Married today, divorced tomorrow – the story of many Namibian marriages

Paul wrote about marriage in a flawed world, urging couples toward endurance and mutual care while recognising human brokenness.

Namibia has the third-highest rate of divorces in Africa, after South Africa and Tunisia. The ranking is striking in a society where marriage is still regarded as a communal covenant rather than a private contract, increasingly reflected in the cases unfolding in the courts.

Data shows that the High Court has handled nearly 200 divorce cases so far this year. This is a quietly unsettling figure that stands in stark contrast to the pageantry of lavish weddings, public vows and family-negotiated unions.

In Namibia, weddings remain grand rites of passage. Families travel long distances, livestock is slaughtered, halls are decorated in vibrant colours, and promises are made before relatives, neighbours and ancestors.

Marriage is presented as honour, belonging and adulthood, all wrapped up into a single carefully staged moment.

Yet behind the music and photographs, many unions are unravelling at startling speed.

Of particular concern is the rise in uncontested divorces, suggesting emotional disengagement long before any legal filing – as if the question of whether the marriage survives no longer matters to one party.

Long before modern courts existed, the Apostle Paul grappled with this tension between ideal and reality.

Writing to early Christian communities, Paul never pretended marriage existed in a perfect world. He urged spouses not to part lightly, yet acknowledged that separation sometimes happens.

Marriage, Paul suggested, was meant to be sustained by commitment and mutual care, not convenience.

His teaching recognised both the sacredness of the union and the brokenness of the people within it.

That realism feels uncomfortably familiar in Namibia today.

The new law

Namibia’s legal system has begun to reflect this social reality. In 2024, parliament passed the Dissolution of Marriages Act, 2024 (Act No. 10 of 2024), sweeping away the old fault-based divorce regime and replacing it with a simpler, more humane approach based on the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.

The Act abolishes outdated grounds like adultery or desertion and makes “irretrievable breakdown” the sole legal basis for ending a union.

It also allows divorce to be pursued jointly or individually and allows magistrates’ courts to hear such matters, reducing costs, delays and the psychological strain.

For decades, Namibian divorce law was rooted in a fault-based doctrine inherited from colonial-era South African statutes, requiring one spouse to prove the other's wrongdoing before a marriage could be legally dissolved.

That often meant costly, adversarial litigation, even where both parties simply wanted to separate.

The new law recognises that forcing couples to battle over blame often intensifies conflict rather than resolving it and extends broader discretion to courts, emphasises children’s welfare, and encourages mediation where possible.

The new law makes uncontested divorce both legally valid and procedurally efficient.

If one spouse files for divorce on the basis that the marriage has broken down, and the other does not contest that claim, the court – whether High Court or magistrates’ court – may grant the dissolution without dragging the couple through fault-based theatre.

In cases involving domestic violence or child welfare concerns, the process remains cautious and deliberative.

Emotional harm

Research shows that divorce most often emerges from unresolved patterns of breakdown: chronic communication failure, emotional disengagement, financial conflict or long-standing unmet needs.

Couples stop listening long before they stop sharing a house. Conversations become defensive or silent. Resentment replaces intimacy.

Infidelity, while still significant, is more often a symptom than a root cause. Financial stress and mismatched values can widen rifts until reconciliation feels impossible.

In many ways, the legal reform acknowledges what psychotherapists have been describing for years – that trying to assign blame during divorce often intensifies conflict rather than healing it.

The law’s focus on irretrievable breakdown recognises that when a relationship has genuinely ended, making couples prove fault only prolongs stress, expense and emotional harm.

Communal support

Commentators such as Rosa Namises argue that many modern marriages are socially thin from the start, lacking the broader communal support that once sustained unions.

In the past, marriage was not just between two people but between families and extended circles. Elders, aunts and uncles played active roles in counselling, mediation and the preservation of alliances.

Today, many couples exclude family entirely, opting for private civil ceremonies witnessed by friends rather than elders. The union is legally valid but socially unsupported.

Without that wider circle, disputes escalate in isolation. There is no buffer, no peacekeeping intervention, no communal encouragement to pause and rethink before walking away. When conflict arises, separation becomes easier to initiate and easier to conclude – not simply because the law makes it so, but because the social scaffolding that once held relationships together has diminished.

Namises also highlights another modern pressure point: changing social habits around alcohol. What might appear as harmless social drinking can, in some cases, become a frequent trigger for arguments that erode respect and trust over time.

Economic strain compounds the problem. Weddings shaped by social media expectations and competitive display often leave couples beginning their marriages under debt and pressure. Financial hardship replaces partnership with blame.

Underlying it all is a broader cultural shift. Endurance has lost its moral weight. Personal fulfilment and emotional satisfaction increasingly guide decisions. Walking away from a marriage is more often framed as self-care rather than failure.

Paul wrote about marriage in a flawed world, urging couples toward endurance and mutual care while recognising human brokenness.

Namibia’s new divorce law recognises that forcing couples to prove fault often does more harm than good and that when a marriage truly cannot be repaired, the law should help couples exit with dignity, not prolong pain.