Cape Town - The Department of Home Affairs has invited South Africans to have a say on the new Marriage Bill, which aims to bring all legislation under one umbrella.
The invitation comes even as Statistics SA data shows that marriages are becoming less common and divorces increasing.
In June, the Cabinet approved the publication of the Draft Marriage Bill of 2022, which will soon be available for public comment.
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the bill gave effect to the White Paper on Marriages in South Africa, which Cabinet approved in March last year.
Ntshavheni said: “The draft bill allows South Africans and residents in the country of all sexual orientations, as well as religious and cultural persuasions, to conclude legal unions in line with the constitutional principles.”
The bill outlines measures to prevent unions such as child marriages and those done in the absence of the other party.
The Cabinet has also approved the submission of the draft Divorce Amendment Bill of 2023 to Parliament.
This bill amends the Divorce Act to provide for mechanisms to safeguard the welfare of minor or dependent children born of Muslim marriages.
The move comes after the Constitutional Court ruled in June last year that the Divorce Act in its current form was inconsistent with the Constitution.
This was because it excludes Muslim marriages and unfairly discriminates against children of married parents and those of unmarried parents.
Speaking on the issue of marriages, IFP MP Narend Singh said that while the party welcomed the progress regarding Muslim Marriages, they were concerned about Hindu marriages.
He said parties to Hindu Marriages are often subjected to much the same legal challenges as Muslim marriages.
“As the IFP, we therefore extend a plea that similar time and attention be devoted to ensuring that Hindu marriages, as far as reasonably practicable, enjoy the same rights and legal security as civil marriages, customary marriages, and civil unions.”
In a recent data release, StatsSA said local trends had seen the number of marriages decreasing each year.
The data, culled from the 2021 survey used the General Marriage Rate, which is the number of people who got married in a particular year, divided by the population aged 15 years and above for every 100 000 people.
StatsSA said: “Using this measure, you are more likely to be married in the Northern Cape at 347 marriages for every 100 000 persons than anywhere else in the country.
“This is followed by the Free State at 323, then Western Cape at 300.”
The data also showed that people were more likely to be in a civil union in Gauteng and the Western Cape than in all other provinces where there were fewer than three civil union marriages per 100 000 people.
StatsSA said that while marriages in SA decreased, divorces had increased by 13.1% since 2020.
The data showed the most divorces were in the Western Cape, with 54 divorces for every 100 000 people.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za