The ‘Sacred’ Institution of Marriage: The Case of Disabled Women in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that women with disability in Zimbabwe dispute the fallacious belief that they are unbefitting as marital partners on the grounds of disability as generally alluded by society. The findings of a pilot study carried out in Zimbabwe among 16 women with disability revealed that the women value heterosexual marriage. Women with disability are constantly trying to conform to heteronormative ideas of sexuality in an effort to gain respectability, within a context which esteems heterosexuality and denigrates different sexual orientations. All unmarried participants reported that they aspire to marry or to remarry, and the married participant expressed a desire to sustain her marriage, in a setting where participants appear to believe that marriage would “normalize” them. There is evidence that in trying to construct a normative identity, participants make perpetual efforts to “fit in” with the sexual norms that prevail in an environment where heterosexual marriage is regarded as a “sacred” institution which is fore grounded as the only point of entry into the terrain of normal adulthood sexuality. This paper focuses on the theme of matrimonial relationships, which is embedded with five sub-themes; (1) roora (bride price); (2) family interference; (3) rejection by husbands; (4) desertion and divorce; and (5) economic/emotional abuse. The theme and its integral sub-themes shows that women with disability are determined, resilient and hopeful as they constantly seek to secure the respectability which arises from the acquisition and sustenance of heterosexual marriage within the context of this study.