Lord Hailsham and Dr Allan
Tessa Reay
Dr Richard Allan lives with his pretty young wife in a stylish modern house with integrated garage — one of a group of 12 homes tastefully landscaped with mature trees, sloping lawns and attractive shrubs on a high escarpment above Farnham. It is more typical of American than British suburbia.
Dr Allan, champion of divorced husbands and second wives, can justly claim that the current Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Bill introduced by Lord Hailsham and now before the Lords represents a personal triumph for him and his ten or so lieutenants, to say nothing of the other 7,000 active members of the Cam- paign for Justice in Divorce.
`We must be the best organised pressure group in the country,' he says en- thusiastically. 'You cannot imagine how hard we've worked and the tactics we've used — we're worse than the KGB. We infiltrate the women's organisations; we know what they are going to do before they know it themselves. We've got people of power and influence on our side everywhere. See the letter in today's Times? David . . . great friend of ours.'
In 1977, a year after his own divorce, Dr Allan approached Leo Abse MP, a known sympathiser, and an-all party divorce group was formed. Almost all Dr Allan's closely reasoned and carefully drafted proposals were adopted and later incorporated by the 1981 Law Commission into the present Bill. Little attention was paid to the recommen- dations of either the Law Society or the women's pressure groups. `To begin with, Lord Hailsham would have nothing to do with us at all, but by the sheer force of ra-
tional argument we now have him eating out of our hand.'
Dr Allan confirms that the new Bill is and always was designed to be a law for the mid- dle class — professional people earning bet- ween £8,000 and £25,000, with little or no capital and a house probably on a mort- gage. They are people neither poor enough to get legal aid nor rich enough to support two families easily.
A typical case described by Dr Allan con- cerns a couple divorced in 1976 after 23 years of marriage and two children. She keeps the home and cares for the children, though she has to return one fifth of the value of the house to her ex-husband. She receives one third of their joint income. He pays the school fees. By 1983 he was earn- ing £23,000 and his ex-wife £7,000. Her house is now worth more than his. He has remarried, but his new wife doesn't work. He feels bitterly that his ex-wife has receiv- ed so much from him in the past that she should now be able to support herself en- tirely. He feels it is intolerable that she should be able to apply for more maintenance should his salary rise or if she loses her job.
So is this the famous 'alimony drone'? `Actually, it's a pity the expression "alimony drone" was ever thought up in connection with this Bill — it's given it a bad name. In fact virtually all divorced women now work to support themselves; it is the "bounty drone" or "luncheon hunters" we are after.'
Dr Allan, leaning forward on his gold and black velour settee, eyes glittering, says that nowadays it is possible to get divorce on demand, and in his view, rightly so. With this new Bill, anyone will be able to apply for a divorce after one year of mar- riage. This, he believes, will reduce the bit- terness (`Gets it all over with, whatever the bishops say'). He considers any maintenance for the wife an absurdity; an arrangement based on outmoded ideas of feminine dependence. 'I am,' he says, 'a great feminist.' Women, he believes, mast be released from male financial domination and allowed to 'stand on their own two feet'. He accepts that the father must accept responsibility for his child up to the age of 18, but after that a child, who in law would be able to marry, should be able to look after himself. As to university, 'Well, the state pretty well looks after that.'
Allan's feminist utopia sounds plausible as his wife Janet reclines on the floor by the warm fire, sipping sherry. In this utopia all women earn salaries large enough to sup- port themselves and their dependants. Will- ing grandmothers, creches and nursery schools abound. Equal opportunity and equal pay are the norm. Women who prefer to stay at home to look after themselves will be paid a substantial housekeeping salary by the state, and everyone will be able to marry and remarry with impunity.
Alas, the reality is different. There are in- deed many highly paid, professional women who can afford to be independent and need little protection by the divorce laws. But for the vast majority it is different. On current- ly accepted figures it is estimated that 75 per cent of divorced women with children receive maintenance orders of less than £20 a week. Of all maintenance orders made, according to the DHSS, some 44 per cent are in serious arrears and some 25 per cent are never paid at all. Trying to collect maintenance is notoriously difficult. For many mothers working is out of the ques- tion, and it is estimated that some 400,000 one-parent families live on supplementary benefit.
Lord Denning sums up the Bill's attitude to these women: 'The old law would protect the first wife altogether; the new law doesn't protect her, it only says that it will in so far as there is enough money to go around.' The new law will demand that these women 'stand on their own two feet'. It will tell those who have no job that they will be 'rehabilitated' and obliged to get a job within a specified period. And their conduct will be taken into account by the courts, so they had better behave themselves as well.
Lord Hailsham will see his Bill reach the statute book by August. It is interesting that a government which professes devotion to the sanctity and security of the family should associate itself so closely with such legislation. The Conservative policy docu- ment 'The Future of Marriage' (May 1981) says: 'The proposition that marriage is not for life appears to betray a confusion of thought, for marriage is by definition a life- time union.' And whom did the document hold responsible for this 'confusion of thought'? None other than Dr Allan and his Campaign for Justice in Divorce.
Previous page
