Charles Kanjama opines that "marriage means, above all, love and companionship, a lifelong commitment of equals that safeguards and nurtures their equal dignity and equally noble task of begetting and rearing children" (Marriages are institutions of love, not unions of comrades, Standard on Sunday, May July 17, 2011). This romantic notion of the institution of marriage is of recent vintage. It was not always so. Marriages, for millennia, were institutions that served the common good and did not always satisfy the romantic needs of the partners. Love and companionship, especially, are very modern objectives of marriage and are the very heart of the changes that have taken place in the institution of marriage, eroding its place in the foundation of society.
In Africa and Asia (including the Middle East), romance came by way of the European colonists. The institution of marriage served as a means of uniting families, clans, ethnic communities and political groupings. Strict rules governed the institution of marriage, regulating who, how and when a couple would be united in matrimony. The Judeo-Christian mores introduced in Africa by the English, the Portuguese and the Germans undermined the institutions of marriage in traditional African communities, insisting that a Victorian perspective was better than the African one. As a consequence, traditional African marital arrangements were frequently criminalised, outlawed and stiff penalties attached to any African that chose to practice his culture and traditions. Polygamy, the most common tradition, was criminalised and is now being opposed by Christian faith-based groups including the church in Kenya. The infusion of religious overtones in the institution of marriage is also a relatively modern addition by the Europeans; marriage in Africa was frequently a civil affair, a social pillar that guaranteed stability and peace.
It is a poor society that lives in the past, and dwelling on what marriage was, rather than what it is, has been the Achilles' Heel of those hell-bent on perpetuating a patriarchal system that has seen the advancement of women in society blocked or slowed down. However, in defending the institution of marriage from the assault, as claimed by Mr Kanjama, by modernity, it is important to strip away the romantic notions of what marriage is. Marriage still plays a crucial role in society, as it has always been, but ephemeral and abstract concepts such as love and companionship should not be used as the basis for refusing to change with the changes taking place in the mores of the people of Kenya. It is for this reason that the stance adopted by many Christian fundamentalists, indeed by many conservative Kenyans, regarding the place of homosexual unions in the institution of marriage is short-sighted. Kenya is not what it was twenty, forty or a hundred years ago. It has evolved and so have its peoples' cultures and traditions. If it were not so, then the incidences of inter-ethnic marriage, or even interracial ones, would face great opposition and would, one way or another, be outlawed or accorded second class status.
In debating the new family laws it is important for everyone to accept that they will not get what they want at the expense of other sections of their communities. An open mind is needed. The institution of marriage cannot be used to deny sections of the community legal rights that will be accorded to others. The Constitution, in outlawing discrimination in all its forms, should be interpreted in a manner that is likely to protect the rights of minorities when it comes to the question of marriage particularly. Until we can accept that society is made up of all manner of persons, the institution of marriage will continue to be undermined and the likes of Mr Kanjama will continue to fulminate against the assault on an institution that has changed.
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