Presented by Fred Emery
Panorama investigates the growing pressure for reform of the law to unscramble the increasingly bitter financial consequences of marriage breakdown.
Today, one marriage in five ends in divorce, a fact made easier and cheaper by the Divorce Reform Act of 1969. But the new freedom has frequently brought with it financial misery.
Over half-a-million children and their divorced mothers live on social security. More than 2,000 divorced men go to jail each year for failing to pay maintenance to their ex-wives. Increasingly, men Protest that in an age of women's liberation punitive maintenance Payments force them into lifelong Poverty.
As the Law Commission prepares to publish a paper examining the issues of maintenance payments and the law, Philip Tibenham reports on the financial plight of the divorced.
Producer COLIN MARTIN
Researcher MARY MORGAN
Deputy editor ELWYN PARRY JONES
Editor ROGER BOLTON