The marriage lasted two weeks – but the legal battle over jewellery given by the groom and his family to the bride went on for 10 years, only ending this month with a High Court order that the 29 items – worth more than R350 000 – finally be returned. The Mercury reports KZN High Court (Durban) Judge Jacqui Henriques ruled that if the jewellery – handed over at the engagement party, pre-wedding functions and wedding ceremony – was no longer in the possession of the bride’s family, they must pay the value of it in cash.

At the heart of the matter, Henriques said in her judgment, was whether such jewellery should be returned on divorce ‘in terms of the philosophy, traditions and customs of Hanafi school of Islamic law, alternatively, because they are family heirlooms’.

The judge said according to evidence, the marriage was concluded with the consent of both parties and their families, but things quickly soured. The groom’s family argued that it had been given to the bride ‘on the basis that she was willing to become his wife’, and she was only to be the custodian, never the owner of it, because she would hand it down to her children. But when she left she took the jewellery with her, saying that in terms of her customs she did not have to give it back.

Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)