Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyze the practice of lobola or "bridewealth" by the zulu people in South Africa like a "gateway" through which they negotiate theirs forms of belonging to a home/family. This negotiation is held by the way the number of cows - 11 - that shapes thelobola is reached in a complex arithmetic game. I conclude that the partial payment of lobola or even its absence gives rise to forms of belonging and an ontology very different of the one reached for a "fully loboled" woman. In turn, this difference cannot be understood through the current idea of illegitimacy of the children produced outside the marriage.
Key Words:
Lobola; Bridewealth; Kinship; South Africa; Zulu.
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