Lobola goes mobile

Not everyone is happy with a new mobile app that takes the African tradition of paying a bride price into the technological age...

(Image: Public Domain)

For more:IOL: Fun app to calculate price of your bride-to-be... as lobola... Franz Wild, reporting in IOL, says a software developer in Johannesburg "has taken the time-honoured African tradition of paying a bride price into the tech age" by designing an app to calculate the prospective bride's value.

"Anyone weighing up whether to ask for a woman's hand can enter her stats into 26-year-old Kopo Robert Matsaneng's Lobola Calculator," reports Wild, adding that the value can be rendered in rands, or be converted into pounds, euros and dollars - and "it tells you how many cows that would equate to."

The app has been designed to take into account the prospective bride's looks - apparently ranging from underwhelming to "hot" and also parameters such as the individual's age, height, weight and waist size.