As we celebrate International Women’s Day 2026, we reflect on some of the landmark English family law cases of the last 25 years which have advanced equality for women.
Fairness and Equality for Women
The starting point for change was White and White which was first heard in the High Court in 2000. This case reshaped the approach to financial provision on divorce, embedding principles of fairness and equality into everyday family law.
The case concerned Mr and Ms White who owned a substantial dairy farm. Despite both parties bringing similar capital assets into the marriage and working together to grow the business, Ms White’s financial settlement at first instance was limited to a provision sufficient to meet her “needs” (a house and sufficient funds to replicate the standard of day-to-day living that she had enjoyed during the marriage). Mr White received everything else, resulting in a broadly 20/80 split of assets in favour of the husband. Ms White appealed.
The Court of Appeal found in her favour, redressing the division of assets to a degree so that Ms White was left with approximately two-fifths of the assets. Both parties appealed to the House of Lords. Although the Court of Appeal’s decision was ultimately upheld, the court declared for the first time that "in seeking to achieve a fair outcome there is no place for discrimination between husband and wife and their respective roles." Judges were directed to check their decisions against "the yardstick of equality of division," departing from equal division only with good reason. This remains a defining principle in family law today.
Compensation for the Homemaker
In 2006, the conjoined case of Miller v McFarlane established a landmark legal principle in English family law regarding "compensation" for “relationship-generated disadvantage”, particularly when one spouse (often the wife) sacrifices a high-earning career to care for the parties’ children. In this case, Mrs McFarlane had given up her career as a solicitor to care for the parties’ three children. The House of Lords ruled that she was entitled to continued financial support to compensate for loss of potential earnings.
Although the court usually favours a “clean break” after divorce, the judgment acknowledged that such a principle would be deemed unfair in her case, as it would create injustice or fail to adequately recognise the sacrifices made by one party during the marriage. An award for compensation is only made in cases where the circumstances are exceptionally rare. In the case of McFarlane, the court was clear that the wife’s future success was not a matter of speculation and that she had given up what “would very probably have been a lucrative and successful career.”
Financial Clarity
Another seminal development in family law has been the increased use and recognition of pre-nuptial agreements. In 2010, Radmacher v Granatino was heard in the Supreme Court and fundamentally changed how prenuptial agreements are treated. It established that, if freely entered into, prenuptial agreements should generally be given "decisive weight". The judgment allowed the parties’ pre-nuptial agreement to be upheld and for Ms Radmacher to retain the vast majority of the parties’ capital assets. The ruling was seen as a victory for women with independent wealth or inheritance, allowing them to protect their assets from being shared upon divorce. The principle itself is not gendered, but Radmacher was a push forward for recognising that women should be able to control their financial destiny and not have their assets automatically divided. However, Baroness Hale, the sole dissenting judge in the 8-1 decision, highlighted the gender dimension, suggesting that prenuptial agreements are often used to deny the economically weaker spouse (typically the wife) the financial provision they would otherwise be entitled to. There remains, however, a level of protection for the financially weaker party: both parties should take independent legal advice, they should not be entered into the agreement under duress, financial disclosure is required and the terms of the agreement should meet each party’s reasonable needs. The court also retains a degree of discretion by virtue of nuptial agreements not being binding. It also means couples now have the opportunity at the outset of their relationship to define what they consider fair and proportionate, anchoring expectations before any dispute arises.
Right to Divorce
Despite the progress on the financial implications of divorce, the 2018 case of Owens v Owens highlighted significant limitations in English divorce law, specifically regarding a petitioner's ability to end a marriage without their spouse’s consent.
It may now seem surprising that, less than eight years ago, the Supreme Court refused Ms Owens permission to divorce her husband on the basis that her claims of his “unreasonable behaviour” were insufficient to establish grounds to divorce him.
Ms Owens sought to challenge the requirement to prove 'fault' in a divorce petition as it was contrary to Article 8 and Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights; however, she was unsuccessful. The ruling meant Ms. Owens had to wait until 2020 (five years’ separation) to divorce her husband without his consent. This was widely criticised as placing a woman in a "trapped" position, forced to remain married against her will.
The case garnered huge publicity, but it was not until April 2022 that no-fault divorce was introduced in England and Wales, allowing couples to divorce without assigning blame or having to cite specific reasons for the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage The change was aimed at reducing conflict and providing individuals, such as Ms Owens, with greater autonomy.
The family law justice system is not perfect. Society invariably changes and adapts to modern norms faster than the law in England and Wales, a reality that practitioners will continue to challenge and strive to reform. Yet, in a moment of reflection, we should acknowledge that significant progress has been made over the past 25 years in the landscape of family law, with equality no longer merely an aspiration.
