Economic History of Developing Regions
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rehd20
Gender and settler labour markets: The marriage
bar in colonial Zimbabwe
Ushehwedu Kufakurinani
To cite this article: Ushehwedu Kufakurinani (2021) Gender and settler labour markets: The
marriage bar in colonial Zimbabwe, Economic History of Developing Regions, 36:3, 439-444, DOI:
10.1080/20780389.2021.1929611
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2021.1929611
Published online: 09 Nov 2021.
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ECONOMIC HISTORY OF DEVELOPING REGIONS
2021, VOL. 36, NO. 3, 439–444
https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2021.1929611
LEAP LECTURE ROUNDTABLE
Gender and settler labour markets: The marriage bar in
colonial Zimbabwe
Ushehwedu Kufakurinania,b
a
Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South
Africa; bDepartment of History, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
This paper discusses the marriage bar in Southern Rhodesia’s labour
market. It extends the analysis of the marriage bar. Over and above
restrictions to enter the labour market, white women in colonial
Zimbabwe, over time, also faced restrictions in terms of their
conditions of service once they had entered the market. Married
women, for example, were not permitted into permanent
employment and, therefore, did not enjoy the benefits associated
with fixed establishment. Married white women also had limited
opportunities for promotion. Various justifications were proffered
to maintain this status quo. However, by and large, hegemonic
patriarchies played an important role in entrenching the domestic
ideology that fuelled the marriage bar in its various forms. As the
paper demonstrates, the marriage bar did not go unchallenged
and, in 1971, married women’s restrictions regarding permanent
employment were lifted. Of course, these legalistic undertakings
were not always immediately reflected in practice partly because
perceptions about married white women as primarily mothers
and wives lingered on.
Marriage bar; labour market;
fixed establishment; colonial
Zimbabwe
Introduction
The marriage bar refers to restrictions that were put in place to bar married women from
taking up employment. In the colonies, this practice was imported from western countries
and was premised on the patriarchal ideology that placed responsibility for the family on
the husband. This also served the interests of capital. Firstly, the employer was able to
save through forcing married women out of the labour market before they had risen
far in their salary scales. Secondly, in the case of Southern Rhodesia, after 1931, married
women could only be employed on a temporary basis, which meant limited access to
benefits and other emoluments and thus limited expenses on the part of the government.
This paper extends the meaning of the marriage bar beyond just restrictions of married
women to employment in colonial Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) to include restrictions and segregations that white married women faced even as employees (Government
Notice no. 401, 9 October 1917). I use the public service of Southern Rhodesia as a case
CONTACT Department of Economic History, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe, Ushehwedu Kufakurinani
ushehweduk@uj.ac.za; ushehwedu.kufakurinani@warwick.ac.uk
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
© 2021 Economic History Society of Southern Africa
440
U. KUFAKURINANI
study. The paper also demonstrates that white women were not passive recipients of what I
would call a capital-patriarchy onslaught on their roles and status. Women thus adopted
various ways to negotiate and challenge the marriage bar in its various manifestations.
The marriage bar in the public service of Southern Rhodesia took various forms, beginning with a total bar of married women from employment, which was then relaxed over
time. A government notice published in October 1917 clearly barred married women
from the civil service. Part of this notice read, ‘No lady clerk shall be appointed to a clerical
post in the service of the Administrator … unless she has attained the age of at least 17
years and is unmarried or a widow’ (Government Notice no. 401, 9 October 1917. Emphasis
added.). As white women’s labour became increasingly valuable, legislation was changed to
accommodate it. Government Notice no. 191 of 17 April 1925 permitted the employment of
married women with ‘the special consent of the Minister’. However, married women could
only be employed on a temporary basis, without pensionable benefits. The Civil Service
Regulations of 1931 restated this position, noting that ‘no married woman shall be
appointed … in the Service except in a purely temporary capacity’. At this point, no
consent from the Minister to employ married women was needed.
Married women vs fixed establishment
It was not until 1971 that married women could be employed under fixed establishment.
I argue that the Civil Service exploited white women’s labour under this facade of temporary employment. Temporary employment was polyphonic. First, there were temporary
employees filling permanent posts for a short period of time (while the incumbent to the
post was on leave). Second, there were temporary employees filling temporary posts for a
short period of time. Finally, there were temporary employees filling permanent posts for
an indefinite period (Paterson 1961, 252). The last category exploited married women
who took up permanent posts but were excluded by the regulations of the time from
permanent employment. Thus, some women deemed temporary employees ‘served the
Government for anything from 15 to 18 or more years … and [would] receive no concessions in the way of holiday grant or pension funds, etc.’ (Paterson 1961, 253).
