Judge unimpressed as first wife asks court to annul husband’s 2nd marriage

A LOVE triangle in which a man’s first wife claimed she was still married to him and asked for his marriage to his second wife to be annulled, left a North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria judge unimpressed.

Judge JS Nyathi said the second wife was innocently dragged into this legal wrangle, which was brought in bad faith. The judge concluded the application was “an egregious abuse of the court process”.

It started with an application launched by Rosina Mahlangu, against the man she called her husband, Lucas Ntuli, and his second wife, Precious Ntuli.

Mahlangu wanted the court to order Home Affairs to register the customary marriage between her and Ntuli and annul his second marriage.

The couple, who married in 2007, had split up when Ntuli married Precious. But Mahlangu claimed they were never legally married as she was still married to him when he married Precious.

Mahlangu said she left the communal home around 2018, as she had had enough of her husband. She claimed they discussed reuniting, but they never got around to it.

According to Mahlangu, she only discovered Ntuli got married, again, a year later, when she went to Home Affairs offices enquiring about her marital status. It was then she discovered he was married to someone else.

She told the court Ntuli entered into a civil marriage at Home Affairs without her consent while still married to her in community of property.

Precious, meanwhile, disputed a customary marriage was concluded between Mahlangu and Ntuli.

Precious claimed her husband now wanted to divorce her. She claimed he and Mahlangu colluded in this application so that he could get out of his financial obligations towards her.

She said her husband had assured her he and Mahlangu were never married.

The judge said Mahlangu was asking the court to essentially grant a decree of divorce by annulling the civil marriage between the Ntulis and for Home Affairs to register her marriage to Ntuli.

The judge questioned Mahlangu’s motives to have the marriage recognised after all this time.

He concluded Precious Ntuli was an innocent victim in the “connivance” between Ntuli and Mahlangu.