Today, women have freedom and equality, but in medieval times it was different. The fairer sex was actually the property of the spouse and completely obeyed his whims. After marriage, both husband and wife had a common legal status. From a legal point of view, married women were not entitled to property belonging to their spouses. Marriages, as a rule, did not dissolve, however, dissatisfied English husbands found a way to get rid of their second half.
English custom of selling wife
Here is an alternative way to end a failed marriage. Do not think that selling a wife was akin to slavery, this act was initially carried out by mutual consent. Now, no one will say for sure who gave the idea of the strange custom of selling a wife at a public auction. Written evidence and archival evidence suggests that the practice spread to England in the late 17th century.
Divorce was too expensive for the general mass of people
Public auctions were accompanied by wild surroundings. The spouse brought his wife to the auction site on a rope. A loop was thrown around the poor girl's neck and waist, and her hands were tied. Now the woman was ready to bargain, and the man had to wait for someone from the audience to offer a high price for her. As a rule, the place of the auction was the nearest market, where commoners and people of average income went. It is worth noting that wealthy Englishmen could afford the divorce proceedings. It is curious that similar auctions in England were common until the end of the 19th century.
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Contrary to the state system
In fact, the described procedure was a divorce for the poor. Despite the fact that such auctions were officially illegal, they were carried out with the complete connivance of the authorities. In 1690, a law was passed in England, according to which a married couple had to submit a written statement in order to receive an official certificate of divorce. The state alone set exorbitant divorce rates. The process itself could last for months, so the people who dared to leave had no desire to solve the issue according to the law.
Passive attitude of the authorities
At first, the authorities did not fight people who freed themselves from the bonds of marriage in such a strange way. But then prosecution was introduced against the organizers of the auction, which intensified by the middle of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the attitude of the authorities towards this new custom can be described as passive.
The tacit consent of women
It is curious that the women themselves at first met the initiative of their husbands humbly. Most likely, many of them were also tired of the tyrant spouse, and they did not mind trying their luck with another man. There is a possibility that the total mass of women was weak-willed, so the innovation could be taken for granted. But in the middle of the 19th century, the suffrage movement was gaining popularity, so many ladies began to resist trading.
The last case of the sale of the wife
According to archival data, one of the last cases became known in the Leeds police court in 1913, where a witness claimed that she was sold to one of her husband's associates for a purely symbolic payment. However, the auction itself was not described by a woman.
Inga Kaisina