Legal complexities of customary and civil marriages in SA

IT IS not legally possible for both a customary marriage and a civil marriage to co-exist alongside each other.

- ZELDA VENTER

Parties are either married by customary law or by civil law, an acting judge said ina legal battle between a husband and wife as to which regime is applicable to them.

The wife told the Polokwane High Court in Limpopo that she is married to her husband in community of property and that they have concluded a customary marriage.

The husband holds a completely opposed view.

He denies that they agreed to enter into a customary marriage and insisted they were married in terms of civil law.

They had always wanted to marry out of community of property and it is for that reason that they concluded an ante-nuptial agreement which excluded community of property and loss as well as the accrual system, he told the court.