The movie may have been sentimental but it did make the point. What happens when the relationship breaks down, he moves out, and she is left to cope with the remains of the family, on a severely curtailed budget that she has to rely on her alienated spouse to provide? "I found no respect for being a stay-at-home wife: you are considered a leech on your husband," says Jean O'Neill, of the newly founded First Wives' Group. Jean's marriage broke up in 1990 and she and her husband got a judicial separation. She lives in the former family home in Glenageary, Co Dublin, and has three grown children, one of whom is still at college.
She got to know a group of about 10 other women in the same situation after her own marriage ended, and they decided to form the First Wives' Group. "We were thinking of the film, but not in a serious way. The film wasn't true to real life. A lot of it was about `getting even', and I think you can waste your energy on revenge, which isn't worth it."
Jean believes that when it comes to separation there is little recognition of the work a wife has done in the home: "She's a housekeeper for her husband for 20 years. She'd be earning at least £10,000 a year for that kind of job. Multiply £10,000 by 20 and what have you got? A sum that to her is real but no-one else will accept."
Jean placed a letter in The Irish Times Letters to the Editor page last month, asking other "first wives" to contact her with a view to filling out a questionnaire on their experiences of "the mediation services, the legal profession, the courts, the financial institutions and maintenance payments". Her letter sparked off a lot of media attention, and she has now received 357 letters (as well as numerous phone calls) from women who are either in the throes of getting a judicial separation, or have been separated for some time. "I haven't heard from any divorced women yet," she notes, "but then there have only been 64 divorces granted."
Most of the women are from Dublin, but she has received letters "from all over the country": "One woman who got in touch lives in a small village where she and five other women are all going through separations at the moment."
These women are separating, or have separated from, their husbands under many different circumstances but Jean's impression is that most of them are alone: "I know from my own situation that even though friends and family can be supportive, you do feel very alone, and you need reassurance. What you want is professional advice and you want to talk to other women who have been through the same thing."
Many of the separated women she knows have been left because their husbands have become involved with someone else: "Not some young thing like in First Wives Club," she emphasises. "The man usually leaves his wife for another woman of about his own age - generally someone he works with or has met through business."
The "stay-at-home wife" is at a particular disadvantage in the immediate aftermath of a separation, before proper maintenance agreements have been arranged: "She is in dire financial straits. She have no steady income of her own. In such a situation it is hard to borrow from financial institutions - unless one is lucky enough to meet sympathetic bankers. It's humiliating to borrow from family or friends," she feels.
The separation can take a long time to go through the courts - up to two years, says Jean - and can end up costing a lot more than you may have initially expected, especially in an adversarial situation. Mediation services are inadequate and mediators have "no authority to force a husband to say how much he's earning", says Jean.
Aidan Reynolds, a partner in Gallagher Shatter, Solicitors, a firm specialising in family law, explains: "In judicial separation or divorce proceedings, there is invariably a request made for voluntary disclosure of a spouse's capital assets and sources of income. If such a request is not satisfactorily complied with, one can seek an order for discovery from the court. This is a vital procedure in the vast majority of family law cases.
"In any application for a judicial separation or divorce, an applicant spouse is obliged to file an affidavit of his/her means at the time of initiating the court proceedings. In practice, discovery tends to be a more protracted procedure when one is dealing with a self-employed spouse."
Once maintenance has been agreed, your troubles aren't over, says Jean: "If a husband is self-employed or runs his own business, then the money doesn't come straight out of his pay packet. Every month a woman will be worrying if the maintenance is in. He may not pay things like medical bills or car insurance that he is supposed to pay. She can't keep taking him to court over every little bill he won't pay. I know of women whose electricity has been cut off because their husband has just stopped paying the bills and hasn't told them." Women can feel as though they are caught in a legal maze full of pitfalls where, yet again, they are not respected because they are "stay-at-home" wives: "Barristers and solicitors make deals and they don't tell you what is going on. You have no experience and it's hard to get information. I don't think they take the woman seriously. They just get her a deal. Generally, the men are the ones with the money, they know how to talk to barristers. Men have powerful friends if they are in business. They all play golf together. Regardless of the court order, I believe that the wife will only end up getting what the husband is prepared to give."
Many of the women who have written to her don't know their entitlements: "They all want to know about pensions." According to Aidan Reynolds, "since the Family Law Act 1995 came into force, the court can now grant a pension adjustment order which, for example, could oblige the trustees of a pension scheme to pay a specified proportion of benefits arising on the retirement of a scheme member to the other party to a judicial separation or divorce. Awards of this type are now on the menu of reliefs available to a spouse in the context of a judicial separation or divorce and time will tell as to how the court intends exercising this power."
Unfortunately many of the women who are writing to Jean don't have access to this sort of expert advice. "I think that all women who are not earning should be automatically getting free legal aid," Jean concludes.
She is pleased about the recent promise by the new chairman of the Bar Council, John McMenamin, to introduce a scheme to provide the best legal representation free in deserving cases: "I'm going to meet him and have a chat about it."
She doesn't want to give the impression that she is bitter about "all men": "Some men whose marriages have broken up have been very decent and generous. But the ones who aren't have caused their wives and children a lot of hardship and trauma." She doesn't believe that divorce will make any difference, beyond giving people "the right to remarry". In the meantime, there are some couples who are separated but still living under the same roof because they can't afford to live separately: "Can you imagine the stress involved?"
Jean and the other members of the First Wives' Group are now going to draw up a detailed questionnaire to send to all the women who have contacted them. "We decided that, if we wanted action, we'd have to get facts and figures," she explains. "We want to find out what the problems are among first wives nationwide. When we get the results we'll compile a report and make recommendations about where the problems lie. We'll lobby the Government and anyone else who'll listen in a very vigorous way."
Meanwhile, the letters keep pouring in: "The women are angry and they want something done. One wrote: `Thank God you've set this up'," says Jean. "Some of them have sent me their whole stories. I've been sitting at home roaring crying, reading them. All these women, going through this unnecessary trauma. With the insecurity of maintenance, you can plan nothing."
Jean O'Neill can be reached at 5, Highthorn Wood, Glenageary, Co Dublin.
