"Infidelity, sanitised as marriage." Sue Nyathi, The Polygamist (2012)
Nyathi's novel asked whether that arrangement survives a society living with HIV. Zimbabwe's 2023–24 Demographic and Health Survey puts numbers to the question. Among HIV-negative women, the married are the least likely group to use a condom — and it is not their own behaviour driving it.
In The Polygamist, set in Zimbabwe, a woman discovers her marriage is one of several. Nyathi wrote it as a story about deception dressed up as tradition. Twelve years on, the question her novel left open is a measurable one: who carries the risk when that arrangement meets a country still living with HIV?
The Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey 2023–24 answers it plainly. Of every group of HIV-negative women aged 15–49 who reported sex in the last year, married women are the least likely to use a condom — 4.2%. Never-married women: 55.6%. Divorced or separated women: 52.3%. Even women who sell sex report condom use ten times higher than wives do.
The wedding does not lower a woman's exposure to HIV. It removes the one tool she had against it.
Condom use among HIV-negative women, 15–49, who reported sex in the last 12 months. The order runs opposite to how risk is usually talked about: the categories carrying the most stigma sit at the top, and marriage sits at the bottom.
Dashed reference: the all-women average of 12.8%. Only married women fall below it.
Unexpected Trend: The risk hierarchy is inverted. Women in transactional sex (44.4%), with casual partners (44.5%) or multiple partners (46.7%) all protect themselves at roughly ten times the married rate. Protection tracks perceived risk — and marriage is perceived as no risk at all.
The obvious explanation — that married women drop condoms because they no longer have other partners — is half right. They almost never do. The other half of the marriage does.
21× more likely — a married man than a married wife
This is the mechanism behind the 4.2%. The partner who removes the condom inside marriage is almost never the one bringing in outside exposure. The protection disappears precisely where the gap between two people's behaviour is widest. Marriage does not cancel the risk — it transfers it to the person least able to see it coming.
Nyathi's framing — infidelity, sanitised as marriage — turns out to be the literal shape of the data. Outside marriage, the same behaviour would read as a casual or multiple-partner relationship, and the condom rate would jump above 44%. The certificate is the only thing that changed. The exposure did not.
The survey measures the same behaviours for both. The numbers barely overlap.
| Measure | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Reported multiple partners (last year) | 17.1% | 2.4% |
| Mean lifetime sexual partners | 7.6 | 2.3 |
| Higher-risk sex | 31.2% | 13.5% |
| Reported STI symptoms | 5.4% | 10.7% |
| Aware of PrEP | 27.2% | 40.1% |
Men report more partners on every measure — over three times the lifetime count. Women carry the cost anyway: nearly double the rate of STI symptoms, 10.7% against 5.4%. Lower exposure behaviour, higher infection burden. That is the asymmetry of marriage written across the whole population.
The last row is the one to sit with. Women are more aware of PrEP than men — 40.1% against 27.2%. The knowledge is not missing. What the 4.2% condom rate measures is not ignorance. It is how little of that awareness a woman can act on once she is married.
Pick a relationship category to see its condom-use rate among HIV-negative women who reported sex in the last year, and where it ranks against the rest.
Figures are direct ZDHS 2023–24 readings, not modelled. Denominator: HIV-negative women aged 15–49 who reported sexual activity in the preceding 12 months. "Multiple partners" means 2 or more partners in that period. All values are self-reported. Ranking is against the eight groups shown above only.
Nyathi's novel asked whether "infidelity, sanitised as marriage" could survive a country living with HIV. The 2024 data does not answer whether it survives. It answers who pays when it does.
Deep Dive Data covers Zimbabwe health, capital markets and public data. This article was produced independently using the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey 2023–24 (ZDHS), the primary source for all figures shown. Condom-use figures are among HIV-negative women aged 15–49 who reported sexual activity in the previous 12 months. "Multiple partners" denotes 2 or more partners in that period. Mean lifetime partners are counts, not percentages. All behavioural measures are self-reported and subject to the usual reporting bias on sensitive questions. Literary reference: Sue Nyathi, The Polygamist (Pan Macmillan South Africa, 2012).