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The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library.

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ft is the contention of this article that marital hope and pursuit of the marital strategy functions as a suwival option for some female heads of households as shown in this study. This article examines how and in what ways female heads of households benefited or were disadvantaged by the lack of or entry into various forms of marital relationships. The experiences of many of the women interviewed for this study showed that the pursuit of the marital strategy had had different outcomes for different individuals at different times. Sometimes, the outcomes were positive, but at other times, the marital strategy had negative results. Through the use of case studies, this article illustrates the outcomes of both losing and gaining 'official husbands', the exploitation of men by 'some tricky' women, and the implications of this behaviour on the development of the family as an institution of socialisation.

A complex give-and-take relationship characterizes the way female heads of household in Masvingo balanced their relationships in town and countryside. My respondents employed a double-rooted strategy that entailed the use o/urban kin to gain afoothold in town and at the same time the use o.lrural kin to help maintain thefamily, children and the elderly in the village. The women :\'strategy lvas also characterized by less instrumental considerations such as supporting rural kin and maintaining ties 0/ ajJect and culture. However. because survival in town is difficult, the women expected to return to the village when their working lives were over and they therefore made strategic moves that ensured easy entry into the village when the time finally arrived. In view o/the choices made by the women heads o/households in this study, it is imperative for policy makers to arrive at policies that take into account double-rooted strategies.