A divorce complication, has cost a woman an inheritance worth millions of shillings after the death of her husband in 2015.
Professor Stephen Musembi Nzuve, left Ksh19.8 million shares which were incontinent between Rose Katunge and the trustees of the University of Nairobi Pension Scheme.
Before marrying Nzuve in 2010, Katunge had been married to Stephen Masika and divorced the traditional way.
Katunge and Masika had divorced by returning the bride price – alongside a goat known as mbui ya maleo(a goat for dissolving the marriage), to mark the dissolution of a marriage.
The complication came up when Justice Arsenath Ongeri ruled that Katunge’s marriage had not been dissolved by the Registrar of Marriages.
The court noted that Katunge had two marriage certificates — the earlier one in which she was married to Masika and later by Nzuve.
Court also heard that when Nzuve joined the scheme in February 1987, he listed his wife Jacinta Loko and five children, four girls and a son.
His wife Jacinta, died in 2003 and seven years later, he married Katunge but he never updated his records.
The judge heard that Katunge was married to Masika on February 6, 1998, at the Nairobi Registrar of Marriages’ office.
She said the man later disappeared for seven years and she divorced him.
“I find that the first respondent (Katunge) did not have the capacity to enter into marriage with the deceased since her first marriage to Masika was and is still subsisting,” the judge said.
However, the judge noted that her two children, although not sired by Nzuve, were supported by him and should, therefore, be listed as beneficiaries.
