A woman who married a university professor before dissolving a previous marriage has been disinherited by a court.
High Court judge Asenath Ongeri held that Rose Katunge's marriage to Prof Stephen Nzuve was invalid because she had no legal capacity to enter into a monogamous marriage with Prof Nzuve (now deceased) since her first marriage to Stephen Masika was still valid.
“The 1st Respondent (Katunge) is therefore not a beneficiary of the deceased as the purported marriage would not be recognised under Kenyan Laws as required by the Pension rules,” the judge ruled.
The judge acknowledged, however, the professor’s children as the rightful beneficiaries of the money.
She also ordered that two other children whom the professor took as his own are entitled to the money as well because they were his dependents before his death.
The judgment arose out of a case filed by trustees of the University of Nairobi pension scheme who asked the court to establish the legitimate beneficiaries of the Nzuve's Sh19 million estate.
According to court documents, Nzuve joined the scheme on January 1, 1987, until his death on December 12, 2015.
He had listed his beneficiaries as Jacinta Loko (wife), three daughters and a son.
Loko died in 2003 and Nzuve married Katunge on October 27, 2010, but he did not update his will.
The family was unable to agree on the distribution of the benefits, forcing the scheme to file the case to determine the rightful beneficiaries and the rightful share of each beneficiary.
The marriage between the Katunge and Stephen Masika was celebrated on February 6, 1998, at the Nairobi Marriage Registrar’s Office.
The children had asked the court to declare the marriage between their father and Katunge a nullity because she had no capacity to enter into another marriage when her first marriage was to Masika was existing.
Katunge had told the court at the time she married the deceased the first marriage had been dissolved.
She showed the court a letter from the chief of Matungulu location dated March 6, 2019, stating that her marriage to Masika had been dissolved on December 5, 2001.
Masika’s mother and brother stated that the marriage was dissolved when Katunge took back the bride price together with a goat known as Mbuzi ya Maleo, which marks the dissolution of a marriage.
Katunge testified that she decided to end their marriage after Masika disappeared in 1999. It was dissolved in 2001, she said.
But the court said that since her marriage was monogamous it could only be dissolved through a divorce petition or a declaration of presumption of death.
The judge ruled Katunge did not produce evidence that the first marriage had been dissolved through a divorce petition before she entered into another monogamous union on October 27, 2010, with Nzuve. She also did not seek a declaration of presumption of death on account of her first husband who purportedly disappeared.
And on that basis, the judge found that Katunge does not qualify to be regarded as a wife because her union would not be recognized in law.
