WORTH OF A WIFE

NZ Truth, Issue 1210, 7 February 1929, Page 1

WORTH OF A WIFE

Rating the Affections of A Woman Puzzles Judges -ana] Juries

Thougli Neyr Zealand husbands may claim; damages from corespondents who, have dallied with erring; wives, few of them do bo. In some countries, though, wronged husbands are not above seeking cash solace for alienation of wifely affections.

A CCORDTNG to one English riewsJA. paper; dear old London's conversational - tional circles were recently highly excited. ..Many, of the smart society shes saw the foundations of the Empire imperilled. More temperate ones waited grimly to see what Parliament which sooner or later discusses everything, might , declare before deciding. The signally stirring fact was that ah eminent jurist had disagreed heartily with a .jury of an alleged wifestealer's peers. . ■ .-'. , : The jurors, led mayhap by a young man about to be married, were shocked at such' hard-boiled flaunting of chivalry and sentiment. They came right back at the Court, declaring m no time a.% all' that the wandering Helen ' had ' been" worth £10,000 to her. abandoned Menelaus.

In the verbal and printed uprising lover this amazing divergence of opinion on wifely values, none thought to get the estimate of the modern Paris on the lady he had 'hired from the old fireside. That might have been even more 1 interesting, but no, the issue wa3 joined, and the Lothario forgotten

Henpecked hub- * v# wvy bies of recalcitrant | trend .hurried home ,■■.;■.■■..■.. ~"" accounts of the affair from which the jufy's ukase was somehow deleted, and wives spoke at breakfast about the noble jurymen who had marked wives Up to £10,000 per. America had not so long ago a case of wife-valuing directly opposite to that which so . recently flurried Londoners. . . •. It happened m Ohio. There the Menelaus of the farmlands sued a city Paria for' six thousand dollars. The jury brought. in a verdict of 5 cents, which was, no doubt, their generous way of saying "worthless." "••'.. It remained, though, for a. Jersey Judge to add a new -quirk to wife valuation, one that A. Peterson, of New Jersey, demanded fifty thousand ■ dollars for from a fellow townsman who, he claimed had alienated the aflectioris of his wife. He told the Judge and jury with considerable detail how he had noticed that his wife played icicle to him after she camerback from a vacation. He

For LoVes Labor

watched and waited, and, coming home unexpectedly one midnight, found her' m the company of the conjugal enemy. The jury awarded him four hundred dollars and he sought a new trial. The, Jersey judge denied him this saying he did not deserve more than . the award. "Instead of watching and waiting, when your wife turned cold . to you, you should have made an active campaign tp win back her love," the court proclaimed, m effect. One of the- largest verdicts that was actually made to stick, though it was fought through the higher courts, was; that obtained m an action brought by a poor man against a millionaire manufacturer of Brooklyn. '•'. , He said his wife told him after a vacation that she hadn't even missed him, and invited him to the boat to say farewell when she went to Bermuda with his. 48-year-old rival. - ;

The jury awarded him forty- six thousand dollars, and' 'the pretty wife, leaving the court on the millionaire's arm, exclaimed: "Why. the

1 idea! The affection I had for him wasn't worth 46 cents!"

The millionaire appealed, and the forlorn hubby finally won a recompense of twenty-six thousand dollars. Now and again the Paris pays withoulf protest, as witness a recent case m Morristown, New .Jersey/ A fashionable, doctor, was sued by a broker for fifty thousand dollars. Calling the medico "a bald-headed lamb of love," the stock and bond. dealer asserted he didn't give a hoot for the money, but wanted the middle-aged Lothario brought somehow to book. ' The jury decided on five thousand dollars. The supposedly errant wife, w;hb was m court, burst into tears and declared she hadn't' given the doctor a cent's worth of love, ever. ' The society women 1 chorused, "Why; how could they find such a verdict?" and M Oh, isn't it too bad!" -.'-■'.. ; But. if the doctor paid after trial, the majority of society folk cool down after announcing suit for a million or so, and whatever, payment is made, if any, goes through behind voluminous burtains of secrecy. - v