The debate for the past week has bordered on polygamy, its pros and cons thrashed out in our modern day society.
It is a fiery debate that was sparked by Kiambu County Representative Gathoni Wamuchomba a week ago where she urged able men to marry upto five wives.
Seemingly, her proposal has been supported and condemned in equal measure. Men are astoundingly in support of polygamy while women feel insulted.
But what is the glaring truth about this cultural practice that faded years ago?
Politician Gladys Chania and a counselor notes that while polygamy is viewed as an empowerment tool, this is far from the truth.
She terms it a “sympathetic approach” to addressing a myriad challenges affecting women in the society.
Chania, who vied for Kiambu County Women Representative seat in the last general polls asks if polygamy is a solution, why have only 58 countries out of 200 in the world legalized it.
She also asks why Kenyan men have failed to take up more wives even after the Polygamy Bill was passed by the 11th Parliament in March 2014.
Chania avers the only way out is not advocacy for polygamy but empowering women.
“Polygamy will never be and can’t be a short cut. What our single mothers need is empowerment and awareness, not sympathy through polygamy,” she advises noting a man will never be in two houses at the same time.
She goes on to espouse that polygamy is just a case of “digging on hole to fill another”.
“A man cannot be in two houses at the same time, so when he is in house C, he is an absent father in house D.SO it’s closing one hole and opening another one,” she says.
“We cannot water down the liberation steps that have been achieved by predecessors by bringing out some populism agendas that have no base in reality world.”
The solution, she says, is for all stakeholders including the government to nurture the skills in women especially in entrepreneurship because “encouraging polygamy gives a notion there is a desperate gender looking up to another gender for sustenance which is deceptive.”