Freedom fighters – people who are going through a divorce – have a number of interim applications available to them in order to ensure that there is sufficient maintenance and security pending the final decree being handed down by our courts.
These unfortunately are never enough for most spouses who are going through a split in their marriages.
In order to overcome this lacuna in our law I am proposing that new and exciting alternatives be introduced which should give even the most hostile litigant a goodly measure of satisfaction.
What am I on/on about?
Simple, let’s start with the decree of divorce and work backwards.
The prayers set out at the end of most combined summonses, which initiate divorce, coupled to the settlements concluded by the parties during litigation usually results in the court being requested to order the following:
1. A decree of divorce
2. That the settlement agreement annexed hereto as “A” be made an order of court
3. Costs of suit
4. Further and/or alternative relief.
BUT, as most attorneys will tell you, that result is grudgingly accepted by their clients who feel that the outcome is woefully short of satisfactory. What they really want, if justice is to be served, is an order in the following terms:
1. A decree of divorce
2. An order that the defendant be placed on a rendition flight to a country that practices torture including, but not limited to, castration, removal of fingernails with pliers, and crucifixion.
3. That upon the conclusion of 2, the defendant be flown to China smothered in enough heroin to ensure that even a retarded sniffer dog with a bad cold at Shanghai International Airport couldn’t miss him. (This will result in the defendant obtaining a suitable penalty for his misdeeds during his marriage to Mrs Shnookums.)
4. An order that all friends and families of both parties speak only highly of the plaintiff even recommending her for sainthood while trashing the memory of the ungrateful bastard she was married to.
5. All property of whatsoever description be awarded to the plaintiff.
6. Costs of suit.
7. Further and alternative punishments that the court might think of or suggest.
As you can see, the gap between what spouses get and what they want is miles apart.
Now returning to the problem set out in the opening paragraph, the same dilemma manifests in respect of the interim measures available to our freedom fighters. A Rule 43 sorts out interim maintenance, custody and access while the Interim Protection Order can stop an abusive spouse, but where are the measures pending divorce that give parties real satisfaction, a measure of justice?
I would suggest that at present there aren’t any.
Accordingly I would recommend that legislation be introduced whereby South African freedom fighters are afforded all round interim protection and satisfaction pending the divorce, thereby entitling your lawyer to make an application for an order in the following terms:
1. An order declaring that the respondent may not leave the hovel he is holed up in, since being thrown out the house by the applicant, save and unless this is to attend to work which earns income to pay the applicant.
2. That the respondent may only make business phone calls and may never discuss the applicant with anyone or try to respond to the version given by the applicant, about the respondent, set out in the newspapers, radio, television, family functions and friends’ parties.
3. That the respondent shall pay maintenance to the applicant at the rate of 10% above his total income and shall ensure that the same is in the applicant’s bank account at 00h01 on the 1st day of each month.
4. That the respondent may not make friends with anyone on Facebook nor attempt to respond to the applicant’s on-going tirade against the respondent on the social network.
5. That the respondent may not tweet or respond to the applicant’s tweets on Twitter.
6. That the respondent may never again see or speak to the children unless the applicant, unlikely though this may be, decides that it is appropriate.
7. That on weekends the respondent be taken to a farm, force-fed Viagra, stripped naked and hooked up to a tractor facedown and used to plough the fields until such time as the final decree of divorce is obtained. While the tractor is being refuelled he, along with other similar respondents, should be unhooked and lined up to be used as a bicycle stand.
8. That the respondent be advised that should any party allege that the respondent is or appears to be happy, on a date which transpired after he was thrown out of the matrimonial home, the local veterinarian shall immediately attend to neuter him.
9. That should this uncalled for happiness somehow persist, the veterinarian shall immediately have the respondent put down.
10. That the applicant’s attorneys will simply send all their costs to the respondent who shall immediately attend to pay same.
Whatever is going on Traps? Does this relate to our relationship with our government or our spouses? Please elucidate, I’ve had a long day
Bravo! Brilliant!
You forgot the Dewani method. Or is it too soon still?
