Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta signed a bill into law Tuesday that makes it legal for men to marry multiple women, even if it is without their wife’s consent.
Lawyer Judy Thongori Tuesday said the Marriage Act 2014 is long overdue and has more positive than negative attributes. She says the number of women a man can marry depends on the traditions of his tribe. Kenya has 42 tribes and many do not put a cap on the number of wives a man can marry as long as he can afford it. Thongori said previous laws governing marriages and unions were made by British colonialists before Kenya gained independence in 1963 and did not capture the value systems of the indigenous populations. Although proponents of the bill say that this formalizes an already common practice throughout Kenya, many women’s groups have objected to the bill and Kenya’s Federation of Women Lawyers says that it will challenge the law. Women can not marry more than one man.