CULTURAL BELIEFS, GENDER EXPECTATIONS AND PATRIARCHAL PRACTICES IN EARLY CHILD MARRIAGE AND SECONDARY EDUCATION COMPLETION IN EPWORTH, HARARE, ZIMBABWE

Abstract

Early child marriage in Zimbabwe is commonly explained by household poverty, yet that account does not explain why scarcity is resolved at the expense of daughters rather than sons. This article analyses how cultural beliefs, gender expectations and patriarchal practices contributed to early child marriage and affected secondary education completion among girls in Epworth, a peri-urban settlement south-east of Harare in which material insecurity coexists with comparatively accessible schools. A convergent mixed-methods descriptive design was used. Structured questionnaires were administered to 10 women and girls who had entered a marital union before the age of 18, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 stakeholders: 10 parents or guardians, 5 secondary-school teachers, 5 community leaders and 5 representatives of non-governmental organisations. All 35 members of the accessible study population participated. Questionnaire responses were summarised as frequencies and interviews analysed thematically. All 10 respondents agreed that boys' education was valued more highly than girls' education, 7 strongly agreeing and 3 agreeing; all 10 agreed that bride price or material benefits encouraged early marriage; and all 10 reported limited influence over decisions concerning their own marriage, with 8 of 10 reporting no consent or only partial consent. Participants described fathers and older male relatives as controlling decisions about schooling and marriage with girls rarely consulted, and marriage as a normalised passage to womanhood. Three interlocking mechanisms operated before and after marriage: the gendered valuation of education, marriage as a gendered social destination, and patriarchal decision-making authority. Four of the 10 left school before marrying, none sat the Ordinary Level examinations and none returned and completed. Read through Radical Feminist Theory, gender expectations supplied the criterion by which scarce educational resources were allocated while economic pressure supplied the occasion, so economic assistance alone is unlikely to suffice.