Re-Allocation of Matrimonial Property at the Dissolution of Marriage in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Most countries of the world have at one time or another been confronted with questions of what principles or rules should guide the courts in readjusting the property rights of spouses at the dissolution of their marriage. Virtually all civilised countries have accepted marriage as an equal partnership of two legally equal individuals to which each one of them contributes in one way or another. Most policy makers agree that the partners contribute to the marriage through their division of labour and that these contributions although not equal in absolute terms are nonetheless of equal relative value to the welfare of the family.This recognition of the equal worth and equal importance of the two spouses to a marriage relationship has had profound effects on the matrimonial property regimes of numerous countries which have had to tackle the problem of the construction of a fair and equitable legal formula for the reallocation of matrimonial property rights at the dissolution of marriage. The fundamental problem has been whether a fair and equitable system is achieved by means of fixed rules of apportionment or through flexible discretionary judicial powers exercisable at the discretion of courts, in the light of the individual circumstances of each case.