From the moment women entered the Civil Service during the first decade of the twentieth century, they faced unfair conditions of service. However, married women fared
worse compared to the younger and single women in the Civil Service. In fact, the
Public Service Board from the onset was wary of married women, to the extent that
they recommended ‘if the proposal to employ ladies [was to] be adopted … . they
should not be very attractive’ (NAZ S695/4 1909).1 It was believed attractive women
would marry sooner and thus withdraw from Civil/Public Service early. This report
reflected the general thinking and attitude of the government towards the employment
of married women.
Married women were taken as appendages of the Civil Service. Before 1925, once
married a woman had to withdraw her services from the Civil Service. Later, married
women could be re-engaged but on a temporary basis (NAZ S1561/60 Public Service
1
It is not clear whose sentiments exactly this statement represents. The document fails to give further insight on the
source of these views apart from that already given. NAZ S695/4, Report of Public Service Board of Enquiry, 19
October 1909.
ECONOMIC HISTORY OF DEVELOPING REGIONS
441
Board 1929–1940, Civil Service Regulations 1931–1940). Their labour was only valued and
fully exploited in times of a dire need. For example, during the Second World War, the
Public Service Board appealed to married women to re-engage in the Service, and it
established a scheme of refresher courses for these women to replace men on active
service in the war (Kufakurinani and Nyambara 2015). With the ever-increasing demand
for clerical staff even after the Second World War, the government instituted a scheme
in 1964 to employ married women in morning-only clerical jobs.
Married women suffered poorer conditions of service, as illustrated in their grading,
remunerations, and promotion opportunities. Godwin and Hancock note that single
women were always given preference over married women in promotion posts and
were entitled to better leave, tenure, and holiday benefits than their married counterparts
(Godwin and Hancock 1993). According to Hamilton Ritchie, in calculating a married
woman’s taxes, her gross income was added to her husband’s, consequently expanding
her tax bracket, and this eroded her net income ‘to peanuts’ (Ritchie 2007). Commenting
on the meagre salaries that married women took home, Hamilton Ritchie remarked, ‘some
women who were working were actually working for the fun of it’ (Ritchie 2007).
Explaining the marriage bar and its manifestations
The societal prejudice against the employment of married women and the patriarchal
hegemony were deeply engraved in Rhodesian society. In a letter to The Rhodesia
Herald in 1930, one Mrs R. Darlington complained about the employment of married
women in preference to the single women in the Public Service:
What does one get married for? I ask you, why, to keep a house, rear a family, perhaps cook
the meals, darn hubby’s socks etc. The married woman has a husband to keep her that’s
one reason why she gets married – to cease work. Who has the single girl to keep her?
(The Rhodesian Herald, 6 March 1930)
She signed her letter as follows, ‘I am etc. (Mrs) R. Darlington (married and unemployed as
it should be)’ (The Rhodesian Herald, 6 March 1930). This remark should also be understood within the context of the Great Depression, which had further skewed the labour
market. In 1964, one Mr K. L. Morris wrote to Hardwick, the Secretary of the Public
Service Board, complaining against married women’s employment: ‘I think it is very
unfair for married women to have these secretary and personal stenographer jobs
when they have husbands working for them and are not in need of the extra money’
(NAZ S3454/32/4 1964). Clearly these ideas were shaped by the domestic ideology that
relegated women to the home frontier, especially when they married.
An interview between the Secretary for Education and the Federation of Women Institutes’ (FWISR) Liaison Officer in 1948 illustrates some of the difficulties that were met with
trying to permanently employ women. It read:
He [the Secretary of Education] would welcome married women if they would accept the
same conditions as single ones, but … the fact that they want to have their leave holiday
at the same time as their husbands are on leave, that they wish to be transferred if their husbands are transferred [and] that they object to doing residential duties all make their permanent employment difficult for the department. (NAZ S824/198/2 1948)
442
U. KUFAKURINANI
The Chegwidden Report of 1951–1952 made similar observations, concluding that ‘there
[was] no popular demand amongst married women Civil Servants for the abolition of the
marriage bar’ (Chegwidden 1952). Writing earlier, in 1948, The New Rhodesia noted that
‘when women first started careers, they nearly always gave them up on marriage’ (The
New Rhodesia, 15 October 1948). Hamilton Ritchie’s summary of the lifestyles of white
women is also quite revealing. She said, ‘we worked, got married, got pregnant, quit
work and that was it’ (Ritchie 2007). One should, however, put all this in the context of
socialization, cultural pressure, and, above all, deeply entrenched hegemonic patriarchies.
Over time, white women and other interested parties began to challenge the marriage bar
in its various forms.
