In a bizarre case, a 42-year-old Italian woman could be jailed for up to six years after her husband took her to court for not doing enough cooking, cleaning at home and chronically neglecting him, media reports said today.
The couple live in the village of Sonnino, in the countryside south of Rome.
Her husband, 47, made a formal complaint to the police, saying his wife failed to put meals on the table and left their home in a dreadful mess.
Accusing her of "bad management of domestic affairs", the man complained that for the past two years, he had been chronically neglected by his wife. She failed to clean their house, refused to cook for him and on occasion kicked him out of the bedroom, The Telegraph reported.
The police decided to send the matter to trial, with the woman facing between two and six years in prison if found guilty of the charge of "mistreatment within the family", the report said.
The Italian penal code "punishes whoever mistreats a person in their family or a person entrusted to them for reasons of education, care or custody."
The trial is due to start in the town of Latina on October 12 and will be presided over by a female judge Mara Mattioli.
