SHE was an optician's assistant; he was a young footballer trying to break into the first team. They met, fell in love and married. By the time they divorced, 11 years later, she had given up her job to bring up their children, and he was earning more than £1m a year.

Yesterday, Karen Parlour, the former wife of Arsenal midfielder Ray, was the beneficiary of what is being hailed a landmark divorce settlement. For the first time, an ex-wife will be entitled to a share in her former partner's future earnings, to acknowledge the role she played in his success.

In the initial settlement, Ms Parlour was given the family home and a holiday chalet, both mortgage-free and with a combined worth of more than £1m, a £250,000 lump sum, and £12,500 a year for each of their three children. In addition, earlier this year the High Court ruled she should get £250,000 a year in personal maintenance, more than double her ex-husband's initial offer of £120,000.

Now, the Court of Appeal has increased that maintenance sum to £406,500, more than a third of Ray Parlour's £1.2m annual earnings. Ms Parlour's argument was that, as she helped her husband grow up and stay away from alcohol, she should be allowed a share of his future earnings.

Yesterday, the judges agreed, turning down Parlour's claim that awarding his ex-wife a share of future earnings was grossly unfair. Instead, the award will be reviewed in four years, by which time Parlour's earnings are expected to be sharply reduced. During those four years, Ms Parlour is expected to save around £294,000 a year, in preparation for the decline in her ex-husband's income.

The ruling could be seen as setting a precedent entitling ex-wives and husbands to, not just a share of joint assets, but of their former partner's future income as well.

But just as a footballer's wage is far from the norm, so the division of spoils is also unusual. Lord Justice Thorpe said the judgement had been made because there was a huge sum of money left over after Ms Parlour's own needs, and it would be wrong for Parlour to have sole control over this for the next four years. In other words, the ruling has direct relevance only for couples where one partner is earning far in excess of what they need to live on, and where the majority of the wealth is in income rather than in assets, which can be sold to settle a maintenance claim.

But it is still a revolutionary judgement, according to divorce expert Emma Hatley, a partner in City law firm Withers. She says the case is the first where the principal of fairness applies to income, as well as to capital assets.

"It certainly means wives are going to get a far greater share of husband's income, where the income is more than they both need in order to live on. It also means wives are entitled to, in effect, claim capital saved out of any maintenance that they get, so it means wives are going to share in the surplus of income that husbands have.

"It is going to have a significant impact on people's attitudes towards divorce, and therefore marriage, and I am sure this will be another reason why more people will want pre-nuptial agreements."

The pre-nuptial may have been commonplace for high-earners in the United States for some years, but so far it has yet to become popular over here. Yesterday's judgement could change that, as couples where one partner earns considerably more than the other seek to establish their financial footing should they slip.

While courts over here are not bound by such agreements, in practice judges have tended to follow them if they believe both parties received independent legal advice when they were drawn up.

The desirability of pre-nuptials can only have been increased by the escalating cost of divorce to high-earners. The most recent casualty is singer Lionel Richie, reported to be facing a $300,000 a month claim from his estranged wife Diane, including $600 for massages, $1,000 for laser hair removal, $500 for vitamins and £20,000 annually for plastic surgery.

Earlier this year, Harrison Ford was reported to be paying ex-wife Melissa Mathison £50m to divorce. The Star Wars and Indiana Jones actor had been married to Mathison for 18 years, fathering two children, before taking up with Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart.

The settlement may be larger than the reported £46m Tom Cruise paid to Nicole Kidman in 2001, but is dwarfed by the $100m Steven Spielberg gave Amy Irving when they divorced in 1989.

But while these sorts of figures may be confined to the super-rich, they are part of a trend which is seeing divorce become an increasingly costly business for everyone, Hollywood star or not.

Matt O'Connor, of militant pressure group Fathers 4 Justice, whose members carried out the recent flour bomb attack on Tony Blair in the House of Commons, says it is yet another sign of how fathers are getting a raw deal at the hands of the courts. "It seems that fathers are worse off than ever before," he says.

He says clean-break settlements are the best way to ensure fairness and equality, and the decision to give Ms Parlour a say in her husband's future earnings is nothing short of "obscene".

"When you get married, it's for better or for worse, not for 37 per cent of your future income four years after you have divorced. It may only be the high-profile who get the publicity, but this is a judgement that is going to send shivers down the spines of any man who is married or thinking about marriage," he says.

Yesterday's ruling means there is little incentive for a wife to stay in a marriage, when divorce can be such a lucrative business, he adds. "I really do think it is going to have a major impact, because no right-minded person is going to want to get married now."

Perhaps surprisingly, support for the view that Ms Parlour's windfall will make a significant difference to the institution of marriage comes from Sandra Davis, matrimonial partner at Mischon de Reya, and the lawyer credited as the architect of Diana, Princess of Wales's £17m settlement.

"For most people, divorce is about drawing a line under a partnership that has gone wrong, allowing those involved to move on, although obviously supporting any children from the marriage.

"In the case of a claim on future earnings to such a significant level, there will be little desire or need for a woman to marry again and endanger her income stream, unless the man is hugely wealthy, and certainly no incentive for men to marry a second time, as it would be just too expensive," she says.

Just as Karen Parlour says she saved her former husband from a life of drink and wasted talent, so he may be said to have saved her from a life as an optician's assistant. But as she is left to count her winnings, the cost to marriage may be even higher than a footballer's divorce.