Russian ex-beauty queen Ekaterina Parfenova Fields, 42, walked away from court this week after being awarded £1.2million and £320,000-a-year maintenance following a bitter divorce battle

When a Russian ex-beauty queen walked away from court this week after being awarded £1.2million and £320,000-a-year maintenance following a bitter divorce battle, she said it was a victory for all women.

Ekaterina Parfenova Fields, 42, has never worked and doesn’t intend to. She was married to Richard Fields for ten years and had two children with him before he left her to pursue the woman who became his sixth wife.

Mrs Fields had demanded £75,000 annually for holidays, £50,000 for nannies (even though she’s a stay-at-home mum) and £60,000 for clothes and personal pampering.

Between them, this deeply unsavoury couple spent £1.2million on legal fees, leading the judge to say it wasn’t a divorce, but a boxing match.

Mrs Fields insists her fight for justice was on behalf of abandoned mothers and children everywhere.

Others — and I include myself among them — see it instead as a stab in the heart for those bedrocks of society: marriage and motherhood.

For even though the money involved is eye-watering and the protagonists risible, the same legal principles apply to any marriage that produces children and ends in divorce.

The assets are invariably split down the middle and the breadwinner, still usually the man, rightly has to support the children and pay his ex-wife a maintenance allowance often for life.

Is it any surprise that the moment the story appeared on MailOnline yesterday, it was awash with comments from men insisting there was no point getting hitched if you’re clobbered for life when the marriage breaks down?

‘Don’t get married chaps,’ said one. ‘No wonder men don’t want to commit to marriage these days,’ commented another. ‘After such a short marriage why should he have to fund her lifestyle after divorce?’ asked a third, adding: ‘Why any man gets married now is beyond me.’

The average age men marry today is 36.5, while for women it’s 34. Men are leaving it later to commit because they realise what’s at stake if it goes wrong.

The inevitable consequence is that the age women marry is also creeping up. Yet only this week, a senior NHS fertility expert warned women should not wait until they’re 30 to have a baby — for they might find it’s too late.

A divorce like this Russian beauty’s is not only making it more difficult for women to find a husband, it’s also putting at risk their chance of settling down in time to have children. What kind of victory for women is that?

Charlotte, stick to the rugby boys

The new anti-austerity poster girl is Charlotte Church, who said she would be happy to pay 70 per cent tax to save the country.

Putting aside her £11million personal fortune, such utterings prove her ignorance. She may have the voice of an angel — but also the brain of a shrimp.

The new anti-austerity poster girl is Charlotte Church, who said she would be happy to pay 70 per cent tax to save the country

When we last had such a ludicrously high tax rate, in the 1970s, Britain was called the ‘sick man of Europe’. The economy collapsed, high earners fled, unemployment soared and inflation was over 15 per cent.

Stick to what you do best, pet — canoodling with rugby players.

Not such a Top Gear...

Many are perplexed that Top Gear co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May have been offered £4.6million by the BBC to stay on and save the show — without Jeremy Clarkson.

We fans know that would be like a bacon butty without the rashers — two soppy bits of flaccid, white bread on the outside and no meat in the sandwich.

Given Clarkson took these two moderately talented unknowns and made them millionaires, it would be a gear-crunching betrayal of their friendship if they were to accept the offer.

Top Gear co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May have been offered £4.6million by the BBC to stay on and save the show — without Jeremy Clarkson

The author of Fifty Shades Of Grey is writing a fourth novel in the series — this time from the point of view of sado-masochistic billionaire Christian Grey.

E. L. James says she needed to write it because ‘as anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows, there are two sides to every story’.

And two sides to every multi-million-pound advance cheque.

First, George Clooney bagged himself a human rights lawyer, now Jude Law is enthralled by beautiful academic and psychologist, Phillipa Coan.

Given that Law has five children by three women, only one of whom he married, and can’t keep his trousers zipped up in the presence of his children’s nanny, she’ll need more than a psychologist’s couch to keep Jude in check.

