Stop In The Name of Love!

People are always using arcane laws to try to get a legal toehold in their crackpot cases. You read about someone who sues their neighbor for trespassing when all the guy did was walk up to their door, collecting for a canned food drive, or the guy who sued Michael Jordan for looking too much like him, or the odd case of the man from Minnesota who sued David Copperfield and David Blaine, noted magicians, for using his "godly powers" in their acts. This same man also claimed to have been married to Katie Couric and Celine Dion, so there's that.

But for real, there is a law that dates back to the days when women were considered property. A law known as "alienation of affection" allows a dumped husband in Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota and Utah to seek damages (namely, money) from a guy who wins the affections of his erstwhile wife.

The present case involves a man from North Carolina whose wife took off with a member of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. The man filed court papers that said that up until his wife met the athlete on a business trip, they had a perfect marriage and it all went to hell only because she met the ballplayer.

Son, let me tell you something. If someone loves you completely and fully, they will love you no matter what. Even though the toilet keeps making that funny sound and the car needs tires and the orthodontist wants to be paid and "happily ever after" seems like three words on a Hallmark card, if two people are really in love, they ain't goin' nowhere.

Likewise, if the love isn't there, no amount of gold-plated toilets and Yokahama yk580 tires and perfectly dentulous children will keep it together.  

Even The Captain And Tennille couldn't stand each other after 39 years, for crying out loud.

I'm sorry for the man whose wife left him, but it's like in high school when someone doesn't want to go out with you...no amount of cajolery will change that.  I refer to the great sage Yogi Berra, who reminded us that "if people don't want to come to the ballgames, how are you gonna stop them?"