A court has dismissed a cheating husband’s application seeking to compel his wife to maintain a child he fathered out of wedlock.
The unemployed man also wanted a cut of the woman’s earning from the eight cottages she rents out from their matrimonial home in Germiston, Ekurhuleni. The home was originally hers before they entered their community of property marriage in April 2022. At the time, the husband was 30 while the woman was 46.
The woman earns R7,200 per month from the business and the man wanted to claim R4,500 to maintain a child he fathered in an extramarital affair in June last year.
According to the judgment by judge DJ Smit, problems for the couple began when the wife found out about the child. She proceeded to institute divorce action in September last year.
The man continued to live in their matrimonial home. He ate the food she provided and used some of the rental proceeds from his wife’s business to support his child without the wife’s knowledge.
“It is common cause the husband is unemployed, has no income, and has a maintenance duty to the minor child. He says his maintenance needs are R2,500 per month in respect of food and nappies for the minor child and R2,000 in respect of transport for him and the minor child. His papers make it clear that before the divorce proceedings he supported the minor child and the mother of the child (mistress) from part of the proceeds of the rental,” read the judgment.
When she became aware of this, the wife instructed her tenants to start paying the rent into her bank account instead of her husband account from October 1.
The loss of funds led to the husband making a court application seeking his share of the rental proceeds.
Smit had a dim view of the application.
“On the evidence before me, the wife has never undertaken duties of support to the minor child. In these circumstances she has no inherent duty to support the child born to her husband outside the marriage. Our law no longer considers it against public policy to afford a spouse maintenance after divorce, even though that spouse has been cohabiting with another person as a romantic couple before divorce. But our law also does not recognise a minor child’s claim for support against a person married to their biological parent unless such a person has explicitly undertaken duties of support.,” said Smit, adding the husband had not made case for maintenance.
The court dismissed the child maintenance application.
Smit did not make a finding on whether the husband deserves a share of the rental money as the divorce has not been concluded.
Sowetan
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