{"id":7711,"date":"2014-03-21T12:34:30","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T12:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=7711"},"modified":"2014-03-21T12:36:50","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T12:36:50","slug":"kenyan-polygamy-law-female-mps-storm-out-of-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=7711","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan polygamy law: female MPs storm out of Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"POLYGAMY\"<\/a>Female MPs in Kenya have stormed out of a late-night parliamentary session in a row over the legalisation of polygamy.<\/p>\n

The law is intended to bring civil law, where a man is only allowed one wife, into line with customary law, where some cultures allow multiple partners.<\/p>\n

But male MPs voted to amend the new marriage bill to allow men to take as many wives as they like without consulting existing spouses.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, first wives are supposed to give prior approval.<\/p>\n

Correspondents say about 30 of Kenya’s 69 female MPs were in the 349-member chamber for the debate but were outnumbered by their male counterparts.<\/p>\n

The women walked out in disgust over the matter.<\/p>\n

The marriage bill now passes to the president to sign before it becomes law.<\/p>\n

‘This is Africa’<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP Samuel Chepkong’a, who proposed the amendment, said that when a woman got married under customary law, she understood that the marriage was open to polygamy, so no consultation was necessary, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reports.<\/p>\n

Mohammed Junet, an MP representing a constituency from the western Nyanza province, agreed.<\/p>\n

“When you marry an African woman, she must know the second one is on the way and a third wife\u2026 this is Africa,” Kenya’s Capital News website quotes him as saying.<\/p>\n

But female MPs argued that such a decision would affect the whole family, including the financial position of other spouses.<\/p>\n

“It behoves you to be man enough to agree that your wife and family should know,” Capital News quotes Soipan Tuya, the women’s representative from Narok County, as saying.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Angela Ngendo in the capital, Nairobi, says the new marriage legislation has been under discussion for several years and some initial proposals were scrapped at committee stages.<\/p>\n

Plans to ban the payment of bride prices were dropped – although a person must be 18 to marry and this will apply to all cultures.<\/p>\n

Proposals to ensure equal property and inheritance rights were also watered down – a woman will be entitled to 30% of matrimonial property after death or divorce.<\/p>\n

Under current Kenyan law, a woman must prove her contribution to the couple’s wealth.<\/p>\n

There was also a proposal to recognise co-habiting couples, known in Kenya as “come-we-stay” relationships, after six months, but this too was dropped.<\/p>\n

It would have allowed a woman to seek maintenance for herself and any children of the union had the man left.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source:BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Female MPs in Kenya have stormed out of a late-night parliamentary session in a row over the legalisation of polygamy. The law is intended to bring civil law, where a man is only allowed one wife, into line with customary law, where some cultures allow multiple partners. But male MPs voted to amend the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-7711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}