Have you checked the credit record of the person you are planning to marry? This question would shock most young spouses-to-be. Not so, with older and wiser folk. I know some lady lawyers who advise their clients never to go on a date with a man before checking his financials!
When the ceremony is over, when the wedding dress is back in the cupboard and the celebration just a memory, you will learn that marriage is a financial relationship. It can be a disastrous one, or a profitable one. This can depend as much on the way you are married, as upon the fortunes of the spouses – your success or failure in your careers, your investments or your businesses.
In South Africa, if you marry without the proper legal advice, you could find yourself deep in debt, from day one of the marriage. If you marry without going to the trouble and expense of having an ante nuptial contract, you marry not only your beloved, but also the debt that he or she may have accrued before the two of you met.
Without a marriage contract (or ante nuptial contract – a ‘pre-nup’ as the Americans call it), you automatically marry in community of property. That means you both share everything – all assets and all liabilities, including those that exist at the time of the marriage and those that may occur during the course of the marriage.
There are many other good reasons to have a marriage contract, but there is no space to list them here. You must seek sound legal advice long before the wedding day.
By Roger Knowles, Attorney & Mediator, www.rogerknowlesattorney.co.za.