ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the experiences of married women in Gwanda communal areas, located in a semi-arid area of Matabeleland South Province. This is pursued with reference to an NGO-led development programme called Amalima. The chapter uses Amalima as the backdrop from which to explore the lives of married women in Gwanda as well as the patriarchy-based relations characterising village life. It explores one Amalima sub-programme, namely, health and nutrition. This sub-programme incorporates the “healthy plate”, water, sanitation and hygiene, eco-stoves and, importantly, breastfeeding and childcare. Married women carry the burden of domestic duties as well as labour-intensive agricultural activities; however, they are marginalised from local community meetings about village administration. Amalima has had uneven effects on the labour burdens of married women, on husbands’ conceptions of a respectable wife, and on shifts in relationships between wives and husbands at household level. Married women handle the multiple demands placed on their labour (as women), including by way of trade-offs between their involvement in the domestic and public spheres.
