Shona Customs Related to Reproductive Health

One of the projects we’re doing in my graduate class is comparing information related to reproductive health in various cultures.  The class decided that each person would pick one country to become an expert on, and that they wanted me to model what I wanted them to do for each step of the project.  This seemed reasonable to me because I’m asking them to really think through reproductive health issues in cultural, family, social, scientific, political and economic contexts, and they come from an education system that traditionally relies more heavily on memorization than on reasoning and applying knowledge.  I agreed if I got to pick the country first, and I picked Zimbabwe.    As a result, I’ve been learning a lot about how the health system is structured here, and how it is viewed by people, particularly more traditional people in the rural parts of the country.  Sixty-three percent of Zimbabweans live in rural areas, so there are a lot of those folks.  Of the people living in Zimbabwe, 82% are Shona.  One part of the assignment was to learn about cultural practices that would affect people’s use of medical clinics and hospitals, or their reproductive health.  I learned some interesting things, and thought I would share them with you.

Zimbabwe has a high rate of neonatal mortality (24 per 1000 births, compared to 4.2 for the US), and is trying to improve that figure by having more women deliver in clinics or hospitals where there are skilled medical attendants for deliveries.  A significant barrier is that it a Shona custom to deliver the child, particularly a first-born child, in the home of the mother’s mother.  Shona will travel from Mutare or Harare, where good medical care is nearby, 50 km or more to a rural area with no running water or electricity to have that baby, because to do otherwise would be disrespectful of the maternal grandmother of the baby. 

 There are two other Shona customs that can impact reproductive health in this time of HIV/AIDS.  Traditionally, if a woman becomes a widow, she will be offered a choice from among the brothers of her deceased husband who are willing to have her as a wife and to assume responsibility for any children she has.  Reciprocally, if a man becomes a widower, he is allowed to ask for another woman from his deceased wife’s family (or her family may offer him one) as a replacement wife.  These customs have served to guarantee the viability of the nuclear family of the surviving spouse.  With the current high rate of HIV/AIDS infection, and the fact that most individuals don’t know their HIV status or have money to be tested for HIV, this is a conundrum for individuals whose spouse has died.  If a widow marries a brother of her deceased husband, she may bring HIV to his family (he may already have a wife and children, so she would be an additional wife).  With so many individuals of childbearing age dying from HIV/AIDS, there is often an underlying question when someone dies in that age group whether HIV/AIDS was a factor in the death.  That concern and a trend toward greater gender equity have undermined this custom, and increasingly people are waiting to choose whether and whom to remarry.