Polygamy has been legally approved by President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya. The bill was passed into law by the Kenyan parliament in a vote which caused female legislators to storm out of parliament in protest. The president signed the bill April 29.
The office of the president released a statement about the law. “Marriage is the voluntary union of a man and a woman, whether in a monogamous or polygamous union,” the statement read.
The law does ban “bride prices,” despite earlier proposed drafts of the bill. Neither does it require men to seek the consent of existing wives before subsequent marriages, which was among the demands of opponents of the bill.
“At the end of the day, if you are the man of the house, and you choose to bring in another party – and there may be two or three – I think you should be man enough to agree that your wife and family should know,” commented female lawmaker Soipan Tuya.
In Kenya, 80 percent of the population practice customary forms of marriage. The law applies to marriages that take place under customary law.
Human rights activists have opposed the legislation, which has been under discussion since 2007. Kenya is a signatory to the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which guarantees social and political equality to women, including “as equal partners in marriage.”
The law also attempts to harmonize the various forms of union practiced in Kenya, and provide a precedent minimum standard of what constitutes marriage. The law also outlaws marriage between minors; the age of consent to marriage is set at 18.
By Cheryl Bretton
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