Marital Sexuality in the Context of

Government and other HIV/AIDS intervention agencies have made sexual behaviour modification a major component of their preventive strategy as new cases of the epidemic continue to be reported in Kenya. As the impact of the epidemic becomes increasingly evident, there has been a worrying revelation that married couples are affected, yet there has been little attempt to understand marital HIV/AIDS preventive sexual behaviour. Whereas some studies have shown that women are disadvantaged as far as sexual decision-making is concerned, married women’s HIV/AIDS preventive behaviour has not received due research attention. Based on data from a field study conducted among the Maragoli community of western Kenya, this article examines how married women perceive the risk of HIV infection, the preventive strategies they have adopted, and husband perception of wife’s right to protection. A major finding of this study is that, even with high knowledge of the risk of HIV infection, a majority of married women have either low or no capacity to influence marital sexual behaviour related to HIV/AIDS prevention. The conclusion drawn is that HIV/AIDS prevention, especially among married women can only be realised by a change in norms which control sexual relationships and deny women the right to determine their own sexual lives. Résum