Paper short abstract:

'The one who pays the cows owns the women' - Jane, a Luo woman in Oyugis, Kenya. The practice of bridewealth has many dimensions, which are traditionally rooted in Kenyan ethnic communities vividly reflecting the past but also a future difficult to change.

Paper long abstract:

Bridewealth is still practised among ethnic groups in Kenya such as the Luo, Maasai, Kikuyu and Kalenjin. I conducted ethnographic research between 2012 and 2015 among those ethnic groups using a methodology was based on open-ended questionnaires and narrative analysis; the total number of participants was 29. Some of my findings are: this practice has been the symbol of marriage since ancient times as it was practised before the colonial period, i.e. before 1864; it depicts asymmetric power relations between husband and wives, placing wives at a great disadvantage; it is one of the main basis of kinship relations since the practice connects, through its payment, the ethnic groups of husband and wives; one of the functions of this practice is biological reproduction, as children are responsible for the well-being of parents in a social context of poverty where basic needs are not met by the state. Additionally, any failure to produce offspring is often believed to be the fault of the wife, for this reason, her husband is entitled to obtain another wife who is able to conceive children for him and his ethnic group, and the wife who is believed to be infertile may be returned to her natal family; in a context of economic deficiency, as Kenya is a poor country, a wife is compelled to be submissive to physical violence as she should not leave her husband because he has the right to ask her father for the refund of bridewealth.