A woman who claims to have sired a baby girl with her deceased Asian employer has moved to court seeking orders to compel the family of the deceased to cater for the upkeep of the baby and consider her as the second wife to the deceased.
M.N, an interior designer, told Eldoret High Court Judge Reuben Nyakundi that they started courting with the late Manlel Rafji in 2003.
It is during this period that the woman claims they got a baby girl who is now a 19-year-old.
Further, the petitioner told the court that the deceased married her through Kikuyu customary marriage after visiting her family in Murang’a in 2003.
She also told the court that the deceased attended marriage negotiations in her village before she conceived hence she qualified for inheritance.
After conceiving, the petitioner said, dowry negotiation was not given attention and instead her lover opted to shelf marriage plans so as to allow her to focus on her pregnancy.
“I was married to the deceased between 2003/2004. During our courtship, I got pregnant before giving birth to our daughter who is now 19 years old and a University student,” M.N told the court.
She also produced copies of the marriage negotiations ceremony and other documents in court.
Original documents
But in their replying affidavit, the family of the deceased told the court that the woman together with her daughter were strangers to their family and they did not recognize the alleged marriage between the deceased and the petitioner.
It said the Hindu religion does not recognize polygamous marriage.
Defence lawyer Elijah Momanyi also invalidated the petitioner’s documents. He argued that the legality of the documents was questionable since they were not produced at the onset of the case.
Momanyi requested the court to strike out the evidence since they were strange documents to the matter.
He however insisted that if the plaintiff was to be allowed to rely on the documents, then she must present the original ones in court.
The court directed the petitioner to present original documents as requested by the defence lawyer.
