That's no wife, that's my lady...

RETIRED Liberty Life director Mohau Moropane put a R91000 ring on a woman's finger and referred to her as his "darling wife" - but now he claims he never said "I do".

But his "ex-wife", Elizabeth Southon, 55, is having none of it and has gone to the High Court in Johannesburg to have - what she bills a marriage between them - recognised.

Southon intends obtaining a marriage certificate from the Department of Home Affairs if she wins as she believes this will allow her to file for divorce from Moropane, 65, in order to sue him for maintenance.

The couple lived together shortly after they became romantically involved in 1999 and, three years later, Moropane, proposed to her. She says their traditional ceremony took place at the home of her mother in Seshego in Limpopo in April 2002 and was attended by various relatives.

It was held on April 17 - the anniversary of the day they first met.

Southon said Moropane's relatives arrived at her family home where lobola negotiations were concluded and an amount of R6 000 was paid to her family. Moropane's relatives had brought along blankets for her late mother.

Later that evening, draped in a blanket, she was taken to his family home in Atteridgeville in Pretoria where she was met by a ululating crowd of relatives. This signified their union as a customary marriage. Southon says no steps were taken by either of them to register their marriage with the Department of Home Affairs as they were ignorant of the importance of doing so.

But Moropane has dismissed the relationship as nothing but an "extra-marital affair" which started during his first marriage.

In court papers, he maintains that he and Southon were never married and that, as a businessman with "assets and liabilities'', he would never have remarried simply by way of custom. "I point out that I had been previously married [and] was aware of the patrimonial consequences of marriage as I had already been involved in a costly divorce."

The R6 000 he paid, he says, was merely an "introductory fee" to start lobola discussions. Besides, the so-called wedding day was on a Wednesday - not a day most people opt to do their nuptials.

"I was not even present and, to the best of my recollection, was playing golf on that day."

Moropane also said, bizarrely, that pictures Southon submitted as part of her evidence of a customary wedding were, in fact, taken during a traditional "cleansing ceremony". And furthermore he only referred to her as his "traditional wife" because, as a then 60-year-old man, he thought it was inappropriate in his culture to call her his "girlfriend".

In a DVD played in court and which showed how, at Southon's 50th birthday party at the Johannesburg Country Club and in front of about 300 guests - including friends from abroad - Moropane paid tribute to "his wife".

"She means everything in my life, she's a queen in my castle. She's such a good wife," he says.

But the pair's relationship ended after six years in 2009 and Southon moved out with only "some items of clothing" and has had to rely on her family for financial support since.

In court papers she said Moropane owns a home in Morningside, Sandton, and a holiday home on a golf estate in Phalaborwa, among other assets.

Her intention is to file for divorce and she believes they were married in community of property.

Moropane accused her of now "disingenuously" trying to lay her hands on half of his estate.

When he took the stand this week to testify, Moropane said: "I do not deny that I loved the applicant [Southon] or that I wished to marry her, despite the fact that we never did."

But when asked whether he was lying when he called her his "darling wife," Moropane said: " I was entitled to call her my wife from 17 April 2002. I had ring-fenced her so that one day I would come back to conclude [the marriage]. "

The case was postponed until next year.