Women in the law, arise

Introduction

Having spent more than 45 years in practice as a barrister mainly in family law and much of that in divorce financial remedy cases the author has witnessed at first hand in that time the working out of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 which had at the start of my Bar career just come on to the statute book. A journey of interpretation from a ‘just settlement’ being the provision of a home and maintenance for a wife as her only entitlement no matter what wealth had been generated during the marriage to a momentary period after 2000 when following White v White (2000) UKHL 54 married women stood shoulder to shoulder with their husbands before the judgment seat fully expectant for the first time in this jurisdiction of equality in division of their finances upon divorce.  

The retreat

Ever since with historic prejudices not yet laid to rest we have witnessed an intellectual retreat from that position on the pyre of mainly male judicial reasoning at all levels of our court system that exceptions existed to justify in alleged fairness...

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