Big win for stay at home spouses

Spouses who stay and home and offer companionship, do domestic work and take care of children will be considered to have contributed to the acquisition of matrimonial property, according to the Matrimonial Property Bill.

So, too, will those who manage family business or property and work on the family farm, according to the definitions of “contribution” contained in the Bill passed by the National Assembly on Tuesday evening.

This means that when a marriage is dissolved, the spouse who did not contribute money but helped in other ways in the acquisition of matrimonial property will be entitled to make a claim on that property.
“’Contribution’ means monetary and non-monetary contribution,” the Bill states.

According to Njoroge Baiya (Githunguri, TNA) a lot of the provisions passed by MPs exist in case law and putting them into one law would make it available to all Kenyans rather than the few rich who can afford lawyers.

“For property acquired in the course of the marriage, and it doesn’t matter the contribution, it need not be material and can be recognised under existing law,” he said on Tuesday evening.

The Bill also gives courts the leeway to determine what the contribution would mean in actual terms, meaning, a judge would determine what fraction of the property would be given up to the spouse, whose contribution was non-monetary.

The Bill states: “A person may apply to a court for a declaration of rights to any property that is contested between that person and a spouse or a former spouse of the person.”

Male MPs in the National Assembly united to use their numerical strength to force through a change to the original Bill that would have required couples to share property equally, irrespective of the contribution of either spouse.

This was perceived as a blow to stay-at-home wives, who spend the days cleaning, taking care of little children and preparing meals.

Mr Nicholas Gumbo (Rarieda, ODM) sought to dispel this notion.

“I have seen places where women toil from morning to evening; men (who) sit and do nothing in their disgusting indolence want to stake a claim in what their wives have acquired. This thing is cutting both ways,” he said.

In the House on Tuesday, most women MPs argued that this share should be taken as a 50 per cent contribution to acquisition of matrimonial property.

Said Ms Regina Ndambuki (Kilome): “Women are marginalised because when these men go to work, you are left there taking care of his kids and washing his clothes and entertaining them when they come back.”