A man has lost a divorce case for a second time after a court in Nyamira ruled that he was not married to the alleged wife.
The man, whose initials are JAM, lost the divorce case against SNM because he could not prove he had married her, despite the two allegedly living together for 11 years, The Standard reports.
In a case opposed at the magistrate's court in 2017, JAM cited that he had married SNM as a second wife and that she had come into the marriage with three children.
He stated that his wife was a drunkard, abusive and cruel to his children.
“Due to her conduct, the marriage has irretrievably broken down to the extent that no amount of amends can save it and that I can no longer bear the verbal and psychological abuses she puts me through and the marriage should, therefore, be dissolved,” the court heard.
The magistrate ruled that there was no proof showing that the man had paid dowry for his 'wife'.
In 2018, JAM sought to challenge the ruling and he appealed at the high court in Nyamira, citing that the magistrate court had dismissed his case based on trivial reasons.
However, he did not manage to change the earlier ruling as High Court judge Esther Maina stated that there was no marriage and the man did not have any documents to prove his case.
“I am not persuaded that the appellant proved his case on a balance of probabilities. In the first place he did not, apart from asserting he married the respondent in April 2008, prove there was a marriage.
"Whereas prior to the Marriage Act 2014 even a long period of cohabitation was recognized as a marriage, the petitioner did not adduce evidence of such cohabitation.
"He did not call any witnesses to prove that he had indeed lived with the respondent as his wife since 2008,” she added.
