My wife actually came from a single mother but her father was murdered when she was a child so not really the fault of the mother. Her life was an uphill battle. She hid under tables during school just to be able to stay in the classroom and get an education (her mother could only afford 5 of the 10 dollars they required to send a kid to school). She worked with her mother in the fields during the day to earn enough money to go to school during the winters, her aunts and uncles taunted and ridiculed her to drop out and work full time on the farm.
This isn't the fairy tale they sell women in the West. Survival/Success only comes through extreme preservence and hard work, a concept the 1st world will never fully grasp.
OP if you want to date a girl and act on your white knight instincts, go to the 3rd world and help pull a woman up from the ashes. You'll never know true gratitude until you leave the bubble.