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And now for something completely different-- wife selling as alternative to divorce...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_selling_(English_custom)Wife selling in England was a way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage by mutual agreement that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest. After parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the highest bidder. Wife selling provides the backdrop for Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, in which the central character sells his wife at the beginning of the story, an act that haunts him for the rest of his life, and ultimately destroys him.
Although the custom had no basis in law and frequently resulted in prosecution, particularly from the mid-19th century onwards, the attitude of the authorities was equivocal. At least one early 19th-century magistrate is on record as stating that he did not believe he had the right to prevent wife sales, and there were cases of local Poor Law Commissioners forcing husbands to sell their wives, rather than having to maintain the family in workhouses.
Wife selling persisted in England in some form until the early 20th century; according to the jurist and historian James Bryce, writing in 1901, wife sales were still occasionally taking place during his time. In one of the last reported instances of a wife sale in England, a woman giving evidence in a Leeds police court in 1913 claimed that she had been sold to one of her husband's workmates for £1.
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Although the custom had no basis in law and frequently resulted in prosecution, particularly from the mid-19th century onwards, the attitude of the authorities was equivocal. At least one early 19th-century magistrate is on record as stating that he did not believe he had the right to prevent wife sales, and there were cases of local Poor Law Commissioners forcing husbands to sell their wives, rather than having to maintain the family in workhouses.
Wife selling persisted in England in some form until the early 20th century; according to the jurist and historian James Bryce, writing in 1901, wife sales were still occasionally taking place during his time. In one of the last reported instances of a wife sale in England, a woman giving evidence in a Leeds police court in 1913 claimed that she had been sold to one of her husband's workmates for £1.
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And, of course as all good British customs come to the colonies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_selling#United_States
For divorce-based instances from the colonies before they became the U.S., see wife selling (English custom).
In 1781, in South Carolina, a "Bill of Sale"[3] of a "Wife and Property"[3] for "Two Dollars and half Dozen Bowls of Grogg",[3] the buyer "to have my said Wife for ever and a Day",[3] is, according to Richard B. Morris, "unique of its kind".[4] According to Morris, "although the administration of the law was in a somewhat unsettled state during this ["British"] military occupation [of Charleston], neither at common law nor under the marriage laws then in force in South Carolina would the sale of a wife have been valid".[5][a] The document likely was a way, wrote Morris, for "dissolving the marriage bond"[6] since the state forbade divorce[7] "and the marriage laws of the Church of England were widely disregarded among the poorer whites and in the back country",[8] but it could also have been intended to reduce the husband's liability for debts for support of the wife and her children and for her pre-wedding debts,[9] while it was unlikely to have been for the sale of a Black slave or an indentured servant,[10] though being for the sale of an Indian woman or a mestizo, while unlikely, was not impossible.[1
In 1781, in South Carolina, a "Bill of Sale"[3] of a "Wife and Property"[3] for "Two Dollars and half Dozen Bowls of Grogg",[3] the buyer "to have my said Wife for ever and a Day",[3] is, according to Richard B. Morris, "unique of its kind".[4] According to Morris, "although the administration of the law was in a somewhat unsettled state during this ["British"] military occupation [of Charleston], neither at common law nor under the marriage laws then in force in South Carolina would the sale of a wife have been valid".[5][a] The document likely was a way, wrote Morris, for "dissolving the marriage bond"[6] since the state forbade divorce[7] "and the marriage laws of the Church of England were widely disregarded among the poorer whites and in the back country",[8] but it could also have been intended to reduce the husband's liability for debts for support of the wife and her children and for her pre-wedding debts,[9] while it was unlikely to have been for the sale of a Black slave or an indentured servant,[10] though being for the sale of an Indian woman or a mestizo, while unlikely, was not impossible.[1
Now, according to several sources, some wives had no problem being sold to a better mate, and often instigated their sales to their lovers.
Still, to our modern sensitivities, the entire idea seems brutish.
13 replies
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Just WOW.
as people have nothing better to do than surf the internet for "interesting" stuff.
