By Vusumzi Moyo
Activist
Society Evolves…
I am not sure what irritates some men about yesterday’s marital ruling.
Is it the constitution or it is patriarchy talking? With or without the ruling, everyone still has a choice.
What the court merely says is that people can choose whatever surname of the spouse they wish to operate with or be known by.
Some men fear that lineage on the male side will disappear, arguing also that the ruling is counter African culture.
What African culture is being referred to? Anyway, was the current state of affairs not changed by colonialism? For the convenience of colonial governments?
Take, for instance, some communities whereby children were taking names of their father for their surnames.
My son Sizwe would have my name Vusumzi, as his surname.
His child would have been a Sizwe and so on.
What might have happened had a revolutionary government demanded we went back to the pre-colonial ways of identity?
In the complex community setup we are now accustomed to we would have started another confusion.
I do not say there was chaos then, but people live in small homestead which were easily identifiable.
Mbulelo kaSolomzi was not difficult to find.
Or maybe one should pose a question: Given the statistics of global population, where women outnumber men three times and men are mostly not working, wouldn’t marital status change?
If the trend continues and women are to become the most wealthy gender, they will marry men – – pay lobolo for them.
Would men still insist they want the household to be known by their names?
The women’s word will pretty much hold sway, not so?
If it’s an understanding woman she will give the man a choice.
And if you are not working you cannot even argue for community of property principles.
In Tanzania there are women who marry other women to have babies for them.
And they choose which men to impregnate these women.
The children will carry the woman’s surname.
It might come to that in time, for without employment and wealth men will have no name to themselves.
The lineage automatically becomes that of the mother.
Like in many Latin American communities.
When that time comes, we will ask: What’s in a name?
Perhaps men should brace themselves for that eventuality.
But I would rather leave it to society to take its course of transformation.
It would be interesting to see how it evolves.
Fight the constitution if you will; that too is our right.
But maybe we should also allow space for those who wish to accept change must come. Society will evolve even amid resistance…