The latest release from Statistics South Africa, Marriages and Divorces (P0307) [2023], offers not only statistical data but a profound reflection on the evolving social and legal meaning of marriage in the country. While headlines often focus on the rise and fall of divorce rates, a more fundamental shift is unfolding quietly: fewer South Africans are choosing to marry at all. This long-term trend, accelerating in the post-COVID landscape, raises far-reaching questions about the future of the family, the reach of matrimonial law, and the structure of social institutions.
In 2023, a total of 130,806 civil marriages were registered in South Africa. Though this figure shows a nominal increase from 129,597 in 2022, it remains well below historical averages. A decade ago, civil marriages regularly exceeded 150,000 per year. By contrast, the number of marriages recorded in 2011 was approximately 171,000—a benchmark that now appears increasingly out of reach. This slow but consistent downward trajectory suggests a structural rather than temporary change in how South Africans perceive and engage with marriage.
The crude marriage rate—a critical measure of how many people marry in relation to the overall population—stood at 2.1 per 1,000 people in 2023. This figure, once again, reflects a continued decline. It mirrors global patterns seen in many developing and developed nations, where changing cultural norms, economic pressures, and evolving gender roles have all contributed to a shift away from marriage as a central institution.
Yet the South African context is also unique. Our society is shaped by complex intersections of tradition, modernity, religion, colonial legal legacies, and post-apartheid reforms. These intersections make the story of marriage in South Africa not merely a matter of numbers but a reflection of deeper social transitions.
Later in Life: The Age of First Marriage Continues to Rise
One of the most notable features of the 2023 statistics is the rising median age at first marriage. For men, the median age is now 37 years, while for women it is 33 years. This upward trend has continued steadily for over two decades. In 1996, the median ages were 30 and 27 respectively. The difference today signals not only a delay in formalising partnerships but also the reshaping of life priorities.
Several factors underpin this delay. Economic instability, high youth unemployment, extended tertiary education, and the rising cost of living all contribute to postponements. Additionally, the growing cultural acceptance of cohabitation without marriage has removed much of the urgency or expectation previously associated with tying the knot in early adulthood.
From a legal perspective, the consequences of these changes are significant. Later marriages often mean that individuals enter the union with more defined assets and liabilities, raising the stakes of antenuptial contracts, accrual calculations, and estate planning. For family law practitioners, advising clients on matrimonial property regimes now requires greater nuance, especially in high-value or blended family contexts.
Moreover, the rising age at marriage correlates with increased selectivity and a more pragmatic approach to relationships. Couples are no longer marrying as a default or rite of passage. Instead, marriage has become a considered choice—often entered into only after years of cohabitation, shared parenting, or mutual investment.
Civil, Religious, and Customary Unions – The Complex Legal Geography of Marriage in South Africa
In understanding the full scope of South Africa’s declining marriage rate, one cannot ignore the diversity of ways in which marriages are solemnised—and the legal consequences that flow from each. The Marriages and Divorces (P0307) [2023] report by Statistics South Africa makes clear that not all marriages are created equal in the eyes of the law. While civil marriages dominate the statistical landscape, religious and customary marriages remain important, albeit under-registered, forms of union. The report also reveals the marginal role played by civil unions, despite South Africa being one of the first countries in the world to legalise same-sex marriage constitutionally.
Civil Marriages – The Dominant Legal Form
Of the 130,806 marriages registered in 2023, the overwhelming majority—over 85%—were civil marriages solemnised by officers of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). This method of marriage remains the most straightforward in terms of legal consequences, registration, and access to legal remedies upon divorce. Civil marriages provide clarity on matrimonial property regimes, maintenance obligations, and enforceable parental responsibilities and rights.
The persistence of civil marriages as the dominant form may reflect both a preference for legal certainty and the administrative efficiency of DHA registration offices. However, the data also shows that many couples opting for civil marriages are doing so later in life, and often after a period of cohabitation, shared children, or the acquisition of assets. This delayed formalisation brings into play complex considerations around commencement values in accrual systems and the retrospective determination of financial contributions.
