I WAS scrolling through X (formerly Twitter) recently when I stumbled upon a post by Aime Mwiza. She posed a question that shouldn't be revolutionary in 2025, yet remains a lightning rod for controversy: “Would you marry a single mother?”
While the comments debated the "baggage" of one child versus many, I found myself stuck on a more fundamental realisation.
In Zimbabwe, the number of children is secondary to the label itself. To the digital jury, a single mother isn't just a parent; she is a social pariah.
Growing up in Manicaland, the Shona term mvana held a certain dignity. It simply described a woman who had ushered life into the world, regardless of marital status.
However, we have watched in real-time as our culture weaponises this word.
What was once a descriptor has become a derogatory slur. Today, calling a woman mvana in a heated debate isn't an acknowledgement of her motherhood; it’s an attempt to diminish her value on the "marriage market".
We have stripped the word of its honour and replaced it with a stigma that suggests she is “damaged goods”.
One comment by a user named Maish Major perfectly encapsulated the toxicity single mothers face. He claimed that if the biological father is still alive, the woman isn't a single mother, but a "runaway wife".
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This logic is as dangerous as it is delusional. It assumes that a woman’s place is to endure — no matter the cost. It ignores the reality of the brave women who flee physical, emotional, and verbal abuse to ensure their children grow up in a home of peace rather than a war zone. Why is the woman who "chooses to leave alive" branded a runaway, while the man who abandons his responsibility is rarely branded at all?
There is a biological cruelty to this social bias. A woman’s body carries the permanent evidence of motherhood — the stretch marks, the changes, the physical presence of a child. A man can walk away from a pregnancy and remain invisible in his irresponsibility.
We see this play out daily, men rejecting pregnancies, only to return years later claiming paternal rights once the child starts to look like them.
Yet, society reserves its vitriol for the parent who stayed. We must ask ourselves, Why do we punish the one who took the responsibility and excuse the one who took flight?
Behind almost every single mother is a man who was an equal participant in the tango but chose to leave the dance floor when the music got difficult.
Our patriarchal norms have created a convenient shield for these men. By focusing the horror on the single mother, we allow the deadbeat father to blend back into society, often repeating the cycle with other women without a scratch on his reputation.
No young girl dreams of being a single mother. It is a path forged through heartbreak, betrayal or the sheer necessity of survival. If anything, these women are the unsung heroes of our economy and our social fabric.
They are the providers, the protectors, and the nurturers who do the work of two people while carrying the insults of millions.
It is time we stop asking if a man is brave enough to marry a single mother and start asking if our society has evolved enough to respect her. We need to reclaim the dignity of the mvana.
A woman’s worth is not a depreciating asset based on her maternal status. The real horror isn't that there are single mothers in Zimbabwe; the horror is how we treat them for the sin of being the parent who refused to leave.
Joyline Chiedza Basira is an entrepreneur and activist using her media lens to write the column she needed to read years ago.
