There are a lot of wives who previously would have stuck things out. Now, if their husband is worth 20 million, and they know they can get 10 million if they split up, they think they might as well. Because you can have a whale of a time as a single woman with 10 million pounds in the bank.

If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing.

They never ceases to amaze me. And it is always worth getting up in the middle of the night for,

There is a lot of money around, especially in London. And at the higher end of the market, a spouse can be pretty certain of getting at least 50 percent of that.

Until that moment I'd thought I could have it both ways; to be one of them, and also my husband's wife. What conceit! I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more. How we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness. I was just one more of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war. Guilty or innocent, they have everything to lose. They are what there is to lose. A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars.

An undutiful Daughter will prove an unmanageable Wife.