Elena Moore

Transmission and change in South African motherhood: black mothers in three-generational Cape Town families

This article explores changes in the conceptualisation of motherhood, drawing upon life history interviews with six families over three generations in Cape Town. I examine the practice of mothering, how women of each generation talked about motherhood and how maternal identity is transmitted over time and across generations. In particular, I investigate the ways in which marriage and motherhood have uncoupled within a changing socio-historical context. Findings from a South Africa-wide attitudinal survey and a case study demonstrate how structural and cultural changes have influenced the model of ‘good mothering’ in the youngest generation: Notions of motherhood have changed from solely cultivating a ‘good provider and caring role’ toward a growing emphasis on achieving personal goals and working on ‘the project of the self’. Meanwhile the absence of men as participatory caregivers remains a continuous theme across generations. This research contributes fresh insights to the discussion of motherhood in South Africa while drawing on some of the broader contextualisation and generational models adopted in previous studies.

Paternal Banking and Maternal Gatekeeping in Postdivorce Families

The research explores the way in which postseparated parents continue to exert a bidirectional force on each other following divorce and separation. The study draws on qualitative interviews with 39 separated mothers and fathers in Ireland, including five marital sets of former couples. The study found many fathers adopted a range of paternal banking strategies on separation and that these strategies appeared influential on, or in response to, maternal gatekeeping behavior. The article develops the concept of paternal banking by linking it to maternal gatekeeping practices postseparation. The research indicates that an investigation of maternal gatekeeping in the absence of a review of paternal banking practices undermines the nature of parental role battle within the postseparated couple. The article argues that this is especially true when located in a state, like Ireland, where traditional family structures are pervasive.

South Africa’s System of Dispute Resolution Forums: The Role of the Family and the State in Customary Marriage Dissolution

The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act has been a welcome legislative effort to remedy the vulnerabilities experienced by women in the dissolution of their customary marriages. Through an analysis of research findings, this article contributes to the debate about the achievement of the Act’s objectives. We argue that the Act is falling short in fulfilling its objectives, owing to the shortcomings within South Africa’s system of customary and state dispute resolution forums. Our findings demonstrate that both customary and state dispute resolution forums were under-utilised by couples who experienced the dissolution of their customary marriages. The lack of financial resources, information and power has arguably limited women’s access to state courts upon marital breakdown. Moreover, research participants did not perceive traditional courts as appropriate forums for the resolution of certain customary marriage disputes. We argue that these shortcomings prevent the Act’s application to customary marriage breakdowns. Furthermore, given that the Act is applied in divorce proceedings in state courts to ensure equitable outcomes upon marriage dissolution, the article questions whether state support is provided to couples at too late a point in their marital breakdown. By addressing the above-mentioned shortcomings and providing state support to couples at an earlier point in marital breakdown, the objectives of the Act stand a better chance of being achieved.

Delaying Divorce Pitfalls of Restrictive Divorce Requirements

A period of separation is a ground for divorce in some countries. During this waiting period, some parents live apart in two separate residences, while other parents live apart in one residence. In this article, I examine the experiences of fathers who remain living in the same residence as their former partners and the experiences of a number of fathers who had to move out of the family home and live in a separate residence after the decision to separate. The findings show that restrictive divorce policies that delay divorce potentially create a situation of prolonged boundary ambiguity which complicate the process of renegotiating boundaries between parenting and former spousal relationships on divorce. The article argues that for a sample of divorced fathers, the policies that require a prolonged waiting period relate in some way to issues of unclear boundaries.

Forms of Femininity at the End of a Customary Marriage

This paper explores women’s daily practice of resistance built into the racialized and gendered social structure of customary marriages in South Africa. I argue that women resist, accommodate, adapt, and contest power and authority in the decision to leave the marriage, in negotiating the exit from the marriage, and in their approach to the financial consequences of the separation. By using the myriad of daily practices as evidence for resistance, the study identifies three forms of femininities that emerge from the data: Emphasized femininity characterizes women’s compliance with women’s subordination, ambivalent femininity describes a complex combination of compliance and resistant activities in women practices, and alternative femininities typifies the rejection and resistance with women’s subordination. The paper discusses how these different forms of femininity emerge in their specific cultural, class, and temporal context. The findings reveal that the resistance practices are accompanied by more general ideological awareness of how gender, seniority, and lineage shape the lives of these women at this time of transition.

