Did you know 23% of Kenyan girls are married before their 18th birthday and 4% are married before the age of 15. in keeping with UNICEF, Kenya has the 20th highest absolute number of kid brides within the world – 527,000. 2014 data shows that girls marry at a younger age in Migori and Tana River.
Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and therefore the belief that girls are somehow inferior to boys. When the groom is chosen, the daddy of the new groom ties a daraaraa as an indication. Despite the death of her parents, no man can marry her except the chosen one.
The plan reports that Kenyan girls who drop out of faculty for any reason are more likely to finish up married. Some parents reportedly withdra
w girls from school and marry them off as soon as they menstruate. Marriage is seen to supply the final word protection from male s*xual attention. Once married, the girl would be incorporated into her husband’s family and her labor would be under the control of her husband’s parents, especially her mother-in-law.
She would also worship the ancestors of her husband’s family and not those of her own parents. Her behavior would even be closely watch
ed lest she disgraces her in-laws. Her children are members of her husband’s kin and not hers. The difference within the social attitude towards male and feminine children arises from considering them with respect to the longer term of the lineage to which they belong. A lad is looked upon as a dynamic element within the linear structure.
On the opposite hand, a baby girl, though a possible source of wealth, is thought to be an exporter of fertility from her parents’ lineage to the lineage of her husband. Thus, if she becomes the mother of the many children, her larger numbers are looked upon with disfavor as taking something aloof from her original family.
This leads to a superstitious feeling which affects her visits to the parental home. Although a bigger number of males would normally be preferred, a family of exclusively male children is considered an obstacle due to the economic burden incurred when the sons want to marry. But when a father has only female children, his position is taken into account as ‘dead’, for a family is barely considered as living when there are male members to perpetuate the road.