My lawyer taught me two very good lessons that we should all take heed of. Sadly Cancer took him from me but he remains in my memory as a very good and trusted friend.
1) “A good settlement is when both parties are unhappy with the outcome”.
2) He asked me, when I was involved in a very unfair matter, “What do you want, justice or the law”?. I told him I wanted justice so he advised me to shoot the other party and said that if I went to the courts all I would get was ‘the law’”!
Peter
Spot on! My father said the same. He said it was a common misconception that people go to court for justice, as if the judges were Solomons of the Bible.
As he put it “Justice comes from God. All judges do is interprete and enforce the laws made by man”.
Guys and Gals
There are 2 things that bore clients seeking a divorce to death :
1. Law
2. Equity
They want justice i.e. that their former spouse be tortured, executed and, once a year, people dance on the grave.
Anything less means the attorney is crap and shouldn’t be practicing. :0)
I’m confused, but perhaps that’s because I have been neither married nor divorced.
Many of my divorced female friends and relations are so because the man went off with someone else and proceeded to divorce them, trying to kick them and the children out of the family home and claim alimony with which to keep their new-found love and her children; my sister ended up paying him so that she could keep the house.
So, Traps, although you are quite right and you made me laugh, this seems to be a bit one-sided. Could we have the other half’s side?
In the late 70s I first heard of a woman who found out her husband had been having an affair throughout her fourth pregnancy…and left him, with all the kids, the youngest being a week old. I thought her unbelievably clever! It certainly clipped his wings ‘good and proper’. In the subsequent divorce, she asked for nothing. She was back at work with no responsibilities.
I have/been divorced three times. When in Holland, I still meet my first ex in a friendly environment, number two left and has never been seen again, Number three asked me to go, I did and has not been heard for over a year.
Money or possessions?? Not worth fighting about as lawyers are more expensive than the total value of most peoples possessions.
Maintenance?? The one that wants the divorce should not claim maintenance. You want it, you get it..lock stock and barrel.
Children?? See maintenance. You want to keep them…..make sure you can look after them. If not… leave them with the ex…might be more punishment than all of Trap’s suggestions.
On the question of custody. A friend of mine was advised by his attorney not to fight for joint custody.
His advice was “Within a year she will be begging you to take the children for holidays or weekends”
His attorney was right.
What is with you lot?
Children are a blessing.
Anyone reading your comments would think they are a punishment inflicted upon us by Beelzebub.
Behave yourselves.
And do not forget that if fighting couples have children, it is the children which suffer greatly – often believing that the ‘war’ is their fault. It is the children who bear the brunt of reduced income, attention, and suffer great feelings of insecurity. The kids, unless a parent is particularly brutal, have terribly split loyalties, which can have a disasterous affect on them for years. So, if you have children, behave in a civilized fashion. Anyway, warring anywhere -(see Syria) destroys more than it achieves and aren’t we supposed to be civilized?
This article does have a certain exaggerated black humour Traps, and I’ve known couples who have prolonged the agony for years at huge expense and traumer.
Michael
Two of my friends let their abusive husbands (abusive of their wives not of the children) and left the children with them.
When mother had established herself in a career, and achieved independence, and the children were older, they came looking for her on their own.
I have no idea what yoiu’re talking about Traps – All my clients walk away with a smug grin and a warm fuzzy feeling in their tummies
Traff – Your sex life has nothing to do with the rest of us :0)
You miss the point, Mike. Kids tend to value, miss and want whichever parent they lack in the home. They take the present one for granted. I only realised this once my son was 10. Because his dad died before he started school, there was nothing I could do to change it. However, once he began boarding at Jeppe Prep, he told me that all the boys would discuss, on Sunday nights, what they’d done with their dads during the weekend and he was the only one who didn’t have even a part-time dad, so was excluded. What he’d done with his mother (even going out with his godfathers) did not match up.