Renegotiating Roles Postdivorce: A Decisive Break From Tradition?

On the basis of a qualitative study of 27 separated and divorced parents, this article seeks to examine the extent of shift toward more egalitarian and democratic intimate relationships between men and women by looking at postdivorce and separation relationships. The article uses the division of labor in single- and dual-earning couples, to map the role division in responsibilities postseparation. The findings suggest that the renegotiation of family practices postseparation is heavily influenced by the gender roles practiced during the marriage. The article draws attention to some of the grave consequences of leaving out discussion of structural aspects of societies and personal relationships, for the people themselves and our understanding of changing family practices.

Centring the intersection of race, class, and gender when a customary marriage ends: An intersectional critique of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act of 1998

abstract Based on an empirical study of marital dissolution, this article explores the race, class, and gender dimensions of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act (120 of 1998) (RCMA). Drawing on data from court (divorce) files and semi-structured interviews, it provides an intersectional critique of the laws for customary wives who seek to regulate marital dissolution through both judicial and extra-judicial systems. The article focuses specifically on the financial consequences of the dissolution of a customary marriage, one of the main criticisms of the Act. The RCMA was supposed to improve the entitlements of women in customary marriages; however, this study found that in practice the law is of little use to most poor, rural-based black South African women whose lives are far removed from any interaction with the state or norms generated by it. There are two main reasons for this: firstly, the rhetoric of rights and the provision of rights overlook the failure of the state to assist individuals in claiming the rights, and secondly, the strong belief held by divorcees and traditional leaders that marital assets belong to the husband (and husband’s family or the marital family as it pertains to children) leads to resistance to an equal division of marital assets. The authors argue that a more dedicated and systematic effort which uses intersectionality in thinking about institutional transformation is required to curb financial exploitation upon the dissolution of a customary marriage.

South Africa’s hybrid care regime: The changing and contested roles of individuals, families and the state after apartheid:

The post-apartheid state in South Africa inherited a care regime that historically combined liberal, social democratic and conservative features. The post-apartheid state has sought to deracialise the care regime, through extending to the African majority the privileges that hitherto had been largely confined to the white minority, and to transform it, to render it more appropriate to the needs and norms of the African majority. Deracialisation proved insufficient and transformation too limited to address inequalities in access to care. Reform also generated tensions, including between a predominant ideology that accords women and children rights as autonomous individuals, the widespread belief in kinship obligations and an enduring if less widespread conservative, patriarchal ideology. Ordinary people must navigate between the market (if they can afford it), the state and the family, balancing opportunities for independence with the claims made on and by kin. The care regime thus remains a contested hybrid.

Changing Families and Regulating Change in Family Life

‘Marriage falls out of favour for young Europeans as austerity and apathy bite’, reads the headline of an article in The Guardian in 2014 concerning the changes in marriage rates across Europe. Citing a series of experts across a range of EU states, the journalist argues that the behaviour of people in relation to birth, marriage and family formation has changed in response to economic, social and cultural changes. The interviewees expressed several explicit reasons for retreating from marriage. For some it was because of economic problems owing to the lack of stable jobs and increased living costs, especially housing; for some it was the changing significance of marriage as a life goal, with commitment established through parenthood rather than marriage; while for others it was an outright rejection of the state intervening in personal lives and prioritising one form of partnership over others. The interviewees all agreed that the decision not to marry was as much about changing values as about financial difficulties.

Divorce and Time

This chapter offers the reader a better long-term insight into the divorce experience. In 2014 I went back to speak to a smaller group of the participants who were willing or able to continue participation in the study. In revisiting them and listening to their accounts after six years had passed, I captured the ways in which the experience and process of divorce has significant temporal aspects. The chapter thus maps changes over a six-year period, focusing on time in three specific ways. First, I consider contact time: the practices of parent–child interaction and the time parents spend with their children. Second, I look at the specific cultural time framing the experiences of the divorcing couples in this book. It is a time when normative changes in parenting and family practices are taking place, and I discuss how the case studies reveal an increase in paternal involvement and family fluidity but the ongoing gendered responsibility of care. Third, and lastly, I look at questions of the socioeconomic time in which this group of parents experience the divorce process. These issues move outward from the day-to-day negotiations of contact, through broader cultural and normative questions to the wider themes of the socioeconomic context.