Dos or Pretium ?: Marriage, Slavery, and the Roman Inquisition in Lesotho, 1850s-1880s

During the nineteenth century European missionaries harshly criticised several core components of the African societies they attempted to evangelise, including marriage practices. When bridewealth was involved, marriage was often likened to forms of slavery. However, there were exceptions. This article studies the previously unknown intervention of the Roman Inquisition on the 1867 proposal by the Catholic vicar of Natal in southern Africa to consider marriage as practiced in the kingdom of Lesotho, which included bridewealth, 'licit' and acceptable in Catholic rite. By looking in detail at the sources available, the article reconstructs the different positions of three Catholic clergymen on the matter, relates them to the political situation of Lesotho facing colonialism and with the debate within the Catholic Church in the international context of nineteenth-century abolitionism. It thus offers a reflection on the global and local tangle of contradictions and resistances surrounding the status and liberties of women in marriage.