Factory methods are usually better, and I believe what the more modern parts of the standard library have tried to use, but they don't work as well for this specific case.

Once you start doing this in python -- beyond any low complexity usage -- you're better off capturing your arguments in their own object and passing this to the function as a single argument. This object can then enforce whatever you want, and your function can now be a class method.

And then you can build a factory for this object that accepts a few args, maybe some keyword parameters. But, once that gets reasonably complex, just rinse and repeat. It's objects, methods and factories all the way down. And unlimited billable hours.