No wonder men don’t want to get married!
When a Russian ex-beauty queen walked away from court this week after being awarded £1.2 million and £320,000-a-year maintenance following a bitter divorce battle, she said it was a victory for all women.
ekaterina Parfenova Fields, 42, has never worked and doesn’t intend to. She was married to Richard Fields for ten years and had two children with him before he left her to pursue the woman who became his sixth wife.
Mrs Fields had demanded £75,000 annually for holidays, £50,000 for nannies (even though she’s a stay-athome mum) and £60,000 for clothes and personal pampering.
Between them, this deeply unsavoury couple spent £1.2 million on legal fees, leading the judge to say it wasn’t a divorce, but a boxing match.
Mrs Fields i nsists her fight for justice was on behalf of abandoned mothers and children everywhere.
Others — and I i nclude myself among them — see it instead as a stab in the heart for those bedrocks of society: marriage and motherhood.
For even though the money involved is eye-watering and the protagonists risible, the same legal principles apply to any marriage that produces children and ends in divorce.
The assets are invariably split down the middle and the breadwinner, still usually the man, rightly has to support the children and pay his ex-wife a maintenance allowance often for life. . Is it any surprise that the moment thee story appeared on Mail Online yesterday, it was awash with comments from men insisting there was no point t getting hitched if you’re clobbered forr life when the marriage breaks down?
‘Don’t get married chaps,’ said one. . ‘no wonder men don’t want to committ to marriage these days,’ commented d another. ‘After such a short marriage e why should he have to fund herr lifestyle after divorce?’ asked a third, , adding: ‘ Why any man gets married d now is beyond me.’
The average age men marry today is s 36.5, while for women it’s 34. Men are leaving it later to commit because they realise what’s at stake if it goes wrong.
The inevitable consequence is that the age women marry is also creeping up. Yet only this week, a senior Nhs fertility expert warned women should not wait until they’re 30 to have a baby — for they might find it too late.
A divorce like this Russian beauty’s is not only making it more difficult for women to find a husband, it’s also putting at risk their chance of settling down in time to have children. What kind of victory for women is that?