Unemployed wife must get maintenance from ex-husband

THE sad reality of divorce is that in most cases, people who get divorced will be compelled to reduce their standard of living.

Where the available means of support is not adequate to maintain both people according to their former scale of living, each person has to scale down his or her budget, a judge has said during divorce proceedings before him.

In this case, the wife, who hardly worked before and had few qualifications, told a Northern Cape

High Court judge she had applied for 45 different working opportunities, but had not been invited to a single interview.

The judge commented that, by no fault of her own, it was unlikely, given her age and working experience, that she would ever find work. He ordered that her husband had to pay spousal maintenance to her for long as she lived or until she got married again.

The judge referred to a similar case in which a judge had remarked that for most, divorce brought a measure of hardship. The judge said: “To say two can live as cheaply as one is not true. The fact is that two living together can live more cheaply than two living apart.”

It was said in the judgment that the problem of “indivisible household expenses” is a real one. “The fact that each former spouse now has to pay for things formerly enjoyed in common places a heavier burden on the finances. It is therefore clear that in most cases both parties will have to reduce their standard of living to some extent.”

In this case, the couple were married out of community of property with the accrual system for nearly two decades. It was agreed upon divorce that the wife would receive about R1.5 million from her husband’s pension fund, but the woman said this would not be enough to make ends meet each month.

While she did work for a little while during their marriage, it was agreed she would stay home and look after their children, who were young at the time. The woman also said she and her husband had agreed the cost of buying new work clothes was simply not worth it, compared to the salary she earned.

The wife said throughout the marriage she had dedicated herself to the housekeeping, home-making and cooking, mostly without domestic assistance. Thus, she was entitled to spousal maintenance.

She said it was not that she was not willing to work, but applying for more than 45 job applications and not hearing anything back left her rather bleak regarding a prospective career.

Judge JW Eksteen commented that the divorce act did provide for spousal maintenance in certain cases. He said the court can make an order for the payment of maintenance by one party to the other for any period until the death or remarriage of the party in whose favour the order is given, whichever event occurs first.

“Although the plaintiff ( the woman) said she would like to be employed and portrayed a positive self-image, optimistic of obtaining some form of employment, I am satisfied her prospects of securing a rewarding position are very slim indeed.”

The judge added that she has very limited working experience, and was no longer young. She had no post-school qualification nor formal training.

“She has made numerous applications, without success, and the conclusion to which one is ineluctably driven is she will be at a significant disadvantage against an oversupply of younger applicants in the market.”

The judge said this was not to say she is unemployable. “She is a presentable, intelligent, healthy, wellspoken woman and portrays a positive self-image. Her own evidence suggests she may be able to find some form of employment in future. But, realistically, the expectation is it would yield a modest income. I have accordingly come to the conclusion she will require maintenance until her death or remarriage,” he said.

He pointed out that her husband had the same steady job for the past 25 years and that in addition to paying maintenance to their child, who was still living at home, he had to pay his wife R8 000 a month of spousal maintenance.