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sustaining and lifelong commitment. It is a uniquely fulfiling experience, the culmination of sustained training and socialisation in the home, the school, and all manner of social settings to make the girl child fit for this very important role.

But, for the majority of women with disabilities in Zimbabwe, who face a triple handicap and discrimination due to their disability, gender and developing world status, marriage remains a pie in the sky.
It remains a goal that is very difficult to achieve.
Socio-cultural practices and traditional attitudes of society combine to make marriage a forbidding and unwelcome institution for women with disabilities, resulting in most of them deliberately eschewing marriage rather than succumb to the dehumanising indignities of discrimination, ridicule and stigmatisation from an insensitive society and in laws.

In a society where women are still judged according to their physical appearance, and their ability to look after a home, their husbands and children marriage continues to be a major issue.
The historical, religious, ideological, ethnic, economic and cultural factors that determine gender roles create veritable nightmares for girls with disabilities and make them unfit for motherhood and marriage right from the onset.
Although the vital importance of women’s roles in economic and social spheres in developing countries is receiving increasing recognition, traditionally, women are expected to take the responsibility for all domestic chores.

These include chores such as cooking, cleaning, marketing, fetching water or fuel, washing clothes and utensils, entertaining visitors, overseeing celebrations of events or religious ceremonies in the house, and so on. They are socialised to perform these roles from a very young age.
Not so for girls with disabilities, who are either overprotected by their parents and prevented from doing all sorts of household chores and performing these roles, thus unfitting them for their future role of motherhood or grossly overworked by irate parents who fail to cope with their disability, thus scarring them for life.

Studies conducted in the United States reveal that compared to both men with disabilities and non-disabled women, women with disabilities are more likely to never marry, marry later, and be divorced if they do get married. While 60 percent of non-disabled women and men with disabilities are married, only 49 percent of women with disabilities are married.
Additionally, comparison of divorce rates of women and men with disabilities seem to suggest that women with disabilities are more likely to be left alone than men.
Statistics show that when disability occurs after marriage, men are much more likely to divorce their women, who become disabled, while the marriage rarely breaks down if the man acquires a disability.

A research on women with disabilities and marriage conducted by the Association of Women with Disabilities, Hong Kong revealed that finding the right partner was the major difficulty that women with disabilities encountered in the course of marriage.
The most challenging stage was getting acquainted with the opposite sex, a view shared by many of the focus group participants. Difficulties in marriage also arose from the economic aspect, which was reported by women with chronic illness, as well as from the objection of family members, which was reported by women with mental impairment.

The percentage of women with disabilities who remain unmarried is significantly higher in the developing world than in the United States, where most of the studies were conducted, because of the presence of advanced medical, rehabilitation and counselling systems.
This makes it easy for people with disabilities to cope with the problems and changing dynamics relative to the independence of both spouses, power differences and balance of exchange within the relationship.

Things like self-care, financial management, effect on children and assistance from immediate and extended family as well as outside resources when one spouse in the marriage acquires a disability tend to impact on negatively. It has been documented that disability can have a profound impact on an individual’s ability to carry out traditionally expected gender roles, particularly for women.
Although both men and women with disabilities would face difficulties in fulfiling their expected gender roles, as long as a man with a disability earns a living, his chances of getting married and having a family are much more than those of a woman with a disability.

A woman with a disability tends to be judged and found wanting in appearance, in comparison with the conventional stereotypes of “beauty” in her culture. She is perceived as one who is unable to perform her traditional roles of wife, mother and homemaker because of her disability, even if she may be able to do so in reality.
Stereotypes and misconceptions combine to make the marriage institution a living nightmare for women with disabilities as many people in society hold the erroneous assumption that physical disabled a woman may not be competent.

There is a misconception that women with physical disability are unable to think, learn or work like their counterparts without disability.
These attitudinal barriers that society erects against women with disabilities especially in relation to marriage have wide ranging psychological impact on these women who, as a result, come to consider themselves as non-persons.

With no rights or privileges to claim, no duties or functions to perform, no aim in life to achieve, no aptitudes to consult or fulfill they become more isolated as they feel demeaned, dehumanised and unwanted.
Restricted mobility and freedom that women with disabilities have to contend with in daily life, narrows their chances of meeting potential marriage partners. In some instances, desperate families simply parcel off the woman with disability to the first man available (who may already been married) in an effort to “get rid of the burden” of caring for the woman with disability.

Women with disabilities who gave birth in clinics and hospitals have recounted stories of being scolded by nurses for deigning to give birth, with the nurses saying that they were in need of care themselves and were unable to fulfill a caring, mothering role.

They often may have to put up with abusive or exploitative relationships because of their limited social and economical means or because the only other alternative may be a life in an institution.
It has also been noted that women with disabilities may return to abusive relationships because it may be the only intimate relationship they ever had and they may judge it better to have a bad relationship than no relationship at all.