AN ITALIAN woman who signed a bizarre contract promising total sexual and mental submission to her husband is suing him for divorce and mistreatment after seven years of "slavery".
In a pact with echoes of the best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey, the woman from Padua signed the explicitly worded agreement with her then boyfriend in 2004, when she was 24.
They married in 2006 but the relationship failed and the couple separated last year.
The woman, now 31, has shown the two-page contract to her lawyers to support her demands for a divorce and accusations of physical abuse.
She also accuses her former partner of stalking her since their split.
The contract stipulated that she be considered a "slave" to her husband, a property manager who was 10 years older than her. He was described as her padrone or master throughout the contract.
"The slave agrees to obey and to offer herself for the satisfaction of the desires of her master," it read. "The slave agrees to place her body at her master's disposition, to be used at his pleasure."
Any "infraction" would be punished, the contract stipulated, with the woman expected to accept the penalty with "humility".
The husband agreed in the contract that he would not subject his wife to "coprophilia, bestiality, asphyxia/restriction of breathing, branding by fire, any activities involving weapons and any acts in general which could permanently mark her physically".
It also stipulated that if, during their sadomasochistic sex sessions, the husband went too far, the woman could call a halt by either saying the "safe word" Mario or banging her hand three times against the nearest surface.
The couple have not been named publicly because the case is before the courts.
The husband argues that his wife signed the bizarre sex pact of her own volition and that their activities were always consensual.
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