Kalenjin culture is among the ancient aspect that defined wealth ownership and distribution of properties among the household; to every individual depending on the gender and nature of their status in the society.
Women were the very unfortunate gender as they were forbidden to own properties that the community regarded as capital.
Cows were the domestic animals reared by men and the herds of the animals were not left for women or rather in control of them.
John Manyei, a septuagenarian said that women had no authority to buy or control.
“Men feared that women could overcome them and take over the properties if cows were left to them,” said Manyei.
The land is another major thing that was reserved for men and girls could not inherit it from their fathers, as opposed to the contemporary society where women now buy and own plots.
“When I got married, I was allowed to rear chickens and goats alone on a condition that I referred them as coowned with my husband,” Sally Kilel, as a resident of Uasin Gishu said adding that nothing was absolutely owned by a woman.
Children in the society were valued and cherished by their fathers, they were named after their father and not mother.
“Children were regarded as wealth that gave integrity to the man in the village, they were not associated to their mother and having more children was credit and respect to their father,” Mary Lel stated claiming that in the contemporary society, women are equally given the opportunity in the families to own properties.
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