Cuckold Court
Posted by Hazel Stone | Filed under Idiot Legislation
Everyone’s heard of the archaic laws that remain on the books for decades, only seeing the light of day again when some enterprising legal secretary digs them up in the wee hours of the morning over musty coffee and ferro-concrete ex-doughnuts. “Brilliant!” proclaims the junior partner, dozing the entire time on the leather sofa in the corner, who then proceeds to take full credit for the discovery, resulting in a senior partnership promotion for him and a $1.25/hr raise for the secretary.
Sorry, wandered off there.
Anyway, a resourceful cuckold in Mississippi has dug up one of these ancient, creaking bits of legislation, and has managed to shake 3/4 of a million dollars out of the pockets of the man who wooed and won his wife. The Mississippi Supreme Court just upheld the financial award, and his last appeal was declined by the US Supreme Court.
The article doesn’t specify, but this particular law has to date from the time when wives = property, ie. your favorite mule for plowing the south forty. It just boggles the mind that a 21st century court would consider this within their purview at all.
Not saying the adulterous cow shouldn’t be smacked for carrying on with her boss, getting preggers by him, passing the baby off as her then-husband’s, etc. But it shouldn’t be a court’s place to do the smacking.
Tags: profit via judicial system
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January 11th, 2008
This is why our system of government needs to put a system in place to repeal laws that no longer have any bearing on society today, like a 25 year or 50 year sunset clause automatically put onto every law.
If a law is not in the public consciousness enough after 25 years to get renewed, it automatically goes away.
January 11th, 2008
MRS, sorry, I accidentally deleted your comment so I had to recreate it. *facepalm*
January 11th, 2008
Do I have to tell you three times to get the comment to be acknowledged?
January 11th, 2008
No, that’d be, of course, Gay.
January 11th, 2008
Gay Deciever, the original Time Traveling/Dimension Hopping Delorean (Eat your heart out Emmett Brown).
January 11th, 2008
I DID IT AGAIN!! Argh. That’s it, removing the comment moderation for now.
January 11th, 2008
No worries, it happens
January 11th, 2008
I suppose that you could argue that she broke the terms of the marriage contract and that the ex-husband has a right to reparations: not because she is property but because she broke a contract.
And, of course, contract enforcement could well come under the purview of a civil court.
DK
January 11th, 2008
Unless those specific terms of the contract are laid out in advance (see: prenup), then it’s still horse fertilizer, end of story.
January 11th, 2008
I have absolutely no sympathy for the man who was involved in the affair. Men get screwed in divorce courts all the time. The husband will probably be able to use that $750,000 to break even after he divorces his wife, and she takes half of his assets, even though she’s a cheating bitch.
January 11th, 2008
Hazel Stone,
It’s also not written into the contract that the wife has any claim to her husband’s assets or earnings.
January 11th, 2008
What contract are you referring to? I was referring to a prenup, the disposition of which being the only reason something like this should come anywhere near the judiciary.
January 11th, 2008
Oooh, you mean the “marriage contract.” Well, here’s four words:
“…for richer or poorer…”
So, yeah, by the “assumption” that there is any sort of a “contract,” alimony is indeed covered.
January 11th, 2008
How is it covered when the wife has cheated on her husband? That is breach of contract, something that you as a libertarian should recognize as a serious issue. Even if it is just a social contract, it is an understood agreement between two parties.
I fail to see how this case is worse than the way that many women routinely use the state to force their husbands to relinquish their assets without any meaningful legal recourse. How is this any worse than a woman who marries a man, divorces him after a few years, and takes half of his property with the state holding a gun to her ex-husband’s head in the event that he objects? You want to talk about screwy marriage laws, how about the laws which allow a woman to leave a licensed marriage at any time, for any reason, and then talk at least half of her husband’s assets, regardless of what her input into the marriage was.
