“Like a chicken standing on one leg (saperti ayam berdiri satu kaki)”. This was the comment given by one woman when asked how she would describe her single motherhood. This chapter shines the torch on the experiences of single mothers both rural and urban, and examines the problems that they face and the support networks that exist to assist them. The discussion also includes the profile of their marriages and the causes of marital fragmentation.

Changes in Family Form: A Discussion

The family has been a subject of much theorizing and many of the arguments are well known. Although reviewing these theories is not the primary aim of this chapter, nevertheless, it is useful to contextualize the discussion on debates about the family.

At a global level, the rise in female-headed households is one of the most important recent changes in the structure of household and family. It has been estimated that female-headed households account for a third of all urban households in Asia, Latin America and parts of Africa (Pearson 1994 in Hewitt, Johnson and Wield 1994, p. 245). Debates about the family have often been defined by two opposing positions. On one side are those who argue that current changes in the structure of the family is not a new phenomenon but that from time to time, changes have been seen in the family structure as it adapts to changed circumstances. The other camp believes that the current changes are a consequence of an irreversible breakdown in values. Those who argue the former include a wide spectrum of perspectives. The Chicago School of Sociology, for instance, looked at the consequences of urbanization on family structure in post-World War I America. Researchers in the Chicago School wrote of the alienating and disintegrating forces of urbanization on the family where the extended family fragmented into nuclear families, where rootlessness replaced support structures of old kinship networks.