From first love to marriage and maturity: a life-course perspective on HIV risk among young Swazi adults

Ruark, Allison; Kennedy, Caitlin E.; Mazibuko, Nonhlanhla; Dlamini, Lunga; Nunn, Amy; Green, Edward C.; Surkan, Pamela J.

doi:10.1080/13691058.2015.1134811

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The historical and economic reasons for the decline in marriage across southern Africa are beyond the scope of this paper, but the critical point is that while marriage remains a widespread aspiration in Swaziland (Ruark et al, 2016), many Swazis are not married or in a marriage-like relationship. According to the most recent Demographic and Health Survey (2006–07), the median age at first marriage was 24 among women and 28 for men.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Love matters: exploring conceptions of love in Rwanda and Swaziland and relationship to HIV and intimate partner violence

Ruark

Stern

Dlamini-Simelane³

et al. 2017

African Journal of AIDS Research

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Health risks such as intimate partner violence (IPV) and HIV infection often occur within intimate sexual relationships, yet the study of love and intimacy is largely absent from health research of African populations. This study explores how women and men in Rwanda and Swaziland understand and represent love in their intimate sexual partnerships. In Rwanda, 58 in-depth interviews with 15 couples, 12 interviews with activists, and 24 focus group discussions were carried out during formative and evaluative research of the Indashyikirwa programme, which aims to reduce IPV and support healthy couple relationships. In Swaziland, 117 in-depth, life-course interviews with 14 women and 14 men focused on understanding intimate sexual partnerships. We analyzed these qualitative data thematically using a Grounded Theory approach. Participants described love as being foundational to their intimate sexual partnerships. Women and men emphasized that love is seen and expressed through actions and tangible evidence such as gifts and material support, acts of service, showing intentions for marriage, sexual faithfulness, and spending time together. Some participants expressed ambivalent narratives regarding love, gifts, and money, acknowledging that they desired partners who demonstrated love through material support while implying that true love should be untainted by desires for wealth. IPV characterized many relationships and was perceived as a threat to love, even as love was seen as a potential antidote to IPV. Careful scholarship of love is critical to better understand protective and risk factors for HIV and IPV and for interventions that seek to ameliorate these risks.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Love matters: exploring conceptions of love in Rwanda and Swaziland and relationship to HIV and intimate partner violence

Ruark

Stern

Dlamini-Simelane³

et al. 2017

African Journal of AIDS Research

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“…However, for women with less constrained agency in their relationships, the decision to forgo condoms with a sexual partner may be made based on personal preferences, and the decision is more likely to be made with agency, affection and trust. For many couples in Swaziland, southern Africa and the rest of the world, gift giving and financial support from a male partner are normative parts of courtship and relationships [ 13 , 26 , 64 , 65 ]. Research across the globe has shown that as intimacy and trust in a relationship increases, condom use decreases even in contexts with a high background HIV prevalence [ 66 – 70 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agency as a mediator in the pathway from transactional sex to HIV among pregnant women in Swaziland: a multigroup path analysis

Fielding-Miller

Dunkle

Hadley

et al. 2017

Journal of the International AIDS Society

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Introduction: Transactional sex is a structural driver of HIV for women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa. In transactional relationships, sexual and economic obligations intertwine and may have positive and negative effects on women’s financial standing and social status. We conducted a clinic-based survey with pregnant women in Swaziland using a locally validated transactional sex scale to measure the association between subjective social status, transactional sex, and HIV status, and to assess whether this association differed according to a woman’s agency within her relationship.Methods: We recruited a convenience sample of 406 pregnant women at one rural and one urban public antenatal clinic in Swaziland and administered a behavioural survey that was linked to participant HIV status using clinic records. We then conducted a multigroup path analysis to test three hypotheses: (1) that more engagement in transactional sex is associated with decreased condom use and increased subjective social status; (2) that subjective social status mediates the relationship between transactional sex and HIV status; and (3) that these relationships are different across groups according to whether or not a woman reported any indicator of constrained agency within her relationship.Results: The amount and value of material goods received from a sexual partner was significantly and positively associated with higher subjective social status among all participants. As the amount of material goods received from a partner increased, women who reported no indicators of constrained agency were less likely to use condoms. Conversely, there was no relationship between transactional sex and condom use among women who reported any indicator of constrained relationship agency. Among women who reported any indicator of constrained agency, HIV was significantly associated with lower subjective social status.Conclusions: Relationship agency likely plays a key role in determining which mechanisms create HIV risk for women in transactional relationships. Interventions to mitigate these risks must address social forces that penalize women who engage in sexual relationships as well as structural drivers of gendered economic disparity that reduce women’s agency within their sexual and romantic relationships.

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“…Recent studies aimed at understanding these experiences, for example, have focused on sexual risk because of HIV, a disease disproportionately affecting young South African women (e.g., Idele et al 2014; Ruark et al 2016; Shisana et al 2014). The risk of unintended pregnancy and the lack of contraception are also common subjects of concern (e.g., Christofides et al 2014; Harrison et al 2016; Mchunu et al 2012), as is the culture of sexual- and gender-based violence in South Africa (e.g., Jewkes et al 2010; Russell et al 2014; Waxman et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Behaving well’: the transition to respectable womanhood in rural South Africa

Sennott

Mojola

2016

Culture, Health & Sexuality

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Few studies on the transition to adulthood in Africa analyse young people’s own definitions of the events that confer adult status, and how adulthood is actually attained. This paper examines the experience of transitioning to womanhood in rural Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, drawing on interviews with 18 women aged 18–39. Three primary experiences characterised this transition: puberty and emerging body awareness, spending time with boys, and having a child. More important than the timing of these experiences, however, was whether women ‘behaved well’ and maintained respectability as they transitioned to adulthood. Behavioural standards reinforcing ideal femininity were focused on dress, manner, and talk, and were particularly stringent for mothers. Our findings emphasise the value of emic models of adulthood for understanding how youth experience this transition and provide an important counter-narrative to the literature focused primarily on the risk African youth face during this period of change in the life course.

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From first love to marriage and maturity: a life-course perspective on HIV risk among young Swazi adults

Cited by 13 publications

References 43 publications

Love matters: exploring conceptions of love in Rwanda and Swaziland and relationship to HIV and intimate partner violence

Love matters: exploring conceptions of love in Rwanda and Swaziland and relationship to HIV and intimate partner violence

Agency as a mediator in the pathway from transactional sex to HIV among pregnant women in Swaziland: a multigroup path analysis

‘Behaving well’: the transition to respectable womanhood in rural South Africa

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