In seeking to isolate the conditions that facilitate the rise of femaleheaded households across time and place, which may also bear on the variable prevalence of lone mothering, Momsen (1991:26) has pointed to forms of inheritance, control of property and economic opportunities. Female-headed households, she suggests, are more likely to emerge where property is individual rather than corporate and where women are able to own and control property and have independent access to subsistence opportunities through work, inheritance or state provision. She notes, moreover, that subsistence opportunities must be reconcilable with child care—an important qualification in respect of female heads who are also mothers—and adds that the income realizable through subsistence activities must not be markedly lower than that of men of the same class (Momsen 1991:26).
In general, then, differing prevalence of female-headed households—or of lone mothers—in different countries, communities or class categories may result from the extent to which an environment enabling their proliferation exists. A facilitating legal framework, a tolerance for diversity in family forms, supportive welfare provision or the possibility of gaining sufficient income through employment to maintain a household and cover child-care costs are all important factors.
Such a formulation, however, applies most fully to lone motherhood or female headship being entered into by choice. But women find themselves as lone parents or household heads both by their own volition and by default. And even where chosen, such status may not be the choice of first preference, but the best in the context of a mixture of circumstances, among them whether the state provides any support or assistance with housing, child care or general subsistence and the availability of contraception or abortion. The degree of or possibility for choice varies across time, place and community. Preston-Whyte (1993:69) argues that in contrast to industrialized countries, where some women are choosing to rear their children outside of marriage, many of the lone African female parents in Durban have no choice, but are simply seeking strategies to confront poverty and difficult socio-political circumstances. Many female household heads in the rural areas of developing countries have been thrust into a situation not of their choosing through the desertion or temporary absence of their husbands. In the Caribbean—and elsewhere—where a general tolerance of variable family situations maintains and motherhood continues to carry considerable independent prestige, marriage may remain the dominant ideal (Preston-Whyte 1993:68) and lone mothers can still be subject to rebuke for their immature and compulsive behaviour (Dagenais 1993:99). Moreover, the ability to choose for any particular form of parenting or household may be circumscribed by class position. Dagenais (1993:99) comments, for example, that the highest rates of fertility and the highest proportions of women raising their children alone in the Caribbean tend to be among those women least educated and most economically deprived. This indicates not so much choice as a limited scope of alternatives, sometimes entailing dependence on the state as a means of avoiding dependence on individual men. But even in dire circumstances with minimal external forms of support, there is evidence in some cases that if women are not rejecting marriage they are questioning its value, opting to postpone it or choosing to exit from it. Wright’s study of women in Lesotho indicated a clear strand of opinion in favour of staying single, associated with complaints that husbands were often inadequate providers, drank too much and beat their wives, and reinforced by the conviction that marriage was not a prerequisite for having children (Wright 1993:249, 250). In this sense, lone parenthood may carry different values for those in different social locations, confronting different circumstances, and may be variously seen in a positive or negative light.
CONCLUSION
The spectre of lone parenthood is often difficult to confront because it conflates so many issues, the significance of which may vary for different groups in different social settings. Anxiety about children born out of wedlock or to very young mothers, problems of lone — household heads being able to provide economic support for their offspring and concern about individuals side-stepping responsibilities and making undue or undeserved claims on the state are among them. It is evident that concern is not always even articulated in terms of lone parenting. Where there is a tendency to equate parenting with mothering, it is not the ability of lone mothers to perform that is questioned but their capacity, given the limited resources they command (see Moore, Chapter 3 in this volume), hence the concern about female-headed households being located among the vulnerable groups in indebted, developing countries. In richer countries, in which welfare structures have been created, it has also been shown that policies themselves encourage forms of parenting deemed inappropriate or unacceptable (see Millar, Chapter 5 in this volume, and Edwards and Duncan, Chapter 6).
This review of diversity across and within nations in the nature of parenting and household formation has pointed to the complexity of patterns and the need to see any given case—or community within it—in the context of historical experience, itself influenced by differing circumstances of state and economy and mediated by differing political and religious ideologies. The complex picture that results exhibits some commonalities but also many contradictory tendencies. No policy response can be effective that ignores its varied dimensions.
NOTES