The case of a wealthy man who is now deceased, his three wives and one estate from which all three women wanted to benefit was the subject of an application before the Mpumalanga High Court, sitting in Mbombela.
The court commented in the opening to its judgment that “this is the story of the untimely death of a very wealthy man. As a rich man, should, he had three wives”.
The court was asked to declare that the man had been customarily married to the applicant, Thani Zwane, and the other two wives – Mary Zwane, the first respondent, and Joan Zwane – and that they were all three thus on equal footing.
Claiming she was the first and only wife, as she was married to the man civilly, the application was vigorously opposed by Mary. She insists on the other customary marriages being nullified.
The Master of the High Court, who is dealing with the estate of the deceased, was earlier ordered to hold everything on ice and not to distribute the assets, pending the outcome of the statuses of the man’s marriages to his three wives.
The court was told that the applicant has been the man’s female companion for at least 47 years. Mary had been married to him for 46 years and Joan for 33 years.
The applicant told the court that she and the man had married customarily in 1972 and had three children. She said she had been his first wife. She said her lobola letter, dated 1972, had been lost when they had moved from Mbombela.
She had given permission for her husband’s marriages to the other wives. In 2019, when her husband had died, she had been 70 years old.
In her supplementary affidavit, she elaborates on the lobola negotiations between her family and the Zwane family in 1972. Most of her family emissaries have died. The celebrations had started with her family and two cows had been slaughtered.
On the day, she and her family had accompanied the Zwane family home for further celebrations and she had been handed over to the Zwane family. The man had not paid all the lobola in 1972; he had finished the payment in 2017.
Two years later, in 1973, the deceased had married Mary. She had been 75 when he had died. They had been married under civil law in a Catholic church and had four children. She says she is the deceased’s first and only wife and has an abridged marriage certificate.
The man, at the time of the civil marriage to Mary, had said that he was a bachelor. The marriage between the First Respondent and the man had been registered by her son, after the man had died.
In 1986, the had married Joan and they had three children. She was 65 when the man had died.
In her affidavit to the court, Joan stated that all three of them were his wives and they should all be treated equally.
After the wealthy man’s death in February 2019, his three wives had mourned his death together, the court was told.
It was said that soon afterwards, the man and Mary’s marriage had been registered, with the consent and blessing of all present at the family meeting.
Mary’s case is based on her marriage to the man being civil and, therefore, the only legitimate marriage. It was argued on her behalf that as such, the man’s marriages to the applicant and Joan could not be legitimate, although they had both been known to be the man’s female companions.
The court said it was important to recognise what hinged on the order. Should it be ruled that Mary, in having been civilly married to the man, was his first and only legal wife, the other two wives would not be placed on an equal footing and would not inherit from the his estate.
The court said all three wives had been married to the man for a long time. At the time of his death, there was no reason why they should not all be afforded equal protection before the law.
“The community’s interest would expect no less,” the court said.
It was ordered that Mary’s civil marriage to the man should have equal status to the customary marriages of the man and his other two wives.
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Pretoria News