CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction
2.6 Sexual practices of married women
The question is what do married women do when their husbands are away or they themselves as career women are at work away from their partners? Lurie et
al., (2003: 816), in his migration study in the Hlabisa District and Carltonville, reported evidence of sexual contact by respondents with a person other than their regular partner in the previous year. Lurie showed that use of condoms, although low, was significantly higher among non-migrant women than among migrant women. Migrant women are thus at higher risk of HIV infection than non- migrant women. Prevalence of HIV and other STIs was more than 37.1% among migrant women. (Lurie et al., 2003: 815). Therefore, as much as migrant men and migrant women are at a significantly higher risk of HIV infection than non- migrant women, circular migration increases the risk of HIV infection for non- migrant women as it does for non-migrant men.
Other forms of relationships, whatever their nature, develop in the shadow of marriage (Griffiths, 1997: 61). The older a woman becomes, the more chance there is of a relationship breaking down and the more difficult it becomes to find another partner. Older women find themselves competing with younger women and the situation is often exacerbated by the lack of available men.
In contemporary society men still leave their homes to seek work in urban areas away from their homes and families. They leave girlfriends behind in the hope that they would soon come back with the required bride-wealth to get married.
Such regular separations are usually prolonged. Men and women thus usually engage in different sexual relationships, one of which is casual sex. According to a study done in Mandini, KwaZulu-Natal by Hunter (2001b: 6), casual sex can be
discussed in the context of transactional sex where sexual intercourse is exchanged for gifts and sex. This is a factor for the rapid spread of AIDS, but is not the form of prostitution similar to that occurring to migrant labourers on transport routes (Lurie et al., 1997: 122). This form of transactional sex usually involves young girls and older men who are employed and financially well off.
Similar studies, which support the hypothesis of Lurie et al.'s (1997:123) assertion that migration increases the risk of HIV infection were conducted in Uganda in 1995, Senegal in 1993, Zimbabwe in 1990 and South Africa in 1992 (Lurie et al., 1997: 123). All the above studies contend that men infect their sexual partners when they return home. This thinking is also supported by Kark (1949: 78) in a study conducted in Centocow in KwaZulu-Natal Midlands where he found that even though women whose husbands were migrants had extramarital relationships they did not get infected in their relations but got infected from their husbands.
These studies do not explain the infection in those women who live with their non-migrant husbands or how those involved in regular relationships are exposed or become vulnerable to HIV infection (Lurie et al., 1997:123).These studies only highlight that as men migrate away to urban areas to seek work, they acquire relationships, which place their women at home at risk of HIV infection. On the other hand, a study of mineworkers and their partners found that in 40% of relationships where only one person was found to be HIV positive, it was in fact
the woman who had stayed at home and not her mining partner who was infected (Lurie et al., 2003: 816). Could this mean that women of migrant men still engage in other sexual practices while their husbands are away? If so, what has happened to the extramarital relationships now that causes women to get infected from their extramarital partners instead of getting infected by their migrant husbands? This study aims, therefore, to investigate evidence of the sexual practices of married women and why women are getting infected from their extramarital relationships.
A study done in the Dominican Repubiic in 1995 on workers in sugar cane fields showed that women had more than one lifetime partner. This has not been investigated in KwaZulu-Natal. Risk factors such as a large number of lifetime partners and extra marital relationships, which are known to increase the risk of HIV infection were more common among migrant women in the Dominican Republic (Lurie et al., 2003: 817). According to Lurie et al. (2003: 824), their study is similar to the one done in Senegal in 1993 as it also showed a higher prevalence of HIV infection among men who had worked in another African country than among men who had never travelled.
A study done in Nigeria in 1992 demonstrated that having extramarital sex partners is not restricted to men only. It showed that married women also have such relations involving multiple or casual partners. It also showed that two out of five married women had had sexual relations with the lover in the previous two
weeks (Isiugo-Abanibe, 1994:120). This could mean that it is not always the man who infects his marriage partner, but women also do. Studies on married
women's extramarital sexual relations have not been done in KwaZulu-Natal.
Isiugo-Abanihe's study (1994: 112) conducted in Nigeria reveals that there is a very high level of sexual networking among married people. Eight percent (8%) of men and 7% women did not give a thought to AIDS when they chose sexual partners outside their marriage. The results of the study show that about 46% of men and 54% of women claimed they had had sexual intercourse with people other than their partners since their marriage. The issue of extramarital sexual relations of married women needs to be explored in South Africa and thus this study will focus on extramarital relations in rural KwaZulu-Natal, in the Mpukunyoni area.
Though there are few such studies in Sub Saharan Africa, Modo (2000:446) contends that there was evidence of Nyatsi, (which are names given to extra marital sexual partners of married women) habits of women in Lesotho where a woman had a boyfriend while married to an absent mineworker. When they were caught, their men divorced them on grounds of adultery. Some married women broke up other people's homes as they snatched men from their women. This kind of sexual behaviour is comparable to the 'isidikiselo' practice in KwaZulu- Natal, South Africa. Women of migrant men were abandoned by their male partners, as the men formed new relationships in the cities. Even if these sexual practices were common in both Lesotho or KwaZulu this kind of behaviour was
not culturally accepted as some men ended up killing their wives or sending them back to their homes (Modo, 2000: 448). Both Inyatsi and isidikiselo sexual practices resulted in the emergence of 'amavezandlebe' which is a name given to children born to married woman out of wedlock.