Drama ensued at a wedding held at the Holy Redemption Ministries church in Tana River County over the weekend, after a man approached the pulpit and informed the presiding Pastor, Festus Muli, that the soon to be wed couple were actually siblings.
The bride and groom were both raised by single parents. However, their alleged paternal father bust through the church accompanied by his sisters and owned up to siring the two lovebirds, demanding that the wedding be called off.
He went on claim that his daughter was the product of an affair that led his first relationship to crumble, with his first wife walking away with their son.
According to the man, that very son was the one who was now about to exchange wedding vows with his half sister.
He further detailed thay after the disintegration of his first relationship, he focused on building a life with his new lover, however, he claims to have run into financial constraints which led his 4-month-pregnant spouse to walk away.
To save the face of the couple from the small congregation that had gathered to witness the union, Pastor Muli announced that the wedding had been called off after the couple was deemed to have defaulted in the guidance laid out by the church in regards to purity.
Witnesses revealed that the visibly angry groom drove off in a fit of rage as his mother was left wailing in the church.
His bride-turned-sister was whisked away in another car by her relatives.
It was further revealed that both mothers (of the couple) did not deny knowing the man nor did they deny the paternity claim he made.
Pastor Muli was quick to point out the importance of informing children of their real parents even if they were born out of wedlock.
This is after he discovered that the groom was told that his father died in an accident while the bride grew up knowing the teacher her mother had settled down with as her real father.
The incident underscored the importance of couples planning to walk down the aisle to consult their families or do their research before taking the relationship to the next level.
There have been similar cases of couples finding out that they are related at the very last minute.
This is more often than not linked to children growing up with single parents and then going on to avoid the topic of the missing father.
In 2013, a pan-African study by two Canadian sociologists showed that Six of every 10 Kenyan women are likely to be single mothers by the time they reach 45, one of the highest rates of single-parenthood in Africa.
According to the study, an increasing number of women are drawn into single parenthood as more men abandon their traditional role as providers for their children.
The study further revealed that three in 10 Kenyan girls become pregnant before the age of 18, adding that Kenya had one of the highest levels of children born out of wedlock on the continent at the time.
