Reflections on International Women’s Day 2026
There is something very appealing about a good love story and 20 years of family law acrimony has done nothing to dim my desire for the “happy ever after”. The recent Wuthering Heights adaption by Emerald Fennell, including star studded cast in the form of Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, promised love but soon descended into gothic horror. Not unlike some divorces in fairness.
Wuthering Heights, Warner Bros 2026
I suspect Cathy and Heathcliff are best seen as victims, not lovers, and we witness in the movie how bleak Victorian life can be for women. This was not a story about love but a story of how power, property, and patriarchy prevailed over women (and children) in earlier times. It is very apparent marriage is less about love and more about who controls land and wealth. Catherine marries Edgar Linton for economic security, not love and under 19th-century English law, coverture applied where a married woman’s legal identity (and property) merged with her husband’s. Heathcliff ends up marrying Isabella in revenge and subjects her to the most horrifying abuse and control. Children fare little better in the actual novel.
Fast forward, and with the advent of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, family law has thankfully evolved to favour fairness over patriarchy and helped improve the road to independent living whatever your gender. But let’s pause a moment on IWD and reflect on the hugely influential and compelling findings of the Fair Shares Report. A report which arguably holds up a mirror up as we contemplate what future reform should look like and how far we have actually come.
Fair Shares Report
The Fair Shares Report offers huge insight into the plight of women due to divorce, and the financial consequences as a result of everyday divorce. The Report’s primary aim was to investigate and provide a representative picture in England and Wales of the financial and property arrangements that people make when they divorce and to evaluate the extent to which it enables them to reach fair outcomes. Fair Shares Report offers a treasure trove of findings on how prejudicial divorce can still be for women:
- Women are in more precarious financial positions than husbands at point of divorce: “they were more likely to have part-time employment during the marriage and to earn less than husband’s, with 28% having take-home pay of under £1000 per month compared to only 10% of men. Relatedly, women had accumulated poorer pension provision. Although women were as likely as men to have a pension, men were more likely to have paid into it for longer and their pensions well worth more than those women. This financial vulnerability impacted many women’s ability to achieve a standard of living post-divorce comparable to that which they had enjoyed during the marriage, particularly when they were taking the main responsibility for the care of children”.
- Women, and in particular mothers with dependants were, on average, worse off financially than men even up to 5 years after the divorce which is when the Fair Shares Report survey took place. The exception to this was younger women under 50 who had not had children. Additionally, for the “50’s group of divorcees without children, women’s incomes were significantly lower than men. Women in this group were also more likely to be claiming both means tested and disability benefits. Given the older demographic of this group, with only half in paid work, the incomes of both women and men were understandably lower than those of other divorcees due to the proportion in retirement, but it is noticeable how women’s income levels were particularly low.”
- Only 11% of divorcees (with an undrawn pension) had a pension sharing order and it was usually the women who lost out since they did not pursue pension sharing in preference of retaining more or all of the matrimonial home and/or due to lack of awareness, interest or understanding that pension(s) is an important resource on retirement. Women are believed to demonstrate a “present bias” and sacrificed long term planning for immediate needs.
- The inferior financial position of women is not a new finding: “..the reality is that, by husbands keeping their (greater) pension wealth, they emerge in a stronger position than women….. women were waiving their future financial stability in return for current housing stability, particularly if they were still caring for children. That leaves wives, other than those who are younger and do not have children, in an inferior position from which to start the journey to financial independence, and this legacy can be long lasting.”[i]
The Fair Shares Report also acknowledges and cites the work of Hayley Fisher and Hamish Low: Divorce early or divorce late? The long-term financial consequences (2018) and the fact there is an extensive international body of work establishing that divorce has a negative impact on women’s economic status compared to men. It is said this is partly explained by differences between men and women in terms of earnings and labour market participation especially since women on average earn less than men. Many women also say the cost of child raising disproportionately falls on them after divorce which has financial implications too.
The Fair Shares Report clearly provides vital insight on what type of future reform may be needed. Many practitioners still value a discretionary system with its wide-ranging, section 25 factors which are versatile and can flex to cover a multitude of circumstances. To lose discretion in favour of a one size fits all formula as proposed by Baroness Deech and some other leading proponents of “certainty”, could lead to some very unfair outcomes not least because the last 50 years since the MCA 1973 has not achieved gender or financial equality in the way hoped. Unlike the media portrayal of women as ‘gold-diggers’, women still usually remain financially compromised, especially when one considers matters such as the pay and pension gap. Women still form the majority of those living in poverty and a premature clean break on divorce because of misplaced optimism that they can achieve financial independence or self-sufficiency when circumstances may be against them, is perhaps more fanciful than fair.
International Women’s Day invites us not only to celebrate progress since we have clearly travelled far from the days of Wuthering Heights, but also to confront uncomfortable truths about the gendered realities of divorce. The Fair Shares Report makes clear that fairness remains a work in progress, and that any reforms must be grounded in evidence, not assumption. If we are to honour the spirit of the MCA 1973 and protect those most vulnerable to financial imbalance, our task is to craft laws that reflect the world as it is today – not the world we hope it might one day become.
Farhana Shahzady, Beck Fitzgerald
