Why should such a foolish Marriage Vow
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
When Passion is decay’d?
We lov’d, and we lov’d, as long as we cou’d,
Till our Love was lov’d out in us both:
But our Marriage is dead, when the
Pleasures is fled:
Twas Pleasure first made it an Oath.

SO WROTE John Dryden rather flippantly for his Marriage à la Mode in 1672. Two years previously Lord Roos had become the first man in England to be granted a divorce (Henry VIII having made do with annulments). Between Lord Roos’s unhappy experiences with his Lady Ann, and the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act, divorce was a three-stage process. First, an ecclesiastical court considered whether husband and wife could separate, then a common law verdict was required in which “criminal conversation” damages were sought from the interloping third party. But, for the marriage to be legally dissolved and a subsequent remarriage permitted, a private Act of Parliament was also required. In other words, divorce was virtually out of the question for anyone other than the very rich.

In the light of this week’s judgments in the cases of Melissa Miller and Julia McFarlane, the very rich ought now to be the last group in society prepared to contemplate divorce. Where Karl Marx, Stafford Cripps and Denis Healey tried, the law lords have finally succeeded. They have set in motion a redistribution of wealth that really will squeeze the rich until the pips squeak. Hyper-alimony has replaced love on the supertax. Little wonder swooning bankers are being advised not to marry at all.

“By marriage,” claimed Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England in the 1760s, “the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during her marriage, or at least is incorporated or consolidated in that of her husband, under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.” This was a pompous way of saying that what belonged to her, now belonged to him. Until 1882 marriage automatically transferred a wife’s property to her husband.

This week’s rulings suggest that it is income earned during marriage that counts as one. On this basis, it may be possible for a person to walk away from a short marriage with half of what his or her spouse earned during that period. Child-rearing and home-making can be filed under loss of earnings, for which financial restitution must be made.

In 1972 the International Wages for Housework campaign was launched. It called for those who worked at home to be compensated. The proceeds were to be raised by “dismantling the military-industrial complex”. Smart Alecs laughed at the time. They’re not laughing now.

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