A group of women in Kenya has commended the government for a new law that went into effect this week.
The law that makes it legal for a man to marry as many women as he wants does not provide an official limit on the number of wives a man can have.
The polygamy measure was signed into law by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday by formally recognizing it as a long-time cultural practice in the nation.
According to Kenyatta in a statement, he said: “Marriage is the voluntary union of a man and a woman whether in a monogamous or polygamous.”
“The Marriage Act 2014 defines various types of marriages including monogamous, polygamous, customary, Christian, Islamic, and Hindu marriages.”
Recall, the Parliament has passed the bill in March despite uprisings from female lawmakers who angrily stormed out of the late-night session at the time.
Initially, the bill gives the first wife the right to veto the husband’s choice of additional spouses. But male counterparts in the Parliament successfully pushed to get that clause dropped.
However, the Federation of Women Lawyers, a powerful women’s rights group applauded aspects of the bill and criticized others parts of it.
Reacting to the bill, Christine Ochieng, the executive director of the nation’s Federation of Women Lawyers said “We are happy with the law because finally all marriages are being treated equally.”
“All marriages will be issued with marriage certificates, including customary marriages. Before this, customary marriages were treated as inferior with no marriage certificates. This opened up suffering for the women because they could not legally prove they were married to a particular man.”
She suggested that the first wife should have a say in picking her husband’s co-wives.
“What we are not happy about is that now a man can marry another wife or wife without the consent of the first wife.”
In her opinion, she said. “That section of the law is potentially open to abuse because a man can secretly marry other wives because he doesn’t need his wife’s consent to marry.”
Also, Jane Kimani, a Nairobi resident who criticized the development said the bill is archaic and has no place in modern society
Kimani said “Polygamous marriages should not even be an issue today,” she said. “Kenya is moving backward instead of changing with the times.”
Thank you for taking your time in reading through our Journal Today. We wish to always provide you with qualitative Stories as far as GOOD-JOURNALISM is CONCERN. But good journalism costs a lot of money and only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, accountability democracy, and a transparent government.
For continued free access to the best investigative journalism, we ask you to consider subscribing to our daily news updates.
