CHARLOTTE MANYE MAXEKE

In their primitive state South African Natives still regard their womenfolks as did their ancestors as valuable assets for personal profit, because from time immemorial every female child had a fixed price in cattle under the custom of dowry institutions at marriageable age. . . Under the Missionary rule african womanhood became a Church wonder. It delighted in the gospel of submission and thrived wakefully and wonderfully in Missionary ventures. So that after one hundred years of Christian progress in South Africa it is amazing to find South african women still soul and life of the Christian Church in sub-continent. . . in the modern times a new type of Native womanhood hampered and different in many respects from their mothers especially in virtues and piety unquestionably being the product of the present European civilisation in the sub-continent has consequently arisen.

- Charlotte Manye Maxeke, The Progress Of Native Womanhood In South Africa (1929).