Introduction

Customary law is recognized as one of the sources of Kenya’s laws where it is designated “African customary law.” Custom is the oldest source of law in Africa. It generated the body of law that governed the native African communities in pre-colonial Africa. The scope of customary law in the traditional African society was all-encompassing. The advent of colonial administration in Kenya in the latter part of the nineteenth century was to change that broad scope and status of customary law forever, and that regime of law has remained entangled in controversy since. The colonial administration considered customary law to be inferior to English law and initiated deliberate moves toward formalizing that perceived inferiority. So intense was that colonial influence that even later attempts at restoring the respectability of customary law in Kenya after independence have largely relegated it to further inferiority.