A third of millionaire footballer Ray Parlour's future earnings will go to his ex-wife. That sounds about right to Margaret Cook
he gut reaction of any feminist to the divorce settlement achieved by Karen Parlour on Wednesday must be triumphalist. The ex-wife of Arsenal star Ray Parlour is entitled to receive one third of his future earnings to acknowledge the role she played in his success. The recognition that marriage is a partnership of equals has been a long time coming. Those low-profile domestic chores, which men need so badly and yet value so little, are finally being accorded financial value, along with the nebulous, behind-the-scenes female gifts of loving support, encouragement and unfailing loyalty.
Men benefit hugely from the simple fact of being married, in terms of their stability, well-being and professional survival in a way that women just do not. Football managers prefer their players to be married. No doubt chauvinists would argue that Karen was the winner in a relationship that gave her a glamorous lifestyle and enormous wealth. Yet it is not always so easy to be the dull peahen to a strutting peacock, as I know from experience. One is expected to act the subordinate, defer and play the geisha. Karen Parlour's lawyers have argued that she has kept her husband off the drink and encouraged him to grow up.
How do you put a monetary value on an individual's input to a marriage? It is especially difficult in an era where the traditional roles of husband and wife are regularly shot to pieces. When my ex-husband walked out some seven years ago - about the time Ray and Karen were making their vows - I received hundreds of letters from women who had suffered a similar experience: 30 years or more of wifely devotion rewarded by sudden ejection and, more often than not, replacement by a younger, prettier woman.
It is a strange phenomenon, but the wife in such situations always gets the blame: she was not attentive enough; she did not understand him; she did not value him; she failed to follow him around like a spaniel. I've heard it all; much of it was thrown at me. So part of me says to Karen Parlour, well done, you've struck a blow for womankind. And, who knows, many men may be deterred from straying when they consider the price they may have to pay.
Yet there is another bit of me, too, which wonders whether this astonishing settlement doesn't simply buy into the greed and superficial glamour of a Footballers' Wives culture. The chances are that many or most of us will be dumped, as I was, and as many of the women who wrote to me were. Young women should be encouraged to live their own lives, earn their own living, and not rely any more than they have to on the shifting sands of a man's devotion - which in my experience is inseparably linked to his income.
All divorced women, whether they envy or disapprove of Karen Parlour's settlement, will now be reviewing their own arrangements, and wondering, what might I have got if the same rules applied in my day? My own situation when I divorced was not too dissimilar. Politicians' working lives are as plagued by uncertainty as sportsmen's: a "foreseeable future" in politics might last no longer than four years, which is roughly how much longer Ray Parlour is estimated to have left in professional football.
How much of my ex-husband's ministerial salary might I have been worth - to say nothing of ministerial perks such as grace-and-favour houses, cars and foreign travel? There is no doubt that I gave him some hefty leg-ups at a number of junctures. There were brief wobbles at times of stress, like Ray's, which I had to steer him through. I might have mounted an excellent case that, without me, he would not have got where he did.
But one should accept that one's influence diminishes exponentially over time, and maybe any award should be correspondingly tapered. The biggest problem I have with revising my own divorce settlement is that I have benefited hugely from my explosive bust-up with R Cook.
If I had accepted an award the size of Karen Parlour's seven years ago, would I not then be morally obliged to share this new income with him? My second career rests on the fact that I was once married to a high-profile man.
I am, at any rate, happy with the message that Karen Parlour's triumph at the appeal court sends - that a wife, whether she be a traditional total-support system or a modern do-it-all woman, is to be valued in all her parts, and not discarded lightly as an expendable chattel.
- (Guardian Service)
• Margaret Cook is the ex-wife of former British Labour Party minister Robin Cook
• Frank McNally is on leave