CHICAGO — It’s 1924 and you’ve just discovered your husband has been living a double love life. It hurts, but what can you do?
In the case of Genevieve Eugenie Schmiegel of Rogers Park, she decided to sue her cheating husband’s mistress for $50,000 under the state’s former “alienation of affection” — or “love theft” — law.
For her heartbreak, a judge awarded Schmiegel $43,750.
Schmiegel’s legal standing was grounded in the state’s collection of so-called “heart balm” laws, which allowed jilted lovers to seek financial compensation for their anguish. The laws — alienation of affection, breach of promise and criminal conversation (“defilement of the marriage bed”) — covered a range of circumstances that would result in a failed relationship, like infidelity, seduction, a broken engagement or otherwise negatively interfering in someone else’s marriage.
Often referred to in newspapers as “love theft,” “gold digger” and “seduction” lawsuits, the messy drama of doomed couples spilled across front pages and photo sections. Accusations of mistreatment of the heart flew in full view of readers, snagging everyone from millionaire magnates to housewives and secretaries.
Linze Rice discusses some of the thousands of “love theft” cases:
No Love Lost
The defendant in the torts was typically the other man or woman, not the spouse. In some cases, it was a spouse’s parent or child.
In the 1920s, South Side bride Bertha Hughes sued her in-laws for $25,000 worth of love theft, South Shore surgeon Dr. Irwin A. Gardener sued his cousin for $100,000 after he the doctor said he lured Gardener’s wife away to marry her for himself, and doctor J. Paul Fernel sued a wealthy cohort for $500,000 after siphoning his wife’s affections.
One woman sued her German-born father-in-law, who had hoped his son would marry a German woman, for causing the son to lose interest in her. In a similar case, a woman named Dorothy Dunn was said to have “gone insane” after her husband left her and disappeared. She sued his parents for $50,000.
In 1911, a “June wedding was transformed into a June breach of promise” when a Wisconsin millionaire was served a $100,000 lawsuit at the Blackstone Hotel for failing to go through with an engagement and marrying someone else instead. Another first wife was awarded $3,000 after her husband divorced her and married her rival.
Seduction and Other Crimes
The laws in Illinois date back to at least the 19th century, when married women had few legal rights under the “coverture” of their husbands. When affections were “stolen,” the laws entitled spurned spouses to recover damages. (By the year 1900, every state passed legislation modeled after New York’s Married Women’s Property Act of 1848, which granted married women the right to keep their own wages and to own property in their own name.)
One of the earliest newspaper articles chronicling an alienation of affection case appears in a December 1864 Chicago Tribune article under the headline, “A Serious Charge. A Chicago Merchant Accused of Seduction and other Crimes — Damages Claimed $50,000.” In that case, a husband whose wife had become pregnant by another man sued the boyfriend under the alienation of affection law.
The scorned husband reported that after he’d gone out of town for work, the lover had paid “particular attention to his wife, and by his constant and insidious professions managed to seduce her affections and induce her to consent to criminal intercourse.”
In the early 1900s, lovelorn lawsuits were used liberally to humiliate, seek vengeance and force settlements for fear of bad publicity.
Yet, as far back as 100 years ago, the morality laws were already criticized as being outdated, archaic and pointless. Plus, they did nothing but instigate public mud-slinging and acrimony when the fractured relationship should be a blessing, wrote Tribune columnist Doris Blake.
“I do not believe [heart balm laws] are good or just or that they contribute to anyone’s betterment,” Blake wrote. “I cannot see where anything is to be gained for making a man pay for breaking an engagement.
“If two people have ceased to love each other, should not they thank their stars they have ceased to love before they are married and have children?”
Rooted in sexist beliefs about gender roles, “heart balm” laws were often more about pride and perceived property than love or fairness.
“With all our ideas of freedom and independence for women, is it not astounding how this silly custom, or rather outrage, of heart balm and breach of promise case still goes on?” the columnist added.
Breaking Up With Heart Balms
By 1935, a national effort was made to outlaw “love rackets” across the county. “States Act to Curb Evils of ‘Heart Balm’ Lawsuits,” a Tribune headline read, surrounded by photos of paramours, accusers and once-happy couples.
That year, the state legislature passed a bill to abolish the laws; however, it was ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1946. In 1947, additional laws were passed by the state to once again outlaw the heartbreak torts — but the following year they were also found unconstitutional on the grounds that “the laws deny … the right to adequate recovery for a wrong.”
By December 1948, nearly 600 heart balm cases were pending or had been tried in Cook County.
Astoundingly, the laws remained on the books in Illinois until Jan. 1, 2016, when the state’s new Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act took effect. With a focus more on mediation and amicable settlement of domestic disputes, acts of alienation of affection, breach of promise and criminal conversation were finally abolished.
However, cases filed before the repeal were allowed to go forward, with some continuing until as recently as 2018 and beyond. Today, only a handful of states still stand by so-called “heart balm” laws.
So what can be learned from these former legal tactics?
“Love is the one thing not to be taken lightly,” Blake wrote. “If it is taken otherwise — then it should be at the individual’s own risk, with no damages or heart balms for consolation.”
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