The Department of Home Affairs is expected to introduce a new draft marriage policy for the country that will bring new changes to marriage laws.
The draft was originally planned to be gazetted for public consultation during the 2020/2021 financial year for cabinet approval by March 31, 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought these plans to a halt.
The new draft is aimed to changing current legislation, which the department explains is not based on constitutional values and modern social dynamics.
“Despite all the changes that have been made in the marriage legislation post-1994, there are still serious gaps in the current legislation. For instance, the current legislation does not regulate some religious marriages such as the Hindu, Muslim and other customary marriages that are practised in some African or royal families,” they explained in May.
“Given the diversity of the South Africa population, it is virtually impossible to pass legislation governing every single religious or cultural marriage practice. It is against this background that the DHA is embarking in the process of developing a marriage policy that will lay a policy foundation for drafting a new single or omnibus legislation.”
Some changes they plan to bring to marriage policy include:
– enabling South Africans of different sexual orientation, religious and cultural persuasions to conclude legal marriages
– introducing strict rules around the age of marriage (including the alignment of age of majority in the marriage legislation to the Children’s Act)
– aligning the marriage, matrimonial property and divorce legislation to address matrimonial property and intestate succession matters in the event of the marriage dissolution
– allowing for equitable treatment and respect for religious and customary beliefs in line with Section 15 of the Constitution
– dealing with the solemnisation and registration of marriages that involve foreign nationals
– dealing with the solemnisation and registration of customary marriages that involve non-citizens especially cross-border communities or citizens of our neighbouring countries
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