I see no difference between the way that marriage laws are structure today with respect to property rights, and the federal laws which allow the government to seize any undeclared money at the borders and the asset forfeiture laws.
January 11th, 2008
To be a bit more blunt, how is this law any worse than the laws in places like California which allow a gold digger making minimum wage, to marry a wealthy man, divorce him after six months, and take half of his life’s earnings? If we are going to call this law archaic, then surely the marriage laws, if they are to exist, must take into consideration how long a marriage lasted, what a wife did while married and what percentage of the assets were contributed by each spouse. Unfortunately, that would result in many cases where a wife might be legitimately entitled to very little of the combined assets, and that would have your average liberal or moderate woman howling with outrage.
January 11th, 2008
And just how it is I have become the bad guy here? MikeT, I’m going to have to assume you’ve been on the losing end of the divorce stick at some point, hence your vehemence.
If you’ll read the original post again, I was speaking of this particular case, with this particular archaic law. I was not speaking of Situation A, or Scenario B, or whatever you care to interject.
But since you’re so het up about it, for the record, I don’t think there should be ANY laws as relates to the partnership of two (or even more!) individuals. They should enter into written contracts, or don’t venture down the marriage road at all, and the only thing subject to the judiciary are the terms of those contracts.
So, kindly redirect your ire to its actual source and cease attempting to put words into my mouth.
January 11th, 2008
Well, I apologize if I came across as putting words into your mouth. I disagree that this law, in this case, is stupid. It is actually useful to men to have on the books if marriage laws are going to stay on the books. The current system has virtually no restraints on what women may legally do, and how much money they can take out of a marriage. I see laws like this as ways of controlling part of the excess of using marriage laws to f$%^ over people.
In my opinion, if marriage is going to stay on the books, then so should statutes against adultery. They’re part and parcel. You either do it or don’t do it at all, halfway is unacceptable.
January 11th, 2008
I’m also not divorced, and am happily married. I just tend to regard what marriage has become today as a means by which many women can forcefully extract wealth from men. It’s a social trap for millions of men because it’s overwhelmingly men who end up on the losing end of property division and child visitation/custody rights.
January 15th, 2008
MikeT,
The thing is, this law does not really benefit men (as a group). If you notice the judgement was against the (ex)wife’s lover, not her.
She was penalized only because she married her lover. She might just as easily have stayed single and sued the lover for child support. There’s still nothing stopping her from divorsing her new husband and taking him to the cleaners.
So the law may help one man, but at the expense of another man. Meanwhile, the woman gets off without being held accountable for her actions.
January 15th, 2008
MikeT,
The thing is, this law does not really benefit men (as a group). If you notice the judgement was against the (ex)wife’s lover, not her.
She was penalized only because she married her lover. She might just as easily have stayed single and sued the lover for child support. There’s still nothing stopping her from divorsing her new husband and taking him to the cleaners.
So the law may help one man, but at the expense of another man. Meanwhile, the woman gets off without being held accountable for her actions.
((When I first submitted this, it appeared as if MikeT submitted it??))
January 17th, 2008
” suppose that you could argue that she broke the terms of the marriage contract and that the ex-husband has a right to reparations: not because she is property but because she broke a contract.”
Except that SHE was not the one sued. The other man had NO contractural relationship
January 17th, 2008
While I tend to lean libertarian in most areas, I do acknowledge that society, and therefore the government that represents it, does have a vested interest in the environment in which children are raised. And considering the strong argument for the child-rearing benefits of the traditional nuclear family, a decent argument can be made that it is in everyone’s best interest to create incentives for such unions. The marriage contract, and the benefits that go with it, are one incentive (though judging by the divorce rate, perhaps not a sufficient one).
As to this story, I’m also baffled as to why the cheating spouse’s lover had any liability. Perhaps some archaic assumption that women couldn’t control their urges, and therefore it was incumbent upon the men of the day not to lure away married women.
Or maybe not. But do you think the real reason is going to make any more sense?