The importance of financial independence: don't rely on a man

‘Never give up your career for a man.’ These words of my mother’s rang in my ears throughout girlhood, adolescence and young womanhood, until, about a decade into my marriage, she finally accepted I wasn’t going to.

The very opposite of an Austen-esque Mrs Bennet, desperate to engineer a good marriage for her daughter, my mother’s belief was that any woman in possession of a brain must be in want of a job. A room of one’s own? Certainly. And a bank account, a pension and some shares.

Although I have on occasion mused about how lovely it must be to be supported by a doting husband, my mother, as always, is right.

In the past, an advantageous marriage might have been one route for women to live in financial comfort. Now, however, relinquishing one’s career is a perilous choice.

In a recent divorce case, a former head teacher lost her battle to be compensated for abandoning her job when she married a millionaire doctor who had promised to look after her financially.