Good luck: Jude Law, 42, is enthralled by beautiful academic and psychologist, Phillipa Coan

Simon Cowell gave a grovelling apology after Britain’s Got Talent duped the nation into believing it was border collie Matisse, not his body double Chase, who performed the daring tightrope walk act that won our hearts.

Dog trainer Jules O’Dwyer will keep the £250,000 prize — and Cowell will bask in the free publicity. Canny old dog.

Treated like a terrorist

Sanity at last as former News Of The World editor Andy Coulson is cleared of perjury. Not before £37.4million was spent pursuing journalists — most of whom were cleared, but only after their lives and careers were left in tatters.

The police were so gung-ho they refused to let Coulson fly to Scotland for the trial, presumably in case he absconded, and insisted on driving him there, as they would a terrorist.

Former News Of The World editor Andy Coulson was cleared of perjury - but £37.4million has been spent pursuing journalists through the courts

They were met at the border by motorcycle outriders and put pictures of it all on the police’s Facebook page.

I hope he and his lovely wife Eloise can now rebuild their lives together with their two young children. I wish them the very best of luck.

WESTMINSTER NOTICEBOARD... DELUDED RED ED WANTED A QUICK MOVE-IN News that Red Ed wanted the Camerons booted out of No 10 within hours of the Labour victory he expected proves just how deluded he had become. And how cruel in his pursuit of power, especially to Samantha and their children. As Theodore Roosevelt said: ‘We may make mistakes, but if our motive is pure in heart, God makes up the deficit.’ Ed proved his heart was far from pure — and we all know making up the deficit was the last thing on his mind. Meanwhile, stabbed-in-the-back brother David’s return to Westminster seems to continue apace. David is making the keynote annual speech to the influential Institute of Directors in October, which, coincidentally, is Party conference time. I can’t be the only one who’s taken out a very large bet at 40-to-1 odds that he’ll be the next Labour PM. It is unconscionable that MPs will get a 10 per cent pay rise while the public sector will receive only 1 per cent. Offers from many MPs to give the money to charity are offensive — it’s still our money. What’s more, we know from the expenses scandal that, for many politicians, charity begins at home. Advertisement

Witty and humane, I'll so miss Charlie

Charles Kennedy and I often used to appear on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show to review the papers.

When we did the show in Liverpool in 2010, he failed to turn up for a dinner the night before and couldn’t be reached the following morning when the show was due to be broadcast.

Matters weren’t improved by the fact that, not long before we were due on air, the papers hadn’t arrived — and nor had Charles. I was told I’d have to get by on my own.

Then, minutes before we went live, he ambled in, calm as a millpond, the papers under his arm — and on we went. He delivered a performance full of wit and humanity. No one noticed anything was amiss, despite the panic minutes earlier.

When he eventually arrived that day, I embraced Charles and said: ‘I’ve never been so glad to see a Lib Dem in my life.’ Now, I’ve never been so sad to lose one.

The designer behind Kate’s favourite maternity label Seraphine has done a spread in Hello! magazine.

Cecile Reinaud gushes over how the Duchess of Cambridge’s patronage transformed her business — thus ensuring that, if Kate does have a third child, she’ll never wear one of her frocks again.

Lorraine Kelly must be the longest-serving female morning presenter on British TV. And, this week, she looked fabulous in a bikini — at 55.

With the non-stop whingeing from the SNP, she may be the only Scot I can stand the sight of.

Lorraine Kelly must be the longest-serving female morning presenter on British TV. And, this week, she looked fabulous in a bikini — at 55

The number of young girls admitted to UK hospitals with eating disorders has doubled in three years, while the NHS boss warns one child in ten is obese when starting primary school and one in five overweight when they leave.

Girls starving or gorging themselves to an early death? How did it ever get to this?

How sad that Bernie Ecclestone can’t bring himself to visit old friend Michael Schumacher, out of his coma, but still immobile and unable to speak.

‘I don’t want to see Michael like that,’ he said.