Exceptionally Ordinary: Singling out Single Mothers in Morocco

When I met Sadiyya in the Moroccan region of Skhirat-Témara in about 2016, she was in her late twenties. Chatting from time to time as we greeted each other on the streets of her neighborhood, I got to know Sadiyya as a married mother raising her children with her husband and in-laws in their family home. I had no idea that she had once lived as a single mother. In Morocco, the category of mères célibataires or “single mothers” stands out as a problematized grouping of women. Raising a child born to them out of wedlock, single mothers ostensibly disregarded