Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: South Dakota’s entire support-on-divorce statute is one sentence: the court may order a "suitable allowance" it deems "just," with no enumerated factors and no length-of-marriage rule of any kind.
The rule that changes the answer in South Dakota
Under S.D. Codified Laws § 25-4-41: “Where a divorce is granted, the court may compel one party to make such suitable allowance to the other party for support during the life of that other party or for a shorter period, as the court may deem just, having regard to the circumstances of the parties represented; and the court may from time to time modify its orders in these respects.”
What this means for duration
No statutory duration formula or length-of-marriage threshold; the statute allows support for the recipient’s life or a shorter period at the court’s discretion.
Why this matters for a later-life divorce
The statute’s own text permits lifetime support at the court’s discretion with no marriage-length gate, unlike states with an explicit duration formula.
Read it yourself
Read the full official text before relying on any figure here. Alimony law is fact-specific and this rule is only one input to a court’s decision, not a guaranteed outcome. This is a source-backed planning guide, not individualized legal advice.
Independently re-verified word-for-word this session against the official sdlegislature.gov statute text; the retrieved HTML is an exact match to the research subagent’s quote, including the statutory source line (SDC 1939, section 14.0726; SL 1977, ch 203, section 1).
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