You only need one bull to cover fifty cows: Zulu women and 'traditional' dress

Klopper, Sandra

Book

You only need one bull to cover fifty cows: Zulu women and 'traditional' dress

University of the Witwatersrand, African Studies Institute • (213) • Published In 1987 • Pages: 24

By: Klopper, Sandra.

Abstract
This article tries to place the contemporary (i.e., ca. 1980s) dress of married Zulu women into a broad historical framework. It addresses the problem of why, despite radical economic and political transformations, some of the present conventions of female dress have remained virtually unchanged since Shakan times. By looking particularly at the history of the institution of marriage, it attemps to demonstrate not only how the meanings ascribed to, but also the roles of these conventions have been affected by the codification of so-called customary law and the growth of migrant labor. Given the paucity of information on past perceptions and interpretations of female dress it must be pointed out, that many of the observations which appear in this study are necessarily speculative (p. 1).

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