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Abstract
This is the slightly revised text of the Liverpool Law Lecture, delivered on 4 November 2010. It discusses the tensions between the principle of financial equality between husband and wife, emerging from the House of Lords' decisions in White, Miller and MacFarlane, and the principle of contractual autonomy, emerging from the Supreme Court's decision in Radmacher v Granatino.
Notes
1. [2010] UKSC 42.
2. [2006] UKHL 24, [2006] 2 AC 618.
3. Finer and McGregor, ‘History of the Obligation to Maintain, App 5 to the Report of the Finer Committee on One-Parent Families, Cmnd 5629, 1974 assert that the strength of the wifely obligation depended upon the family's inheritance practices. In a system of primogeniture, as practised by the landed aristocracy and gentry, spurious children did not radically affect the source of the family's status and power; it was enough for the wife to produce ‘the heir and the spare’ before playing away. In a system of partible inheritance, as practised by the commercial middle classes, spurious children were a much greater threat and adultery greatly disapproved.
4. Wilson v Wilson (1848) 1 HLC 528, 9 ER 870; Hunt v Hunt (1861) 4 DF & J 221.
5. From the Ecclesiastical Courts Act 1813 until the Matrimonial Causes Act 1884 (the ‘Weldon Relief Act’): see Cretney Citation2003, pp. 143–147.
6. [1929] AC 601, 614.
7. At p. 629.
8. Morton v Morton [1942] 1 All ER 273; Tulip v Tulip [1951] P 378; Dowell v Dowell [1952] 2 All ER 141.
9. Bennett v Bennett [1952] 1 KB 249.
10. Balfour v Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571.
11. [2010] UKSC 42.
12. See Westmeath v Westmeath (1831) 1 Dow & Cl 519, 5 ER 349; Cocksedge v Cocksedge (1844) 14 Sim 244; Cartright v Cartwright (1853) 3 de GM & G 982; H v W (1857) 3 K & J 382, 69 ER 1157.
13. [1967] Ch. 387.
14. [2008] UKPC 64, [2010] 1 AC 298.
15. Para. 63.
16. [1980] 1 WLR 1410, at 1417.
17. [1891] 1 QB 671.
18. See Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act 1970, s 20; Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1970, s 5.
19. Para. 33.
20. [1973] Fam 72, CA.
21. Not only Wachtel v Wachtel [1973] Fam 72; see, e.g., Trippas v Trippas [1973] Fam 134, CA, 146, where Scarman LJ stated that ‘there is nothing either in the so-called one third rule or in the language of the Act of 1970 which precludes this court from doing rough justice on the basis of approximate equality’.
22. O'D v O'D [1976] Fam 83, CA; the high-water mark may be Page v Page (1981) 2 FLR 198, CA, but Dart v Dart [1996] 2 FLR 286, CA, is a serious competitor.
23. E.g. Dart v Dart [1996] 2 FLR 286, 294, CA, per Thorpe LJ, ‘the reality is that it has been consistently rejected as a case of general application’.
24. Scott v Scott [1978] 3 All ER 65.
25. Calculated according to the formula approved by the Court of Appeal in Duxbury v Duxbury [1992] Fam 62; [1987] 1 FLR 7.
26. Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984.
27. MCA 1973, s 25A.
28. Barrett v Barrett [1988] 2 FLR 516.
29. [2001] 1 AC 596.
30. E.g. Foster v Foster [2003] EWCA Civ 565, [2003] 2 FLR 299 and Burgess v Burgess [1996] 2 FLR 34.
31. As I later suggested in Miller v Miller; MacFarlane v MacFarlane [2006] UKHL 24, [2006] 2 AC 618, para. 144.
32. As in Conran v Conran [1997] 2 FLR 615.
33. [2006] UKHL 24, [2006] 2 AC 618.
34. Foster v Foster [2003] EWCA Civ 565; [2003] 2 FLR 299.
35. Rebecca Bailey Harris, ‘Comment on GW v RW (Financial Provision: Departure from Equality) [2003] Fam Law 386, 388.
36. [2007] UKHL 17; [2007] 2 AC 432.
37. [2006] 2 AC 618, para. 25, per Lord Nicholls; para. 153, per Baroness Hale; para. 170, per Lord Mance.
38. Para. 170.
39. Para. 153.
40. [2010] UKSC 42.
41. Para. 75.
42. Law Commission Consultation Paper No 198, Marital Property Agreements, was published on 11 January 2011.
43. [1994] 1 WLR 1535, at 1550–1551.
44. E.g. R.H. George, P.G. Harris and J. Herring, ‘Pre-Nuptial Agreements: For Better or Worse?’ [2009] Fam Law 934.