Post by kamalet on Mar 23, 2014 17:31:04 GMT 3
Parliament last Thursday passed the Marriage bill into law and now awaits the assent of the president for it to become law. I managed to catch the last bits of the second and third readings of the Bill and yes there was quite some interesting debates in the house that had less than 100 people debating.
Having followed the media hype and LIES about how evil the bill is with such matters as polygamy, the bill was the subject of debate with the ladies in my house. Being a two against one debate, and based only on the information peddled by the media, the debate was quite rowdy about the unfairness of the male dominated house and why this bill is unfair to women. How could men decide to get another woman for a wife and without the consent of the wife? It was preposterous! On Friday the Daily Nation and the Standard on Sunday today all called on President Kenyatta not to assent to the bill for this disgraceful act by male MPs.
But when you stop and think through and even read the contents of the bill, you actually realise that this debate has been generated courtesy of the laziness of our newspaper editors who take everything they are sent by ignorant reporters.
So I took the trouble to read it and I then realised that in actual fact nothing has really changed from what was there before.
It is a fact that a marriage under the former African Christian Marriage Act has not been changed in the new Bill. The marriage is monogamous as it was in the previous law, so it is not possible to marry a second wife if yours is a christian or civil marriage!
It is only when you marry under customary law that polygamy is allowed. This is allowed if the customs of the couple allow it. The law has been clarified to provide for the fact that once the parties marry under customary law, they are also aware that the marriage can be polygamous. Hence any woman that contracts to a customary marriage ( and which mush have her consent) acknowledges that their wedding can be polygamous. Th law is equally gracious in that despite the marriage being a customary one, the parties can convert this potentially polygamous marriage into a monogamous by consent and notification to the Director. This means once that declaration is made, then the marriage is stopped from being potentially polygamous!
So what is the fuss about???
Having followed the media hype and LIES about how evil the bill is with such matters as polygamy, the bill was the subject of debate with the ladies in my house. Being a two against one debate, and based only on the information peddled by the media, the debate was quite rowdy about the unfairness of the male dominated house and why this bill is unfair to women. How could men decide to get another woman for a wife and without the consent of the wife? It was preposterous! On Friday the Daily Nation and the Standard on Sunday today all called on President Kenyatta not to assent to the bill for this disgraceful act by male MPs.
But when you stop and think through and even read the contents of the bill, you actually realise that this debate has been generated courtesy of the laziness of our newspaper editors who take everything they are sent by ignorant reporters.
So I took the trouble to read it and I then realised that in actual fact nothing has really changed from what was there before.
It is a fact that a marriage under the former African Christian Marriage Act has not been changed in the new Bill. The marriage is monogamous as it was in the previous law, so it is not possible to marry a second wife if yours is a christian or civil marriage!
It is only when you marry under customary law that polygamy is allowed. This is allowed if the customs of the couple allow it. The law has been clarified to provide for the fact that once the parties marry under customary law, they are also aware that the marriage can be polygamous. Hence any woman that contracts to a customary marriage ( and which mush have her consent) acknowledges that their wedding can be polygamous. Th law is equally gracious in that despite the marriage being a customary one, the parties can convert this potentially polygamous marriage into a monogamous by consent and notification to the Director. This means once that declaration is made, then the marriage is stopped from being potentially polygamous!
So what is the fuss about???