Legal expert, Baroness Ruth Deech has condemned the multi-million pay-offs currently being awarded to ex-wives of wealthy men. Having lectured on family law at Oxford University for over twenty years, she describes the process during which judges have been developing the law relating to what divorced wives should expect to walk away with, as ‘paternalistic and unprincipled’.

She believes that ‘the notion that a wife should get half of the joint assets of a couple after even a short, childless marriage ‘has crept up on us without any parliamentary legislation’. She accuses judges of ignoring the statutory direction to try to achieve a “clean break’ when couples divorce.

Her proposals will shock many ex-wives looking forward to what used to be called ‘a meal ticket for life’ - and now very often turns out that way, in cases where the husband is worth millions. For example, she says that only assets acquired after the marriage takes place should be divided, rather than everything the husband has amassed. Even more unexpectedly, she feels there should be no division of the man’s fortune at all when the marriage has lasted for a period of less than three years.

Even when a marriage has lasted longer, Lady Deech thinks that the huge sums being pocketed by ex-wives run counter to any idea of equality between the sexes. They seem to be based on the outdated theory that the husband should be the breadwinner and the wife should care for home and children, she explains, when in fact it is much more usual for both partners to earn money in jobs outside the home.

When it comes to maintenance, her views are just as trenchant: that payments should be made on a permanent basis only in cases where wives are elderly or incapacitated. Court orders at the moment, she claims, encourage women to believe that marrying a rich man ‘is an alternative career to one in the workforce’.

If her principles had been applied, Heather Mills would have been unlikely to exit her three-year marriage to Sir Paul McCartney with £24 million. Beverley Charman could also have received a lesser sum than the £48 million - a British record - paid to her on divorcing her husband of almost three decades.

Interviewed on radio, Lady Deech, gave as an example of the unfairness the fictitious wife of a celebrity footballer. ‘She would believe that all she had to do was stick out the marriage for a few years and walk off with a fortune.’

So Lady Deech will not be popular with high-flying wives. But what she has had to say might offer some comfort to a few of those millionaires who are about to become ex-husbands Unfortunately for them, distinguished lawyer as she is, she is merely expressing her own opinions. It would take more than that to reverse the present trend towards an equal division where a divorcing couple have plenty of assets.

- Maureen Mullaly