Family Law · The Household
The Household
Family Law is a home you build, inhabit and sometimes leave. Walk the Household from the Courtship Path to the Parting Gate — each stage a room in the life of a family, from betrothal and marriage to property, children, dissolution and protection.
Stage 1
The Courtship Path
Engagement as a contract — its requirements, breaking it off after Van Jaarsveld v Bridges, and the fate of the ring.
Stage 2
The Wedding Threshold
The four requirements for a valid civil marriage — capacity, consensus, lawfulness, formalities — and void, voidable and putative marriages.
Stage 3
The Marriage Bond
The invariable personal consequences — consortium omnis vitae, equal spouses, household necessaries, and the abolished adultery claim (DE v RH).
Stage 4
The Two Estates
The proprietary consequences — in community of property, the s 15 consent rules, the antenuptial contract, and the accrual system.
Stage 5
The Parting Gate
Divorce under the Divorce Act — irretrievable breakdown, forfeiture and redistribution, spousal maintenance, and the children.
Stage 6
The Other Unions
Beyond civil marriage — civil unions (Fourie), customary marriages (RCMA), Muslim/Hindu marriages, and life partnerships (Bwanya).
Stage 7
The Cradle
How the parent-child relationship arises — adoption (60-day cooling-off, Du Toit), artificial fertilisation (s 40), and surrogate motherhood (genetic link s 294, partial surrogacy s 298).
Stage 8
The Nursery
Parental responsibilities and rights — care, contact, guardianship, who holds them, the best-interests and s 7 factors, the Family Advocate, and the pro-rata maintenance formula.
Stage 9
The Shield
Protection against domestic violence — the DVA's wide definitions, the protection order, and the 2021 reforms.
New to the Household? Start at the Wedding Threshold — the requirements for a valid civil marriage are the backbone every Family-Law answer returns to.