The unmarried Mothers' Families

Abstract

The main objectives of this study were to reveal the nature of the emerging phenomenon of the Unmarried Mothers' Families, and to explore some of the factors that lead to the phenomenon as it Is. A sample of 205 Unmarried Mothers was drawn from the various Maternal Child Health Clinics in Meru District and interviewed by the use of a pre-scheduled questionnaire. Key informants were also interviewed using non-scheduled questionnaires to complement the information gathered from the unmarried mothers. Court orders dealing with children were examined to estimate the role of single parent families in child delinquency. The theoretical perspectives guiding this study were that both the material conditions of a people, and the social Values and norms, have a lot to do with the people's behaviour. Personal attributes of the individual unmarried mothers were also considered but were thought to be of secondary importance relative to material conditions and norms. The sample of unmarried mothers had the following attributes: aged between 13 and 40 years, 92% (of 204) of them had never married, all of them were affiliated with one religious denorr~nation or other, 73.1% (of 204) had finished primary school and perhaps gone higher, 84.1% (of 201) had no indepenent income, and only 2.3% of the 129 respondents ~ho estimated the distances between where they lived and the nearest towns said less than one mile. Almost all the respondents (92.2% of 204) had grown up with their own parents, Of the 202 respondents who indicated the relative wealth of their families of origin, 37.6% said they were poor. Only 31.7% of the 202,respondents who indicated the size of their families of origin had more than 7 children in the family. The majority of the unmarried mothers conceived their children accidentally, but they said they reacted calmly when they discovered they were pregnant. These unmarried mothers were committed to assist their children - at least before they could get a spouse to marry them. They hoped to get married sometime in the future but to people they were still hoping to meet. The circumstances of conception - whether of own choice or accidentally, were found to be significantly related to the age at time of conception, knowledge of contraceptive Methods prior to conception, and the occupation of the women at the time of conception.The opinions given by the unmarried mothers on what they thought their children lacked were found to have a significant relationship with the levels of education coupled with the income levels. On the other hand, the future plans for the children were found to have been significantly related Kith both the relative wealth of the respondent's home of origin and the circumstances under which the child was conceived. Viewed as largely undesirable, recommendations were made to control the phenomenon of the unmarried mothers' families. To this end, recommendations were made to launch a massive education programme starting from the family level, to schools, and even through the mass media. This effort should be geared partly towards influencing the public on the need for responsible parenthood; and partly in providing family planning information and services to all the interested persons who are sexually mature. Some of the areas strongly suggested for future research include, the factors that influence the birth of more than one child outside wedlock, and those that influence the placement of such children with someone other than their mothers. Need to explore a related phenomenon to this study - that of the unmarried fathers' families - was also stressed.