A Brief History

In the winter of 1847, the Hon. Reginald P. Hartwell III, a minor magistrate of the Greater Cotswold Circuit, convened an emergency session to resolve a dispute that had consumed three villages and one regrettable goat.

The matter: Mrs. Abernathy claimed she loved her husband more than he loved her. Mr. Abernathy, in return, produced a shoe he had walked 40 miles in — uphill, in the snow — to retrieve her forgotten bonnet.

Judge Hartwell, unable to rule from the bench alone, summoned three associates: The Romantic, a weepy ex-poet; The Cynic, a disbarred barrister with a cold; and The Tie-Breaker, whose identity remains known only to a single handwritten letter in the Tribunal vault.

Their verdict — delivered at 73.4% in favor of the plaintiff — established the first recorded Love Surplus Score in Western jurisprudence. It also briefly caused a small riot.

The Tribunal has been in continuous operation ever since, though it has, in recent years, traded its mahogany benches for artificial intelligence and its candle wax for neon pink. The spirit, however, remains unchanged:

“Love, like evidence, must be entered into the record.”

— Hon. R. P. Hartwell III, 1849