CUCKOLD - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CUCKOLDAuthored

The Law Mind • 717 words

Definition

A man whose wife is sexually unfaithful to him. In legal usage, the term's significance is almost entirely confined to the law of defamation: to falsely accuse a man of being a cuckold — that is, to impute that his wife has committed adultery — was historically treated as slander actionable per se, meaning the plaintiff could recover damages without proving specific financial harm. The imputation was considered injurious to reputation on its face, touching the honor of the household and, by extension, the man himself.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A man married to an adulterous spouse, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of the fact. In contemporary informal use, the term has also acquired a secondary meaning denoting sexual fetishization of a partner's infidelity.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A man whose wife is unfaithful; the husband of an adulteress.

Editorial note: The legal and common definitions align closely on the core meaning, but the legal relevance of the term is narrower than either common usage suggests. Law does not concern itself with whether the cuckolded husband was aware or accepting of the situation — only with whether the accusation was made falsely and publicly. The modern fetish usage is legally irrelevant to historical defamation doctrine and should not color research into period sources.

Why It Matters in Research

The legal significance of this term is essentially historical and confined to slander doctrine. Researchers working in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century defamation cases will encounter "cuckold" as a recognized category of per se slander — one of the terms courts treated as inherently damaging without requiring proof of actual loss. The underlying rationale tied marital fidelity to masculine honor and social standing, a framework that has largely dissolved in modern defamation law.

Two navigational traps arise in historical research. First, slander per se categories were not uniform across jurisdictions or time periods. A statement treated as per se actionable in Kentucky in 1915 might have required special damages in another state or an earlier era. Second, the slander was directed at the husband, not the wife: the legal injury was to the man's reputation, not to the woman's character — which was a separate cause of action governed by different rules. Conflating the two can lead researchers to the wrong body of cases.

For corpus researchers, "cuckold" as a search term in historical legal materials will surface primarily in defamation pleadings and appellate opinions on slander per se. It will rarely appear in equity, criminal, or property records. Cross-searching under "adultery," "slander," and "per se" will recover the broader doctrinal context.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's is terse but precise on this term. It correctly identifies the slander per se rule and supplies a citation (159 Ky. 73) as authority, which is useful for confirming that the per se status was judicially recognized, not merely asserted by the dictionary. Bouvier's explanation of the etymology — the female cuckoo depositing eggs in another bird's nest — appears in the entry as context for the word's meaning rather than as legal doctrine, and researchers should treat it accordingly.

What Bouvier's does not address: the asymmetry of the slander. Calling a woman an adulteress was also per se slanderous in most jurisdictions, but under a distinct doctrinal branch concerned with imputing unchastity to women. The two causes of action coexisted but were not identical. Historical dictionaries generally treat them separately, and researchers should do the same.

No other source dictionary was submitted for this entry. Researchers requiring broader historical coverage should consult Burrill's Law Dictionary or early editions of Black's for supplementary treatment of slander per se categories.

Jurisdictional Note

Slander per se categories varied by jurisdiction throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some states required that words be actionable by statute to qualify as per se slander; others relied on common law categories. Whether accusing a man of being a cuckold qualified as per se slander in a given jurisdiction therefore depends on that jurisdiction's specific doctrinal framework at the time of the alleged statement.

CUCKOLDmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A "cuckold" is a man whose wife is unfaithful. The word alludes to the habit of a female cuckold which lays her eggs in the nests of other birds to be hatched by them. To say that one is a "cuckold" is slanderous per se. 159 Ky. 73, 166 8. W. 770. CUI ANTE DIVORTIUM (L. Lat. The full phrase was, Cui ipsa ante divor- tium contradicere non potuit, whom she before the divorce could not gainsay). In Practice. A writ which anciently lay in favor of a woman who had been divorced from her husband, to recover lands and tenements which she had in fee-simple, fee- tail, or for life, from him to whom her husband had aliened them during marriage, when she could not gainsay it; Fitzh. N. B. 240; 3 Bla. Com. 183, n.; Stearns, Real Act. 143; Booth, Real Act. 188. Abolished in 1833 by stat. 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27. CUI IN VITA (L. Lat. The full phrase was, Cui in vita sua, ipsa contradicere non potuit, whom in his lifetime she could not gainsay). In Practice. A writ of entry which lay for a widow against a person to whom her husband had in his lifetime aliened her lands. Fitzh. N. B. 193. The object of the writ was to avoid a judgment obtained against the husband by confession or default. It is now of no use in England by force of the provisions of the statute 32 Hen. VIII. c. 28, § 6. See 6 Co. 8, 9; Booth, Real Act.186. As to its use in Pennsylvania, see 8 Binn. Appx.; Rep. Comm. on Penn. Civ. Code, 1885, 90, 91. Abolished in Eng- land by 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27.