Religious Marriages – A Declining but Culturally Significant Practice
The report highlights a continued decline in marriages solemnised by religious marriage officers. While the exact number is not disaggregated by faith tradition, religious marriages now make up less than 15% of all recorded unions. This trend may be due to several factors, including the requirement that religious officiants must be registered with the DHA and the growing secularisation of younger generations.
Still, religious marriages hold deep cultural and emotional significance, particularly among South Africa’s Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish communities. Where these marriages are properly registered with the DHA, they are afforded the same legal recognition as civil marriages. However, where religious marriages are not registered, they fall outside the protective framework of South African family law.
This presents serious risks, especially for women, who may believe themselves to be legally married but are, in fact, left with no enforceable rights to maintenance, property, or inheritance. As courts have repeatedly found, belief in the validity of a marriage does not confer legal status—a harsh reality for those unaware of the registration requirements.
Customary Marriages – Legally Recognised, Socially Under-Registered
The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998 was a landmark in South African legal reform, ensuring that marriages conducted according to indigenous African customs are recognised by law. The Act also allows for polygynous marriages, provided certain procedural requirements are met. Despite this progressive framework, the number of registered customary marriages remains alarmingly low.
In 2023, only 1,132 customary marriages were officially registered. This marks a decline from 1,623 in 2022 and continues a worrying trend. The low number does not reflect the actual prevalence of customary unions but rather the widespread failure to register them—often due to lack of awareness, rural inaccessibility to DHA services, or cultural reluctance to engage with formal state institutions.
This legal invisibility has devastating consequences. A spouse in an unregistered customary marriage may find herself excluded from her husband’s estate upon his death. She may also be unable to claim maintenance, assert a share in the family home, or be recognised as a lawful guardian of her children. The judiciary has, in some cases, attempted to remedy these injustices by recognising de facto customary marriages, but such interventions remain the exception rather than the rule.
The burden of proof in asserting the existence of a customary marriage lies with the claimant, and the evidentiary requirements—such as proof of lobola negotiations, celebrations, or cohabitation—can be difficult to establish years later. This legal terrain is particularly treacherous for women in rural or economically vulnerable circumstances.
Civil Unions – A Progressive Law, Limited Uptake
The Civil Union Act 17 of 2006 was a constitutional milestone in South Africa’s human rights journey, allowing both same-sex and opposite-sex couples to formalise their relationships. Yet despite the law’s inclusive promise, civil unions remain marginal in terms of actual numbers.
In 2023, only 825 civil unions were registered, a slight increase from 784 in 2022. While this suggests slow growth, the figures remain surprisingly low given South Africa’s progressive legal environment. Stigma, religious conservatism, and social alienation may explain some of the hesitancy, especially in rural and traditional communities. Additionally, many same-sex couples may opt for informal partnerships or cohabitation over legal formalisation, particularly where societal or familial opposition remains strong.
The Legal and Policy Vacuum
These varying forms of solemnisation reveal a legal and policy vacuum in which many intimate relationships fall through the cracks. Whether due to a failure to register, lack of awareness, or informal arrangements, thousands of South Africans are living in unrecognised partnerships with no enforceable rights upon separation or death. This growing gap between lived reality and legal recognition should alarm both family lawyers and legislators.
Unmarried but Entwined – The Rise of Cohabitation, the Erosion of Matrimonial Protection, and the Future of Family Law in South Africa
As the marriage rate in South Africa continues its steady decline, a profound legal and social shift is taking place in the shadow of the official statistics. More South Africans are choosing to live together without marrying, often raising children, acquiring property, and building lives that mirror the substance—but not the legal form—of marriage. Yet the law has not kept pace with this transformation. The result is a growing cohort of individuals, particularly women, who find themselves unprotected, unrecognised, and unsupported when relationships end.
According to the Marriages and Divorces (P0307) [2023] report, while over 130,000 civil marriages were recorded, the growing number of long-term cohabiting couples is nowhere officially tracked. Unlike many jurisdictions abroad, South Africa does not automatically afford cohabiting partners the same rights as married spouses, even after years of shared domestic life. There is no legal concept of a “common-law marriage” in South African law. This misconception is widespread, and its consequences are often devastating.
Cohabitation: Widespread, Invisible, and Legally Precarious
In modern South Africa, cohabitation has become an increasingly normalised life choice. Among younger urban populations, many couples delay or entirely forego marriage, viewing it as a cultural formality rather than a prerequisite for partnership or parenthood. For others, especially in rural areas, economic hardship or cultural practices may prevent formalisation.
