With this prenup I thee wed...

RAY PARLOUR has always been one of those gritty performers who let his football rather than his off-pitch behaviour do the talking, So it is saddening that ultimately the former Arsenal star - newly signed for Middlesbrough - may be remembered more for his impact in the divorce court than on the football pitch.

Legal experts believe the Appeal Court ruling in which Parlour's former wife, Karen, won a huge increase in maintenance payments could lead to fundamental changes in the way rich Britons get married.

The American-style 'prenup' - prenuptial agreement - could be about to take off over here too.

Prenups are all the rage in the US: so much so that a marriage would hardly be a marriage without one.

On this side of the pond, however, they are more rare partly because here, unlike in the United States, they are not legally binding.

"At the moment prenuptial agreements provide evidence of a couple's intentions in the event of divorce and the courts will adhere to them only if certain conditions are satisfied," says Mark Hepworth, head of the Family Law Department at York-based commercial lawyers Denison Till.

"Generally speaking, the longer the marriage goes on the less relevance they have, and as soon as a child comes along you may as well rip them up entirely."

That could be about to change.

According to Mark, one effect of the Parlour divorce will be that more high earners are likely to opt for American-style prenuptial agreements before walking down the aisle.

And as they do, there will be growing pressure on the Government to make such agreements legally binding over here, as they are in the US.

So is this going to lead to a permanent change in the way we approach the most romantic day of our lives?

The Appeal Court judges increased maintenance to Mrs Parlour, 33, whose four-year marriage to the Premiership player ended in 2002, from £250,000 a year to £406,500, to be reviewed after four years.

The award is in addition to two mortgage-free houses worth more than £1 million and a £250,000 lump sum plus £12,500 a year Parlour pays for each of their children aged eight, six and four.

The court took into account that the mother-of-three had "stood by her man" on his way to fame and fortune and backed her claim that the £1.2 million a year soccer star must pay her more than a third of his future income.

"This landmark ruling is hugely significant," says Marks, "because it is likely to trigger a spate of prenuptial agreements as high earners seek to protect their future income in the event of marriage breakdown.

"That will lead to pressure on the Government to make them legally binding so couples can determine their own arrangements rather than face the uncertainties and huge costs of legal action."

Mark says the Parlour judgement will affect couples where the main earner's income is so high a surplus remains even after both parties' "reasonable needs" and those of any children are taken into account.

This will affect growing numbers of sports and show business stars and top business people throughout the country. Mark believes it may even mean some well-off people decide not to get married at all.

Not everybody, however, earns £1.2 million a year, or is managing director of their own company built up through years of hard work, sweat and tears.

So what about the rest of us?

Pre-nuptial agreements are certainly not something that couples ever discuss with him, says Robert Livesey, superintendent registrar at York Register Office in Bootham. Then again, there is no reason why they should be.

"At the point where I talk to them, it really is all about the marriage ceremony and the day itself," he says.

But does he think the Parlour case could influence couples generally to think a bit more about their financial commitment when they marry?

"There are not many rich footballers in York," he says. "The Conference is not the same as the Premiership."

True enough. But there are plenty of other circumstances in which it might make sense for a couple to consider some kind of prenuptial agreement. Where one or other of the partners has already been through a messy, costly divorce, for example. Or where one partner already owns a home and the other doesn't.

Louise Everington and her fiance Phil Brown aren't thinking of a prenuptial agreement but they certainly wouldn't rush to judgement on anybody who was.

The couple plan to marry next year, after more than ten years together. They are big believers in the romance of marriage - Phil went down on bended knee in front of both sets of families to pop the question to Louise last Christmas Day.

"I wanted it to be really special," the 31-year-old digital artist and computer game designer from Acomb Green says. "Getting married is about drawing a line under where you are and saying 'I want to be with this person for the rest of my life'."

Louise, a 27-year-old recruitment consultant, says she was gobsmacked.

"I couldn't even speak for a while," she says. "But I was really excited and thrilled." Nevertheless, while they themselves don't see any need for a 'prenup' - "we started out together on a very, very equal footing financially," Louise says - they can understand why in some cases a hard-headed approach to marriage might be necessary.

Louise's parents split up when she was four. She was one of three children.

"I went with my mum, the other two stayed with my dad," she says. "And it decimated my childhood. We were really poor."

It took her mum a long time to feel able to put her trust in anyone again: and when she did, both she and her new partner made sure they put aside some money each in their own names, just to be sure.

A safeguard, is how Louise describes it.

So she can certainly see the value of some kind of agreement where partners have been through a bad experience before.

The same is true of weddings where one partner brings more to the marriage than the other, she says. She has a friend who recently got divorced. The house was hers.

"Then six months before they separated she had the house transferred into their joint names," she says. "He took half of everything, which was a lot more than he put in."

The other situation where there could be a case for trying to keep a cool head and not allowing yourself to be entirely blinded by love, Phil says, is where one or both partners has a child from a previous marriage whose interests they need to look out for.

In that case, he says, you would be "crazy" not to take steps to ensure that child's well-being in the event the marriage went wrong.

None of which would make broaching the subject of a prenuptial agreement easy, he accepts. Marriage is supposed to be the most romantic event of our lives: and it seems wrong to bring it down to a matter of financial considerations.

"If both partners feel totally fine about it, there is no problem. But if one partner wants it and the other doesn't, they may feel offended. They may feel you don't trust me.'"

If anything is going to halt the march of the prenup over here, it is probably going to be that.

When you love someone and want to spend the rest of your life with them the last thing you want to do is start out by saying you don't trust them.

Updated: 09:38 Tuesday, August 03, 2004