After many years of living through this tradition, the culture has now come under close scrutiny by women right’s activists who claim that bride price contributes to gender inequality and subjugation of women.

“Bride price is recorded to have serious implications on human rights, it subjugates the status of the woman to that of a cash cow,” says Emma Ongari, the deputy director for Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW).

According to a study that has been carried out by CREAW, “the practice of bride wealth promotes cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment towards women.”

According to the survey, bride price plays a very important role in customary marriage among both the Gusii and Ameru communities who live in these regions.

Indeed, the findings revealed that an overwhelming majority of the women constituting 76.7 percent had bride price paid by their husband upon marriage.

Although most of the respondents gave various reasons for the significance of the bride price; ranging from it being a sign of appreciating the bride’s parents, forging family ties and respect of the bride’s parents, although one issue coming out clearly from the study was the way in which the practice was heavily commercialised by both communities.

For instance, the study indicates that, ordinarily, animals such as cattle, sheep and goats feature prominently as the mode of payment as traditional symbols in marriage rituals, but more recently, these are converted into cash.

On the other hand cases of single mothers in both communities were on the increase with many young couples preferring to enter into a relationship of convenience otherwise known as “cohabiting”.

This situation could be attributed to the fact that the men in such relationships were not able to raise the amount required for bride price.

The survey also revealed that for respondents who had not had bride price paid to their parents, 57.9 per cent indicated that their husbands were not able to pay at the time of marriage while 21.1 percent said that their husbands were unable to pay by virtue of being unemployed.

The interesting fact about this study is that the amount of bride price paid heavily depended on the girl’s background.

For instance, the higher the level of education the acquired the bigger the amount of bride price the man would have to pay. Affluence of the girl’s family also heavily influenced the amount.

Anne Njogu, the Director of CREAW sees bride price as one of those traditional practices that are detrimental to society.

“Although Kenya has a rich history of positive traditions, we have certain harmful ones like bride price that has contributed to the entrenchment of gender-based violence,” quips Njogu.

“Bride price is responsible for the deep-rooted perceptions of women as property, compromising their position even before marriage begins,” she says.

Bride price traditions are argued to persist because parents focus on practical needs, viewing daughters as a means of poverty alleviation and marrying them off early for immediate rewards instead of investing on their education and future potential, according to the study.

Ms Njogu notes that the practice reinforces fundamental inequality between men and women. The woman is commodified and converted to currency in total disregard to their human qualities, she says.

Following this argument, it therefore comes as no surprise that majority of the women surveyed (68 per cent) felt that bride price in a way negatively affected their marriages. Most were of the view that their husbands treated them as property for having paid the bride price.

For example, findings from focus group discussions in Kisii revealed that men had the tendency to “discipline” their wives whenever the wives were “disobedient”.

Ms Njogu believes that time has now come for some of these harmful traditional practices like bride price to be abolished to give women full and equal dignity.