- The court orders R25 000 spousal maintenance and R3 000 child maintenance, plus full medical and schooling costs.
- Husband criticised for hiding the extent of wealth and refusing proper financial disclosure.
- Judge rejects argument that wife should rely on her family’s wealth instead of her husband.
A husband who insisted his wife should turn to her family’s wealth rather than look to him for financial support has been firmly rebuked by the High Court in the Western Cape.
The case came before the court as an opposed urgent Rule 43(6) application. The wife asked the court to grant her interim maintenance, continued use of a vehicle, and a contribution towards her legal costs while the divorce proceedings were ongoing. Her husband opposed this, arguing she could support herself by drawing on her family’s supposed wealth.
Background to the dispute
The couple were married and had one young child together. The wife left the family home over the Easter weekend of 2025 and subsequently filed for divorce.
An earlier Rule 43 order, granted in June 2025, dealt with maintenance for the child and set out certain interim arrangements. However, questions around the wife’s personal maintenance, her transport needs, and aspects of the care and contact arrangements were left over for later determination.
The husband runs several business interests, and the wife, for her part, also operates a business. Evidence before the court showed that their businesses were financially intertwined, with costs and support moving between them.
Before she left, the wife had been drawing R25 000 a month from her business to cover her personal expenses, while the husband took care of accommodation, food, travel, and medical costs for both her and their child.
What each side argued
The wife applied to vary the earlier Rule 43 order, arguing that the unresolved issues, particularly her maintenance and her legal costs, could no longer be left unanswered.
The husband contended that his wife was perfectly capable of meeting her own expenses, pointing to allegations that she was a beneficiary of a wealthy family trust. At the same time, he claimed to have only a limited personal income and offered no figures to account for what he earned from his various business interests.
The court was unimpressed. Judge DM Thulare stated, “The respondent is welcome to hold his own opinions in high regard, but they do not… get elevated to facts.”
The court found that the husband’s claims about his wife’s family wealth were speculative and, in any event, beside the point when it came to assessing what she was entitled to.
What the court found
The court found that the husband had not been forthcoming about the true extent of his wealth. Judge Thulare noted that he owned property valued at approximately R8 750 000 and held interests in several business entities, yet maintained that his personal income was limited and was unable to put a figure on what those interests actually earned him.
The court was blunt in its assessment, stating, “I am not persuaded, from the posture adopted by the respondent in relation to his financial status, that the rules of court, even on further and better discovery, would meet his posture.”
On the question of maintenance, the court had little patience for the husband’s suggestion that his wife should turn to her parents first. Judge Thulare stated, “I find it extremely selfish and lacking in self-respect, to hear a rich husband who can afford to maintain his wife, claiming that the wife must first look to her own parents to support her.”
The judge went further, stating, “It is a serious patriarchal misdirection and frankly, behaviour that shows lack of good sense and judgment, which is anchored on plain greed and is intended purely to hurt another.”
Judge Thulare was equally direct in summing up the husband’s approach, stating, “It is never about maintenance but revenge. It is a thinking that stands to be rejected.”
Turning to the welfare of the child, the court looked at the existing care arrangements and saw no reason to disturb them. Judge Thulare stated, “For especially younger children, where possible, everything should be as predictable as possible.”
The court was satisfied that the child was thriving under the current arrangement, a view that was supported by the social worker’s evidence.
The court’s order
The court ordered the husband to pay the wife R25 000 a month in spousal maintenance and R3 000 a month for their child. He was also required to keep both of them on his medical aid, meet any reasonable medical costs not covered by the scheme, and pay all school-related expenses.
The wife was granted sole use of the VW Touareg she had with her, and the husband was required to keep up the payments on the vehicle, maintain it, and ensure it remained insured.
The husband was further ordered to contribute R200 000 towards his wife’s legal costs and to bear the costs of both Rule 43 applications.
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