Yet these cohabiting unions remain legally invisible unless steps are taken to establish enforceable contracts or prove the existence of a universal partnership—a complex legal remedy rooted in contract law. To succeed in such a claim, a partner must prove a tacit or express agreement to share profits, property, or responsibilities—often requiring extensive litigation, legal representation, and financial resources that are beyond the reach of many.
The danger is especially acute when a relationship ends abruptly—due to death, separation, or abandonment. A woman who has shared a home, raised children, and contributed economically to a household may find she has no claim to the property she helped build, no spousal maintenance, and no automatic recognition in intestate succession.
Matrimonial Property Regimes and Their Limited Reach
By contrast, marriage provides an automatic legal framework that governs how assets are acquired, shared, and divided. In the absence of an antenuptial contract, couples married in community of property share all assets and liabilities equally. Those married out of community of property with accrual benefit are entitled to an equitable division of the growth in each spouse’s estate during the marriage.
These protections are wholly absent for unmarried couples—no matter how long they have been together. With the decline in marriage, the protective power of matrimonial property regimes is reaching fewer and fewer South Africans, leaving a widening segment of the population vulnerable to economic injustice at the end of a relationship.
Family law practitioners are increasingly called upon to draft cohabitation agreements to protect unmarried partners. These agreements can define property rights, financial contributions, and even parenting responsibilities. However, they are voluntary, rarely standardised, and remain unknown to most of the public. Without widespread education and reform, their protective potential remains underutilised.
The Children of Unmarried Parents
The decline of marriage also has implications for the children born into non-marital unions. While the Children’s Act 38 of 2005 has done much to centre the best interests of the child irrespective of the parents’ marital status, practical challenges remain. The allocation of parental responsibilities and rights, including care, contact, and guardianship, often becomes contentious when unmarried parents separate.
In the absence of a registered marriage, the biological mother has automatic full parental responsibilities and rights, whereas the father must prove compliance with Section 21 of the Act (i.e. involvement in the child’s life and contribution to maintenance) to obtain full parental rights. This legal hurdle can produce injustice on both sides—excluding committed fathers while failing to protect absent ones from their responsibilities.
Additionally, the maintenance of children remains a critical concern. Whether married or not, parents are obliged to support their children financially. But the enforcement of maintenance orders in practice—especially against absent or unwilling parents—is often fraught with delays, inefficiency, and systemic backlogs.
Rethinking the Legal Definition of Family
South Africa stands at a crossroads. The statistics are not merely administrative—they reflect an undeniable truth: the family unit is changing. If the law continues to centre marriage as the only legitimate and protected form of union, it will exclude the majority of intimate partnerships formed in the 21st century. A family law system designed in an era where marriage was ubiquitous must now adapt to a social landscape where it is increasingly the exception.
The solution lies not in the abandonment of marriage as a legal institution, but in the broadening of legal protections to include long-term cohabitants, unregistered customary spouses, and non-traditional families. Legislative reform is urgently required. A possible model includes the automatic recognition of domestic partnerships after a certain period of cohabitation, with protections similar to those enjoyed by married couples. Draft legislation has circulated for years, but meaningful political momentum remains lacking.
Conclusion: The Shrinking Reach of Family Law
As the Marriages and Divorces (P0307) [2023] report confirms, fewer South Africans are saying “I do,” but they are not opting out of love, commitment, or family. They are simply living those commitments outside of marriage—and without the protection of the law.
For family law professionals, this presents both a challenge and a duty: to advocate for reform, to educate clients about the realities of cohabitation, and to offer legal solutions that reflect the lived experiences of modern relationships. For policymakers, it demands an urgent reckoning with the social costs of a legal system that excludes so many of the very people it is meant to protect.
Marriage may be in decline, but the need for legal recognition of partnership, care, and contribution has never been more urgent.
Written by Bertus Preller, a Family Law and Divorce Law attorney and Mediator at Maurice Phillips Wisenberg in Cape Town and founder of DivorceOnline and iANC. A blog, managed by SplashLaw, for more information on Family Law read more here.