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Show me a joint lives order and I will show you two people with no incentive to better themselves.

We need to abandon "needs" altogether and follow the following rules in all cases, rich and poor:

1. Was there a prenup, in writing, on such truthful disclosure as the parties asked of each other at the time? If there was, subject to step 6 - enforce it. Agreement creates fairness.

2. If not: add up what they have created together and have now, including pension rights, and adding back any deliberate waste such as gambling (unless of course they gambled together!).

3. If either has significant debts incurred for the benefit of both (the husband who paid for the holidays on his credit card comes to mind) - adjust so that the burden is divided equally.

4. Share it equally.

5. Both pay their own costs - if there has been a legal services order it must be treated as "on account" - but bring back Calderbank and enforce it.

6. If the result would lead to unacceptable hardship to a minor child of the parties, postpone the division until that is no longer the case - which cannot be longer than the 18th birthday of the younger/youngest child. If that makes the result substantially different adjust the division of the proceeds of sale accordingly; if the father has to disappear into bedsit land until his two-year-old reaches adulthood the mother should not then get half the proceeds.

7. And finally: where a whole-life order is in force when all this is adopted the payer should have the right to have it reconsidered: the question should then be "Has the payee done all she (usually she) could have done to render herself independent?" and the order should be reduced, or ended, in the way it would have been if she had done so.

It's not rocket science and it's fair.