I’m sure it wasn’t a $9 million affair, but that’s the price Anne Lundquist is set to pay Cynthia Shackelford for alienation of affection.

In other words, a North Carolina jury recently found Lund-quist guilty of being a home wrecker.

I didn’t even know you could sue for that. But several states (Utah, Illinois, South Dakota, North Carolina, Hawaii, Mississippi and New Mexico) uphold the old-school laws that hold the “other” men and women accountable.

With all the adultery in the world today, you’d expect a lot of payouts. The mistresses of Jesse James, Tiger Woods and especially John Edwards should be nervous and ashamed.

Only they aren’t. I don’t know if it started with Monica Lewinsky, but getting involved with someone else’s spouse somehow has paved a shortcut to stardom.

Mistresses walk with their heads held high these days. They hold press conferences and tweet and rise to fame.

Vanity Fair and GQ give them glamorous photo spreads and interviews. People say they feel bad for the person left behind in the marriage, often but not always the wife.

But when you look at the most recent cases of high-profile infidelity, it seems all the public really wants are the sordid details.

People demonize the cheating spouse yet yearn to know more about these women, who they are and where they come from. In that way, mistresses have become the new Hollywood It-girls.

For this reason alone, I could see how someone would want revenge in the form of a lawsuit. Who wouldn’t, if even for a split-second, consider making someone pay for their public humili-ation and broken heart?

Still, I disagree with these laws. You can’t successfully pin the breakdown of a marriage on a third party. And we might be inviting the court too deeply into our lives when we rely on them to referee our personal dramas.

Shackelford insists her case against the mistress was meant to send a message to home wreckers not to come between couples.

But look at our country. Everyone has a say-so when it comes to someone else’s relationship status.

We comment on it in the form of Facebook fodder. We participate in polls on whether Sandra Bullock should leave Jesse James and if Elin should forgive Tiger. I’ve said it before. We’ve become too insensitive and casual about love when we tune in to “The Bachelor” and “Bride- zillas” and help turn sacred vows into entertainment.

When you look at it like that, it feels as if we’re all one big third party, contributing to the alienation of love and marriage.