Although many parents in sub-Saharan Africa believe early marriage will shield their adolescent daughters from the region’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, in fact the opposite may be true according to research by Assistant Professor Shelley Clark. After she read a 1997–98 study showing that the likelihood of HIV infection was 48-percent higher for married girls than unmarried girls in Kisumu, Kenya, and 65-percent higher in Ndola, Zambia, the figures “really got me hooked” on the topic, Clarks says.

She began her research, part of a larger Population Council project, to look for an explanation. Using the Kisumu-Ndola study and Demographic and Health Survey data, she found three main causes for this phenomenon.

First, marriage effectively ends condom use, both because of the desire for children and because condoms are seen as a sign of distrust. Second, sexual frequency rises dramatically with marriage. Third, the husbands of married girls are generally older and more sexually experienced— and therefore more likely to be infected—than the boyfriends of single girls. “These girls typically marry a man five to ten years older than themselves,” Clarks says. “He will have had more sexual partners, including prior wives, since many of these marriages are polygamous.”

Ironically, she says, “Parents told us they really wanted their daughters to marry early to protect them from HIV.” At the same time “public and private policymakers actively encouraged virginity before marriage and promoted marriage as the best option to avoid disease.” She hopes her study can convince parents, policymakers, and researchers that marriage does not offer the best protection against contracting a sexually transmitted disease. But in sub-Saharan Africa, where such diseases are pandemic, attitudes about marriage and sex are entrenched. “We need to develop policies that will raise awareness and change prevailing beliefs in a way that will genuinely address the problem.”

Clark’s next step, in fact, is working with the Population Council and the World Health Organization to “figure out what the policy messages should be for married girls.”
Amy Braverman

Excerpted from the University of Chicago Magazine (February 2003), the University’s alumni magazine. Reprinted with permission. See also the Q&A with Harris School Dean Susan Mayer in the April 2003 issue. For more information, visit magazine.uchicago.edu.