Challenging the marriage bar
The prejudice against married women did not go unchallenged. As early as 1946, women
themselves were challenging the temporary employment of married women. As noted,
temporary employment for married women entailed a loss in benefits that were enjoyed
from permanent employment. At an annual congress of FWISR in 1946, it was proposed
that ‘the Government should recognise the principle of permanent employment for
married women with academic and specialised qualifications’ (NAZ S824/198/2 1946).
In the 1960s, white women were also challenging the mentality that married women were
to be employed only temporarily, to suit their domestic responsibilities. The Women’s
Section of the Public Service (henceforth referred to as the Women’s Section) wrote:
The obligations of a married woman whose husband is supporting her and her family rest first
and for most with her husband and family, and should she seek employment with the Government, then it follows that she must abide by the conditions of service as laid down for all
government employees. There should be no special concession for this type of employee to
receive unpaid leave (as at present) so that her leave may coincide with her husband – this is
discriminatory and there is nothing to balance this up for the woman who has no husband.
(Paterson 1961, 253)
The Women’s Section found the whole system of temporary employment unjust and
abhorrible. As noted, married women were employed temporarily in permanent posts
for indefinite periods. There were cases of women who served the government for anything from 15 to 18 or more years, but still received no concessions in the way of
holiday grants or pension funds (Paterson 1961, 253). Bitter about such injustice, the
Section wrote to the Paterson Commission that had been set to investigate the conditions
of service for civil servants:
Not by any stretch of imagination can an employee be considered ‘temporary’ with 10, 15 or
20 years or more continuous service with the Government, and such cases should be considered for permanent conditions of employment … . The idea for the government is that
all staff should be permanent employees. (Paterson 1961, 253)
The Women’s Section was thus seeking sweeping reforms that would overhaul the
employment system of white women in the Service.
Over the years, several factors combined to push more and more married women into
the labour market and thus challenge the restrictions on the entry of married women into
the market. Internationally, the growth of feminist perspectives of various strands from
ECONOMIC HISTORY OF DEVELOPING REGIONS
443
the 1960s saw domesticity heavily challenged as a destination for women. Indeed, in Rhodesia housewifery was also perceived in far less glamorous terms after the Second World
War. In the 1977 National Housewife Register (NHR) Newsletter, one member noted that
‘a lot of women … [had] a complex about being housewives … . They felt embarrassed
to be “mere” housewives – it sounds boring’ (Johnsen 1977). On the Rhodesian Frontier,
the NHR was one organization that played a critical role in challenging the domestication of married women and encouraged their participation in the labour market.
The newsletters produced by the NHR since the beginning of the 1970s are awash
with contributions that questioned the notions of housewifery as woman’s proper occupation. The NHR was established in Rhodesia in 1971, but has a longer history dating
back to 1960 in the United Kingdom. From its inception, NHR sought to lobby for
and promote the active participation and recognition of housewives by society. Early
membership in the NHR was confined to white women ‘housewives’ and young
mothers. Among other things, the organization encouraged its membership to undertake supplementary studies and be highly involved in public space, thus positively
influencing the position of housewives and, on many occasions, facilitating their
engagement in the labour market.
As noted, it was only in 1971 that concessions for their permanent employment in the
Civil Service were made. The 1971 amendment allowed married women to take up permanent positions, but each case was to be considered on its own merits. Whereas
other officers would go through a two-year probationary period, married women
would take five years. Even then, there were strings attached that perpetuated the patriarchal ideology of male domination. In the words of the Minister of Public Service, a
woman had ‘to demonstrate over a period of time that she can successfully combine a
career and her responsibilities as a housewife’. The woman’s prime duty, the Minister
echoed, ‘is to her child and her home’ (quoted in Godwin and Hancock 1993, 23).
Conclusion
The paper has explored the marriage bar in the context of the settler colonial labour
market in Zimbabwe. The marriage bar usually refers to the restrictions preventing
married women from entering the labour market. In this paper the definition of the marriage bar has been extended to include restrictions on married women even after they
entered the Civil Service. Before 1925, women were officially expected to quit work
upon marriage. The regulations changed over time, and married women could later be
employed on temporary basis. In 1971, new regulations allowed married women to be
employed on fixed establishment. I demonstrate in this paper how married women
faced inferior conditions to those of their unmarried female counterparts. As shown in
the paper, several factors informed the changes in the regulatory framework as well as
perceptions held by society about married women and their employment.
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my gratitude to Johan Fourrie and Amy Rommelspacher for the opportunity
to explore some of the ideas of this paper at the "Women and Work in History and Economics"
workshop.
444
U. KUFAKURINANI
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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