To the married woman reading this, here is a reminder that the evidence of bride price being paid for you might one day be the only thing that saves you from being disinherited in case your husband dies.
To the man, evidence of paying bride price for your wife can also be the sole reason you get to bury her.
Based on recent court decisions, you need witnesses who can later testify that the bride price changed hands. This applies particularly to marriages not officiated in church or at the Attorney-General’s chambers.
This emerged in our analysis of four cases touching on bride price that have been decided by various courts this year. The cases, drawn from Maasai, Kikuyu, Luo and Luhya customary settings, paint a picture of a legal system straining to apply centuries-old bride-price customs to modern, often messy arrangements.
Elders’ bride price evidence helped widow secure inheritance
On July 30, the High Court in Kajiado revoked a land administration grant issued to the son of a deceased Maasai elder after finding that he fraudulently concealed the existence of his father’s second wife to monopolise a multi-million-shilling inheritance.
Justice Christine Meoli stripped Mr Stephen Parsait Simel of his status as the sole administrator of the estate of Simel Ole Mataen Minik, who died on July 1, 2005, without a will. She then ordered a fresh, balanced joint grant to include the “hidden” second wife and other sidelined family members. The estate consists of a prime land parcel located in Ilpolosat. The property was earmarked in 2021 for financial compensation from a Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) wayleave project.
The court heard that 15 years after his father’s death, Mr Parsait secretly petitioned for letters of administration without the knowledge or consent of the patriarch’s other family. He was appointed sole administrator on June 28, 2021. Armed with the sole grant, the court heard, he subsequently executed a wayleave agreement with Ketraco.
He omitted his stepmother, Ms Sylvia Malilau Simel, and her daughter from the list of beneficiaries. When Ms Malilau moved to court to revoke his powers, Mr Parsait fought back. He claimed Ms Malilau was never married to his father but was merely a pregnant teenage house help accommodated out of “goodwill” in 1998.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Ms Malilau’s father, Tobiko ole Meeli Nini, and area assistant chief Daniel Sanoe Sekenoi testified that a valid Maasai customary marriage took place in 1998. They detailed the sequential Maasai steps performed, including the full payment of six heads of cattle and the wedding ceremony.
A local photographer, Tom Tajeu Reureu, produced the original manual camera negatives from the 1998 wedding. They captured the traditional blessings, with Minik’s first wife welcoming Ms Malilau into the matrimonial homestead.
Justice Meoli dismissed Mr Parsait’s house-help narrative. He ruled that Ms Malilau was a lawful widow, and she got to be a co-administrator in a four-way joint administrative team that included Mr Parsait, the only surviving son of the patriarch.
Two women allowed to inherit man’s estate because bride price had been paid to their families
On April 17, the High Court in Thika banked on bride price payment to offer relief to two women who had been married to a man who was enigmatic about his marital status.
The late Njoroge Kwihota, who died in 1988, had married two women – Jacinta Njoroge and Nancy Wanjohi – years apart. Jacinta said she married him in 1960, though they separated in 1982, while Nancy said she married him in 1978. Neither side produced an expert on Kikuyu customary law, so the judge said he could only rely on “indicators of existence of a marriage”, among them bride price payment. Nancy’s witnesses described a payment of Sh1,000 followed by Sh10,000 in 1982 “in the company of elders”.
Jacinta’s brother, on the other hand, recounted a 1960 ceremony where 10 goats, at Sh20 apiece, were paid toward an agreed 100.
In the end, the court found both women had been married to the deceased. Even though Jacinta was living apart from him at the time of his death, the court ruled that “there was no evidence that the two were formally divorced”.
A fresh joint grant of administration was ordered, meaning both women will be entitled to a share of the estate.
Proof of paying bride price helps man to get order to exhume wife’s remains
On July 2, the High Court in Siaya ordered the exhumation of a woman’s body for reburial at her matrimonial home after setting aside a lower court judgment that allowed her parents to bury her.
Justice David Kemei ordered that Dr Irene Betty Osamba’s body be exhumed from her parents’ land in Busia County and transferred to Ugunja, Siaya County, for reburial by her partner of nine years – Mr Fredrick Oduor Nyamuga.
Osamba had bride price paid for her twice. In the first instance, her first husband, Remjius Odongo Miyai, had given a customary bride price of five cattle, two goats and Sh70,000. The couple, however, separated in 2015. Not long after the separation, she started living with Mr Nyamuga as his wife.
At the hearing of the case, the court heard that among the Marachi clan, where Osamba came from, parents don’t accept bride price from a second marriage until they refund what they got from the first. It was further informed that Osamba’s parents nonetheless received money as bride price from Mr Nyamuga.
“The deceased’s father did not want bride price to be paid in the form of cows but wanted cash, and he paid: Sh100,000 via Co-operative Bank and Sh150,000 via National Bank. He also paid Sh70,000 to the deceased’s mother and a further Sh100,000 to enable her to complete some construction she was undertaking,” the court said, citing Mr Nyamuga’s testimony.
Osamba died on July 27, 2025, and a dispute arose as to who should bury her. That saw a court case by Mr Nyamuga against her parents, Jacktone Adikinyi Adieri and Rosemary Atieno Obiero. The parents argued that because the customary bride price in the first marriage was never refunded, the marriage was never legally dissolved. The first husband also testified, claiming Osamba was legally his wife despite their 10-year separation and the fact that he had moved on to sire children with another woman.
The case failed because bride price payment couldn’t be sufficiently proved
On July 17, still at the High Court in Siaya, Justice Kemei rejected yet another application to have a woman’s remains exhumed. The judge dismissed an appeal by Patrick Omondi Bunde, who was seeking to exhume the body of Syprosa Auma Ogonda from her resting place in Bondo.
Mr Omondi had claimed that the deceased was his stepmother and was lawfully married to his late father, Richard Onduru Bunde, under Luo customary law. He also demanded Sh5 million in general damages from the parties he had sued “due to their behaviour”.
However, Justice Kemei upheld a 2024 decision of the Bondo Magistrate’s Court, pointing out that Mr Omondi failed to prove the existence of the customary marriage and had no right to disturb a grave after 13 years.
The case hinged heavily on whether the deceased was married to Mr Omondi’s father or to Mr Aggrey Opang Onyango, on whose family land she was buried.
To back his claim, Mr Omondi produced a witness, Stephen Ochieng Oyaro, who testified that he participated in driving three head of cattle and a goat as bride price to Auma’s family in 1989. However, the defence blew a hole in this narrative during cross-examination when it was discovered that the witness was born in 1974.
Furthermore, Auma’s biological brother, Lawrence Otieno Ogonda, denied that Mr Omondi’s father ever paid any bride price for his sister.
The ultimate blow came from a statutory declaration sworn by Auma in 2006. In the document, she explicitly declared that she was married to Aggrey and had never contracted any other marriage.
