antenuptial contract, noun phrase

Law. A contract drawn up by a notary between two persons intending to marry, by which each retains full control over his or her separate property under the accrual system (in terms of the Matrimonial Property Act of 1984), and by which the community of property, and of profit and loss, are excluded; ANC noun2. See also accrual. Cf. community of property.
1822 Lord C. Somerset in Stat. of Cape of G.H. (1862) 63In case any..natural-born subject of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland shall enter into the marriage state within this settlement, without making a previous marriage settlement (called, in the colonial law term, antenuptial contract), his property..shall be administered and divided according to colonial law.
1843 J.C. Chase Cape of G.H. 129All persons who do not marry under an ‘anti-nuptual contract’ [sic] are supposed to have entered into that state in ‘community of goods’.
1861 J.S. Mayson Malays of Capetown 25The Cape Colonial Law, with regard to the disposal of property, differs greatly from the laws which obtain elsewhere; e.g. a man (whether Dutch or English, Malay or South African) marrying in the colony, without an antenuptial contract..marries in ‘community of property’.
1887 S.W. Silver & Co.’s Handbk to S. Afr. 328When there has been no ante-nuptial contract or previous settlement entered into, the effect of the marriage at the Cape is to introduce what is called ‘community of property’.
1926 M. Nathan S. Afr. from Within 309Upon marriage, all property is shared equally by the spouses, unless different provisions are made by an ante-nuptial contract, which usually provides that each spouse is to hold his or her property separately and is not to be responsible for the debts of the other.
c1936 S. & E. Afr. Yr Bk & Guide 1046Rather more than a quarter of the marriages solemnized in the Union are under Ante-nuptial Contract.
1945 Wille & Millin Mercantile Law of S. Afr. 20In the absence of any ante-nuptial contract, the spouses are married in community of property, and of profit and loss, and the husband obtains the marital power.
1972 Evening Post 29 Apr. 2Under present law, a woman married without an ante-nuptial contract remains a ward of her husband for the rest of her life.
1983 Fair Lady 7 Sept. 23As a general rule, where the marriage is by antenuptial contract, on divorce, the spouses retain their separate property and the wife is entitled to whatever settlements were promised to her in the antenuptial contract.
1987 G. Viney Col. Houses 99When Melck remarried after the death of his first wife he took out an antenuptial contract — a most unusual step in those days (sc. 1778).
1990 C. Laffeaty Far Forbidden Plains‘This Community of Property business — is that the way most people get married?’ ‘Yes, because if they don’t it means they have to hire a lawyer to draw up an Antenuptial Contract and that’s expensive.’
A contract drawn up by a notary between two persons intending to marry, by which each retains full control over his or her separate property under the accrual system (in terms of the Matrimonial Property Act of 1984), and by which the community of property, and of profit and loss, are excluded; ANC noun2.
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