Assessing A Wife’s Worth

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31114, 18 July 1966, Page 2

Assessing A Wife’s Worth

(N.Z. ftraii Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, July 17. A British judge says a husband who loses his wife to an ugly or poor man is hurt more than If she ran off with a handsome or rich one, the Associated Press reported.

Lord Justice Diplock and two other judges tackled the issue of a wife's worth yesterday in the Appeal Court. A 48-year-old engineer had been awarded £B5OO damages in a lower court against a wealthy 71-year-old businessman. The engineer charged the older man had seduced his wife of 20 years.

Lord Justice Diplock, hand- I ing down a ruling cutting the : award to £l9BO, said: “I find it impossible to accept, in these egalitarian and i materialistic days, that the i feelings and pride of a reason- f able man are more affronted ' if his wife commits adultery with an opulent baronet ; rather than an impoverished ■ dustman. “The lower the material and j physical attributes of the sup- > planter, the more wounding 1 the comparison and the greater blow to his own self- 1 esteem.” Another Judge, Lord Jus- ; tice Scarman, said the hus- < band in the case, Frederick ! Pritchard, had not suffered '

financially in losing his 45-year-old wife, Margaret, and might even be better off. Lord Justice Scarman held that the only compensation Pritchard should receive was for hurt feelings and wounded pride. He said: “When a wife was a piece of property, whom the husband could not divorce short of an act of Parliament, her infidelity was understandably regarded as a terrible blow to his honour and pride. “A cuckold was then a contemptible, ridiculous figure. But today all has changed ... a man may divest himself easily, cheaply, and without loss of face, of his adulterous wife.”