Message in a Bottle Sixth Edition
PAGES
- Front Page - Message from the Editor
Page 2 - Portside Perusal - Global Events Round Up
Page 3 - Achievements & Historical Lookback 1
Page 4 - PG Advisor & Historical Lookback 1 cont.
Page 5 - Meet The Crew - SilverShadow
Page 6 - Historical Lookback 2
Page 7 - SLACK News
Historical Lookback 2 - Wife Selling:
Illustration by Robert Barnes for the 1886 serial of 'The Major of Casterbridge' by Thomas Hardy in The Graphic (used in accordance of copyright@)
Divorce as we know it was not permitted until the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act which allowed newly formed civil Divorce Courts to litigate divorce cases. Prior to this, there were other legal and illegal methods of ending marriages: separation mense et thoro (from bed and board), annulment, private separation, an expensive private Bill and desertion. Another method was wife-selling.
The origins of wife-selling in Britain are debated. Lawrence Stone dated it back to the sixteenth and seventeenth century, with the first recorded case occurring in 1553.
Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, on the other hand, believed this 'established British institution' to be Anglo-Saxon in origin, practiced as early as the eleventh and twelfth century.
Many saw this custom as a legal method of 'public self-divorce' and marriage. Wife-sales are associated with the 'plebeian' class, particularly those in rural communities and small towns, according to John Gillis.
Despite the 1857 Act, which made divorce more accessible for the lower classes through Divorce Courts, wife-sales still occurred into the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In fact, one of the last ones was in 1913 in Leeds.
Wife-sales occurred by either:
-public auction in a public place with fake and genuine bidders, but usually a pre-determined buyer;
-public sale with an agreement between the involved parties in a public place to create witnesses;
-private agreement, conducted with privacy, witnesses and/or written agreements.
To sell a wife by public auction or sale, a husband would bring his wife, often with a halter around her to resemble livestock, to a communal location, commonly a market-place or public house. Public auctions and sales were ritualistic and symbolic. The public arena created witnesses to the transaction to let the community know that one marriage had ended and another begun.
Generally, wife-sales occurred with the consent of both the husband and wife, with a buyer (new husband) in mind, who was often the wife's lover if there had been an affair.
The price of wives varied from meagre amounts to quite high sums. Goods as well as money were exchanged. In 1832, a wife in Carlisle was sold for £1 and a Newfoundland dog!
At Selby in 1862, a wife was sold for a pint of beer which would have cost only 3½ pence.
At the other end of the spectrum, a Ripon wife was sold for the high amount of 25 shillings or 300 pence.
It is no surprise that the folklore custom of wife-selling appeared frequently in nineteenth century literature. Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge gave us the most famous literary wife-sale as the main character Michael Henchard auctions off his wife Susan and their child; the legitimacy and validity of the wife-sale is later questioned by both parties.
Wife-selling was also a theme of some folk ballads, some of which have survived in print form. John Ashton's collection of folksongs, Modern Street Ballads (1888), interestingly starts with two ballads about wife-sales.
'Sale of a Wife' is about the sale of a wife to a sailor. To close the deal, the sailor '. . . shook hands with Betsy, and gave her a smack, / And she jump'd straddle-legs on to his back'.
'John Hobbs' is about a wife that no other man wants to buy as 'The wife-dealing fellows / were all of them sellers.
. . And none of them wanted Jane Hobbs'.
This drives the husband to attempt suicide. After the wife cuts him down:
They settled their troubles,
Like most married couples,
John Hobbs, John Hobbs,
Oh, happy shoemaker, John Hobbs!
'John Hobbs', 1807 – 10, printed and sold by T. Batchelar, London.
'Poor Will Putty', authored by Charles Dibdin, printed by T. Evans, London, between 1790 and 1813.
Victorian wife-sale cases in Yorkshire specifically, in terms of statistics data compiled by Menefee, who extensively surveyed wife-sales in Britain. According to his data, 108 known wife-sales occurred between 1837 and 1901, the Victorian period. 27 of those cases (25%) occurred in the Yorkshire region.
Menefee did not officially document another 2 but which brings the total to at least 29 known Victorian wife-sales in Yorkshire.
E. P. Thomson as well as Menefee noted a high occurrence of wife-sales in the Yorkshire region compared to others. Menefee stated that 'by the late 1880s the institution seems to be confined largely, although not exclusively, to the industrialized north of England'.
A peculiar wife-sale took place in May 1837, possibly in Halifax. A husband, a blacksmith called Garth, 'first sold [his wife] for a shilling, then bought her back again, and resold her to a married man for half-a-crown'. It seems that these sales were conducted behind the wife's back as when she 'came in on learning the fact', she 'amused a company of fellows of low character who were present by mauling her faithless spouse rather severely'.
The Times reported that 'One of these no less rare than disgusting exhibitions' occurred in Goole in December 1849. A man, called Ashton, had been receiving medical treatment at Hull General Infirmary. Whilst in hospital, his wife (described as a 'buxom young woman') eloped with a 'paramour', 'taking with her a great part of the husband's effects'.
When cuckolded Ashton discovered what had happened, he tracked the two lovers down and after negotiations, all parties agreed to a sale. A public auction took place in Goole market-place.
After 'a little spirited competition' she was sold to her lover for 5 shillings and 9 pence. Before leaving with her new husband, the wife snapped her fingers at her ex-husband and said 'There, good-for-nought, that's more than you would fetch'.
The Times, also detailed how a haltered 'women, respectably dressed, was offered for sale in Rotherham market-place' in October 1839. Bidding commenced and reached 4 shillings and 10 pence. At this point, the police constables arrived and the wife, fearing an arrest, 'fled and took refuge in a house'. In her absence,
The auctioneer sold her to the last bidder who had come 'from Sheffield to make the purchase'. When reassured that the police were there to 'prevent a disturbance of the peace' only, she 'surrendered herself to her new master, and they proceeded together by the railway to Sheffield'.
Arthur Munby witnessed what he referred to as 'The fine old custom' in an unnamed North Yorkshire village in February 1860.
The husband (described as a 'old man') sold his wife, 'a good deal younger than her husband', to a 'middle aged' purchaser after 'The purchaser had thought about making a bid, and at length decided that the act was proper and lawful'. She was purchased for 18 pence. It seems that the villagers, unlike the purchaser, did not think it was 'proper'; the villagers 'burnt the pair in effigy on the green'.
As the Latin motto warns: Caveat Emptor – let the buyer beware!
