I believe it was originally for stay at home moms whose husbands left them/cheated on them to get some kind of financial compensation

Even if it was used to sue a man the logic would still be misogynist. Let’s say a man sleeps with a married woman, and her ex-husband sues him. He is suing this man for sleeping with his wife, an extension of himself, his property. The man who participated in the affair would owe him damages for taking what belonged to the husband.

In the case of a woman suing another woman, it’s a reinforcing of the idea that a woman is to blame for the transgressions of the married man. That she tempted him away from his marriage.

Does this seem hypocritical? It isn’t. The crux of this all is the misogynist underpinnings of the bourgeois matrimonial contract that staples a legalistic framework for cisheteronormative, patriarchial family modes onto a relationship. The idea that intimate personal relationships are contractual obligations regulated and governed by the state and enforceable through property law is the thing that is misogynist, not whether the perpetrator of harm is a man or a woman, or whether the person being harmed is a man or a woman.

Misogyny can also be perpetuated by women, and men can also be victims of misogyny. In fact, that is the norm.

IIRC that’s specifically the point: it’s coming from a patriarchal view of a wife as her husband’s property, meaning if she leaves for someone else then the aggrieved ex-husband has lost “his property” and is entitled to compensation from the responsible party. Even more narrowly it’s coming from the misogynistic assumption that women will just leave their husbands for richer partners if given the chance, and the law is meant to discourage rich men from “poaching” poor men’s wives and provide restitution to “victims” of such.

Like it’s not a good concept regardless of who’s being made to pay for someone else getting dumped.

The fact that the most recent high profile cases of it have been ex wives suing their ex husband’s mistresses is more a weird and unintended consequence of the law chugging away as written, enforced by an inhuman system run by the absolute least qualified and most inhuman people you can find.

The logic behind the law is obviously that marriage under capitalism is a financial agreement. Marriage is an agreement to share financial responsibilities. I think Marx and Engels called it “bourgeois marriage”. Capitalism treats marriage like a business. If an outsider destroys the business you own, then a court would rule that you are owed money for damages by the outsider. When people go through a divorce, they go through courts to split their assets.

There are many aspects of marriage under capitalism that are misogynistic. Marriage under capitalism is patriarchal, the man is often seen as the leader of the marriage and women have been historically subjugated.

If there was a society where monogamous marriage was only an expression of love and not a financial agreement, then there would be no laws for financial damages in ending a marriage.

It would still be a violation of trust for someone to break monogamy after promising to be monogamous.

If I get cheated on I’m suing absolutely everyone. I’m losing my shit like the opening scene of Secret Window. I’m suing the mods of this website for somehow causing it to happen.

Let. Me. Litigate.