Once Again into the Breach

DOMESTIC RELATIONS

Breach-of-promise suits were quite the rage in the '30s. The idea was that in those genteel times, the supposedly defenseless female was at the mercy of caddish men who made promises and then sneaked away. If one could prove that the promises had been about marriage, the tab for mental suffering and the like could run as high as $200,000.

But eventually female emancipation and equality eased social mores. Nowadays, few breach-of-promise suits are filed, because few women will admit to being that naive. In fact, about a third of the 50 states no longer allow such litigation. Not including Arizona. There, last week, began the trial of a good old-fashioned breach-of-promise suit.

To begin with, there was Millionaire Gadabout William Henry Brown, 65. While taking the air in appropriate dress along a nudist beach on the northern German isle of Sylt in 1963, he spied Beate and Ralph Leber also strolling appropriately. Brown quickly wrote off Ralph as "homely," but at 39-26-36, Beate was something else. "Like Venus. She was irresistible."

He quickly asked if he might photograph her in the nude. She said yes, later. And so Brown acquired a beautiful friend. Eventually, homely Ralph seemed like extra baggage; Brown arranged a divorce by agreeing to pay Ralph $39,000 over a one-year period. Up to this point everyone agrees. Brown contends that subsequently he had a respectable "man and mistress" relationship with Beate. She claims that she was no cold-cash love but a solid-gold fiancee. He promised several times to marry her, she says, and she introduced a letter from him signed "your future husband." But after she arrived in Arizona, he became angry with her and left for Germany, there to cooperate with police in a case that got Ralph a $250 fine for pandering his wife.

Despite that little incident, it's still breach of promise, she says, and she wants $2.5 million.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.