if they have good reason to think them prostitutes. Most will, and prostitu- tion flourishes, which at least partly ex- plains Zimbabwe's VD epidemic — now reckoned one of the gravest in the world. Why there are so many prostitutes, nobody quite understands. It may be that, from fear of losing lobola, 'nice girls don t, though according to Senator Joseph Culverwell, the Deputy Minister of Educa- tion, 1,213 schoolgirls, aged between 13 and 15, fell pregnant last year. The recent war and the presence in town of so many randY soldiers certainly boosted prostitution. At any rate there is worry about VD or STD (sexually transmitted disease) as it is called here — much to the confusion of those who have read on the cover of the Harare telephone directory: 'STD saves time and dollars'. Three academics of the departments of medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Zimbabwe have joined to Pro- duce a learned monograph on the subject, which appeared in the Herald on 4 March' under the headline, 'All you wanted to know about STD but were too ashamed to ask'. The introduction to this report, with its teasing echoes of Noel Coward, has now become popular in Harare: 'Lenin., had it,; Former US President Woodrow Wilson had it. It is even thought that Cecil John Rhodes, may have died of it ... ' Nothing that follows quite matches the lyrical star!' though I was interested to read that 'The Portuguese called it "Indian measles'', the Italians called it the "French malady" the French called it the "Spanish complaint and the mainland Europeans called it the "English pox".' Some readers of the Spectator may recall_, my frequent suggestion that most sexua" diseases are now transmitted by Swedes who, finding each other unattractive, fly south like the geese to mate — the worrl with beach boys in Cyprus or the Garnbtn the men with the bar-girls of Thailand. Al': sure enough, I have heard that Zimbabwe now is infested with left-wing Swede,s]

on

bringing not only advice on third:.

socialism but, obviously, Swedish measles Strindberg Strindberg had it. Ex-Queen Christini! of Sweden had it. It is even though that Gustavus Adolphus may have c of it ....