An Italian woman could face up to six years in jail after her husband accused her of not doing enough cooking and cleaning at home.

Her husband made a formal complaint to the paramilitary Carabinieri police, saying that his wife was slovenly, failed to put meals on the table and left their home in a dreadful mess.

Rather than dismissing the case as a domestic dispute, the police referred it to judicial authorities.

They decided to send the matter to trial, with the 42-year-old wife facing between two and six years in prison if found guilty of the charge of "mistreatment within the family".

The crime, article 572 in 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".