Also, giving a slighted woman the chance to rebuild her life while the man takes some of the strain, makes negotiation a little more equal and reasonable. Although the kids are unlikely to be badly treated with their father, they probably miss out on a lot of feminine thoughtfulness, even when there is enough money for additional help. And young kids crave the gentle concern more than they do computers and TVs. Dads often struggle with that. It doesn’t necessarily last long, but it does give both sides time for consideration of the difficulties. Dad realises what things cost and mum how hard it must be for him to deal with everything form the PTA to concert costumes.
I sincerely wish people would not divorce. The psychological strains, or is trauma goes to bear on the kids. Divorce like death is never fashionable. It cant even be second best. My best advice is for couples to stick out the storm. Fortunately African women do not make a husband’s unfaithfulnes that much of a big deal – it can be explained and besides they could easily accomodate polygamy. Again, African divorces are never as complicated – the traditional way never requires lawyers or courts. Lastly, its best to stay put, kids coming from divorced parents 9/10 will divorce too. Seriously, its just cowards that divorce. What hapens to ’till death do us part.’? If only the wives could learn to be more humble and the husbands more loving. The chemistry is very simple, a woman needs to know she is loved and a man needs to know he is respected. Its also good to turn a blind eye on some of these small errors and just let it pass. Nobody is perfect out there – we all wake up with a foul mouth breath.
I have known of many men who play “good parent” and decry mother as the “bad parent” to the children.
You know the story? Daddy is the clever person who makes the money and goes to work, Mummy is the stupid one who runs the household and can’t even get that right.
Many women turn to alcohol or drugs, which Daddy encourages as the enabler, because it re-inforces him as the “good parent”.
Good grief, Lyndall! If a couple are warring and using the children a pawns in their nasty battles, then neither is a ‘good parent’. And children are not fools, they are able to see much more clearly and fairly than they are given credit for. The story of Daddy cleverly earning the money while Mummy stays at home has not been so for decades, and is often the trouble. Both parents frequently work these days and come home tired and stressed. I have known many divorced couples, but never any where the woman has turned to alcohol or drugs encouraged by the husband.
I agree wth Tarupiwa. It is a pity couples don’t try harder with their marriages/partnerships, remembering we all have irritating habits and are all imperfect.
Jean
Get stuffed! I have taken 2 such mothers with their 2 children into my home as a refuge against just such men.
One of the husbands pitched up high as a kite on drugs threatening that he wanted his wife and children back – and my husband threatened to set the dogs on him and call the police if he did not get off our property.
The other was a doctor, who had been feeding his wife drugs for a back complaint, which got her addicted. After rehab her doctors said she needed a half way house and could not go home, but husband would not pay more than R750 a month – so she came to ask us if she could stay with us for that amount. We agreed. Within 2 weeks not only she, but both her children, were living with us, while her husband rattled around on his own in a four bedroomed house with a swimming pool up the road.
I still remember her taking a call from her doctor and saying “Doctor, there is not an asprin in this house – but it is awash with booze”.
WHich I found very funny – although not entirely accurate.
Lyndall, how exceedingly rude….. I have no intention of ‘getting stuffed’. You may have unpleasant experiences of two exceedingly unpleasant instances, but that in now way makes it the rule of the majority. Neither does it make you the defining ‘guru’ on all things marital. And I speak from profound experience.
Jean Wright
I don’t have to be rude – and you don’t have to be blind and middle class conservative.
I could tell MANY such stories – but they involve other people’s private lives.
Wake up and smell the roses about the hell that many women go through in patriarchial societies.
Lyndall Beddy.
No indeed you do not have to be rude, but you nevertheless are, and more than a little self-righteous. We can all tell unpleasant stories (but don’t) about people’s private lives.
I am well aware that some women have a difficult time in patriachial societies, but you should also be aware that many men are terrorised by their women (sometimes to my knowledge at knife point). This article was about the unpleasantness which can arise in divorces, and the affects this can have not only on the couples involved but on their families and children. Not all men are horrors, and not all women are saints. You seem to have a somewhat blunt axe of your own which you are grinding here.
You may be fascinated to learn that the vast majority of divorces are not because of violence, drink or adultery, but because the couples have ceased to communicate with each other.
Jean
The lucky ones are the ones allowed a divorce by their culture or financial circumstances.