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For better or worse, rich or poor, until death? It would appear nearly half of the couples who recently divorced in South Africa regret these words in just 10 years or soon after the marriage. Statistics South Africa’s marriages and divorces statistics show that 42,5% (7 745 divorces) of couples who divorced in 2021 (latest official statistics) were letting go of marriages younger than 10 years. There were 18 208 divorces in 2021.
Shocked? Then you should brace yourself for this next one: 4 836 of the divorce cases that were concluded are from marriages that did not even last five years. Who is the first to want out between the husband and the wife? Below we explore this.
Who starts the divorce process first?
It is not always that the partner who serves the divorce papers is the one making the marriage difficult, most times, we think, it is the partner who is tired of living in the situation of the marriage. Well, what do the numbers say? It is mostly the wives who start the divorce process, according to Stats SA. Of the divorces finalised in 2021, 54,8% of the divorces were initiated by the wives, 33,7% were initiated by the husband, and in 5,1% of the cases, both partners started the divorce process together. In a little more than 6% of the cases, it was unclear which of the partners wanted out first.
On the upside though, there were 106 499 marriages registered in South Africa in the same year.