adminJOHANNESBURG. – A man whose wife left him 22 years ago to seek greener pastures, has asked the court for an order that she forfeits assets he acquired over the years after she left him and their children in the cold.
The wife turned to the High Court in Bloemfontein, South Africa, to ask for a divorce.
She argued that because they were married in community of property in the 1980s, he had to share what she deemed their assets – a house and his pension benefits – with her.
But in a counter-application, the husband said she did not work for these assets as she left more than two decades ago, and should not benefit.
Judge PJ Loubser commented that the evidence before the court provided a reflection of the hardships many black families had to endure during the 1980s and 1990s.
“These hardships existed in poor socio-economic circumstances, unemployment and little opportunities, that caused many fathers and husbands to work on the mines far from home, or as migrant workers in other areas of employment.
“Sadly, this was also the fate of the M family.”
The judge said the husband had to leave his wife and three daughters at his parents’ house while he went to work in the mines at Orkney.
In 1995 he left the mines to return to Sterkspruit where they lived.
In around 1998, the wife went to Bloemfontein to look for employment, leaving her children and husband in Sterkspruit with her mother-in-law.
Not long after, the husband also moved to Bloemfontein where he eventually found employment.
The marriage was not destined to survive such adverse circumstances, and for 22 years, both lived in Bloemfontein, but not under the same roof.
They lived completely separated.
As the children grew older, they also went to Bloemfontein and lived with their father.
The husband testified that he and his wife married in 1980 in a traditional marriage ceremony.
When he returned from the mines in 1995, he bought a vehicle to transport people.
When he returned home one day in 1998, he found his wife had left.
He did not know where she had gone, but she had left the children with his mother.
The following year, he moved to Bloemfontein where he found employment with the municipality as a driver.
He did not know his wife’s whereabouts and said he was responsible for the children’s upbringing.
He said his wife never visited them and saw her for the first time after more than two decades in court during their divorce proceedings.
He retired from the municipality and received his pension benefits two years ago. – IOL.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter