9 January 2008: Wife-stealing can be expensive

A Mississippi businessman now has to pay more than £350,000 in damages to the man whose wife he wooed away. When the wife gave birth to a daughter it quickly became apparent that her boss was the baby's father, not her husband. Her now ex-husband successfully sued her boss, using an antiquated Mississippi state law permitting a cuckolded spouse to seek damages for "loss of society, companionship, love and affection," as well as "the loss of sexual relations." The boss appealed the verdict, which ordered him to pay 750,000 dollars (that's just over £350,000) to the ex-husband.

In his submission the boss described the law as medieval, treating wives as the property of their husbands.

But the US Supreme Court has now declined to hear an appeal in the case, meaning he must pay up or go to jail.

SaintFM notes that a similar law applies in St. Helena, under the Matrimonial Causes Ordinance, CAP 81.