A quick historical search of The Times Archive found only a few cases from the 1820s (one between two lieutenants-general in which the plaintiff was awarded £20,000 in damages); in 1920 Mr Justice McCardie considered the important question of the value of a wife in six cases which were before the divorce courts, & in 1955 the High Court decided, mercifully, that A Man Cannot Sue Mother-In-Law For Enticing Wife Away.
The modern Times is telling me more than I want to know about the alleged misdemeanours of the captain of the England football team; it seems to me that the crime of which he stands accused at the bar of the court of public opinion is that of alienation of affection or, still worse, of criminal conversation.
The fact that the lady in the case was not a wife, & that she had apparently already been deserted by the man who was not her husband, provides no mitigation in this court.
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