The law in Kenya still clings to the idea that if two adults decide they no longer want to be married, someone must be blamed for it. It is not enough to be unhappy. It is not enough to say the relationship no longer works. One must prove cruelty. Or desertion. Or adultery. Or some extraordinary moral collapse that makes continuing unbearable. Even when the law allows divorce after separation, the whole process is wrapped in accusation and shame.
This is not unique to Kenya. Blame-based divorce laws have been around for centuries, inherited from places where marriage was treated more like a religious sentence than a partnership. In old Europe, one needed to stand before a judge and explain exactly what kind of failure or filth the other spouse had committed. It was often humiliating, sometimes fabricated, and always a public mess.
America eventually got tired of the theatrics and dropped the blame requirement altogether. So did Canada. So did Australia. Even places like Sweden and Russia found it reasonable to stop forcing people to invent a scandal just to end a marriage. These countries accepted that sometimes things fall apart. Sometimes people change. Sometimes no one is at fault. Sometimes the fault is simply life. When California introduced no-fault divorce in 1969, people panicked. They said it would destroy marriage. Families would fall apart. Society would crumble. What happened instead? People got out of toxic marriages.
Kenya, on the other hand, is still stuck treating divorce as a trial of morality. The courts say marriage must be preserved unless one party brings the other into disrepute. Now, someone will say marriage is sacred. That is fine. Let it be sacred. But sacred does not mean people should suffer in silence. Sacred does not mean keeping a marriage intact for the neighbours while it rots on the inside. Sacred means respect. And respect includes knowing when to end something with grace.
The High Court has said that fault-based divorce is constitutional. Fine. So is polygamy. So is freedom of religion. That does not mean the law cannot evolve. Parliament already tried to pass a bill to allow divorce by mutual consent, but it failed. Not because it was a bad idea but because too many people still believe that divorce must involve shame. The courts upheld the old approach and wrapped it in constitutional dignity, insisting that marriage must not be exited lightly.
Let us call this what it is. It is outdated, it is patronising and it is harmful. If both parties agree that the marriage is over, they should not have to manufacture blame. They should be allowed to say we tried, it failed, and we are ready to move on and if one person wants out, that should be enough. The process does not just strain the people trying to get out of a broken marriage. It drags their families through legal battles and it exposes their personal lives to public scrutiny.
The question is not whether divorce is good or bad. The question is whether the law should demand that someone be the villain. If two adults agree that they are no longer able to remain together, why should the law insist on turning it into a blame game? Why should adults who managed to build a life together be forced to tear it apart with accusations just to make it legal?
One might say that making divorce difficult protects the sanctity of marriage. That is a nice slogan, but it ignores the obvious. No one walks out of a happy marriage because divorce is available. People walk out because they already feel alone inside it. And if the marriage is already broken, forcing people to stay longer will not fix anything. It just prolongs the pain.
Kenya does not need to abolish marriage. It needs to stop treating divorce like a crime. A no-fault system does not mean divorce becomes casual. It means divorce becomes civil. It means that people can exit a failed relationship with dignity instead of drama. It means they can start again without being labelled as morally defective.
Other countries have made this shift without chaos. They have seen that it reduces courtroom conflict, lowers costs, and allows families especially those with children to move on with less damage. Kenya can do the same. The legal system should support healing, not humiliation.
Kenya needs the political will to reintroduce consent-based divorce. It needs judicial courage to interpret dignity in a way that includes the right to leave. It needs public honesty about the real costs of forcing blame where none belongs.
Marriage may be a promise, but sometimes promises end and when they do, the law should offer people a clean, respectful way to part. Not because they failed, but because they chose to stop pretending.
Interesting Reads from Us.