This paper traces the development of rehabilitative maintenance in South Africa. It illustrates that while there is no statutory provision dealing with rehabilitative maintenance in the country, courts are nonetheless, willing to make maintenance orders for limited periods. This paper shows that the criteria that courts use to grant this type of maintenance is not clear, making it difficult for legal practitioners to predict their clients’ cases. Courts have wide discretion when adjudicating rehabilitative maintenance disputes. They can order specific amount of maintenance to be paid to the maintenance seeking spouse for a particular period without outlining the basis for their decisions. While rehabilitative maintenance is relatively new in South Africa, it is nonetheless, well established and legislated in some of the States within the United States of America. This paper argues that rehabilitative maintenance should be legislated in South Africa in order to provide adequate guidance to the courts. Further, that failure to legislate rehabilitative maintenance would lead to inconsistent approaches being developed by the courts. In particular, it recommends the amendments of the Divorce Act in order to make provision for rehabilitative maintenance.

本文追溯了南非康复治疗的发展。它表明，尽管该国没有关于恢复性维修的法律规定，但法院仍然愿意在有限的时间内作出维修令。本文表明，法院用于授予此类maintenance养费的标准尚不明确，因此法律执业者很难预测其客户的案件。法院在裁定修复性维护纠纷时拥有广泛的酌处权。他们可以命令在特定时期内将特定金额的maintenance养费支付给寻求maintenance养的配偶，而无需概述其决定的依据。尽管在南非，修复性维护相对较新，但它仍然是，在美利坚合众国的某些州已经建立并得到了立法。本文认为，南非应该立法制定恢复性维护的法律，以便为法院提供适当的指导。此外，未能立法规定恢复性维护将导致法院制定不一致的方法。特别是，它建议对《离婚法》进行修正，以便为恢复性生活做出规定。