A Brief History Of Divorce

From Henry VIII to White v White

• urday 19 September 2009

• The 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act allowed ordinary people to divorce. Before then, divorce was largely open only to men, and had to be granted by an Act of Parliament, which was hugely expensive, and therefore was also open only to the rich. (Long before then, of course, Henry VIII was granted a divorce by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and church courts retained the power to dissolve marriages.)

Under the new law, women divorcing on the grounds of adultery not only had to prove their husbands had been unfaithful but also had to prove additional faults, which included cruelty, rape and incest.

• A private members' bill in 1923 made it easier for women to petition for divorce for adultery, but it still had to be proved.

In 1937, the law was changed and divorce was allowed on other grounds including drunkenness, insanity and desertion.

The big change came in 1969, when the Divorce Reform Act was passed, allowing couples to divorce after they had been separated for two years (or five years if only one of them wanted a divorce). A marriage could be ended if it had irretrievably broken down, and neither partner no longer had to prove "fault".

• However, divorces continued to favour men, with the award and maintenance for the less-wealthy spouse – usually the woman – being calculated based on needs, until the White v White case in 1996. Martin White and his wife Pamela had run a farming business, worth about £4.5m during their 33-year marriage. At first Pamela White was awarded £800,000, but she took the case to the court of appeal, then the House of Lords in 2000, and was finally awarded £1.5m.

It was a landmark case because it was decided the assets should be split more fairly, and recognised the contribution of a "homemaker".