Women are backing out of divorce cases because settlements are becoming less generous, experts have said.

Fewer wives are being awarded income for life and they are increasingly having their divorce settlement limited to a few years.

This is making some of them back off from going through with a split, law firms say.

In a landmark case in 2014, the High Court ruled that judges should prioritise a "transition to independence", even if this involved "a degree of (not undue) hardship".

Figures from the Ministry of Justice published last year show that orders for ongoing payments had fallen by five per cent since 2011, while lump sum orders, which allow for a clean break, had risen by 10 per cent over the same period.