Duty to first wife

Vaughan v Vaughan CA TLR 18 May

On marriage a spouse has to be presumed to take the other subject to all existing encumbrances, for example an obligation to support the wife or child of a dissolved marriage, although English law was not taking the principle to its logical conclusion by affording priority to the claims of the first wife. That principle was judge-made over 40 years ago in Roberts v Roberts ([1970] P 1) and thus required rigorous scrutiny in case changed social conditions had rendered it obselete, but they had not. Accordingly, the deputy high court judge had been in error when he had granted an application by the husband to terminate his obligation to make periodical payments to his former wife, from whom he was divorced in 1985 and had dismissed the former wife’s cross-application for an order that termination of that obligation should be in consideration of payment of a lump sum by way of capitalisation under s31(7B) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.