In today’s world, divorce is unfortunately a common and accepted occurrence. Not so in years past. Divorce was frowned upon due to Christian principles.
But in Victorian England, there was an odd practice by which husbands who no longer wished to be married would actually sell their wives, exchanging them like appliances, cars or cattle. And, believe it or not, the practice did make it to North America. The origins of this practice are said to date back to the 11th century.
At that time, a woman lost all of her rights when she married. She could not own property or inherit. She could not enter into contracts on her own or earn an income. In marriage, the woman became one with her husband. As such, husbands were granted complete authority over their wives. Wives became their husbands’ possessions.
For a woman to live without getting married was almost impossible. In order to live a decent life, a woman simply had to become someone’s wife.
The wife selling was done most often via public auction (although private agreements were sometimes made), similar to the sale of livestock. In order to sell a wife, the husband would first announce the upcoming sale in the newspaper with the date and time of the auction. To attract even more buyers, the sale would then be advertised through flyers and town criers. The sales were attended by huge crowds.
The wife would be tied up with ropes and chains, but with ribbons adorning her, and paraded through the marketplace. She would stand on a high platform in the center of the square, like merchandise. Men would inspect the wife and place bids. A hired professional would then praise the woman’s good qualities and possibly list her worst features. The spectators were witnesses, and lawyers were sometimes present to certify that the transaction had been conducted properly.
Although this sounds despicable by today’s standards, it was a good solution for both the man and the woman. It was actually rare that the wife was sold without her consent. It was illegal for husbands to enslave their spouses, although it was acceptable to hit them. Between 1760 and 1880, of the wife sales recorded, there were only four cases where the wife had not given consent. It is estimated that during this time, about 300 sales took place.
In comparison, during the Victorian Era, it is estimated that there were thousands of desertions in which the husbands simply left the wives, moving to another country or enlisting to work overseas as a means to leave the wife. This was illegal, and if the husband was caught, he would often be forced to pay welfare to the wife he was legally bound to support.
The woman also had the right to reject the buyer. If that happened, the husband could stop the auction or reduce the asking price. In some cases, the woman had already approached potential buyers requesting a sale to escape an unhappy life. The women were often quite happy being sold, having been bought back by their families or purchased by their lovers.
Divorce at the time meant a total dissolution of the marriage and the woman lost the status of being a wife. In those days, there were only two means for a woman to support herself if unmarried: working as a prostitute or in a workhouse. The conditions in workhouses were deplorable. Being sold simply meant transferring from the current husband to a new buyer, the next husband, with no loss of rights.
Divorce was difficult and expensive. Before 1857, a private Act of Parliament was required for divorce, costing hundreds of pounds. The average man’s wages for a week were less than a pound a week. After 1857, a divorce was approximately 40 pounds. That’s equivalent to $2,965, or a year’s wages for a factory worker or farm laborer at the time.
So, divorce was rare and only affordable by the upper class. It was only permitted if adultery or life-threatening cruelty could be proven. For women, divorce was even harder to obtain as they had to prove additional acts such as incest or bigamy. Between 1700 and 1857, only 8 out of 338 requests for divorce via an Act of Parliament were made by women and only 4 of them were successful.
Transactions without actual money were common and were sometimes made for livestock or beer. Often the purchase had been arranged in advance and was simply a symbolic act. Money wasn’t the issue – getting rid of the wife was the main goal. The sale released the man from his marital duties, including financial responsibility for the wife.
Although the ultimate goal was to get out of the marriage, there were instances of the man holding the auction to publicly shame the wife. Often, the purchaser was the person with whom the wife was having an affair. The transaction freed this “adulterer” from the possibility of legal action by the husband.
Wife selling was never legal and was frowned upon by overall society. Since the sales were not legal, there were instances of the “new” couples being charged with bigamy when they tried to actually marry.
The 1830 Custody of Infants Act gave wives greater rights to their children, essentially adding a bargaining tool during separations. The 1857 Matrimonial Act gave women more legal rights during divorce and started the decline of wife-selling. The 1870 Married Woman’s Property Act then allowed women to earn an income on their own and legally inherit from their families.
As women’s rights increased, English wife auctions decreased. The last known sale was reported in 1913, although isolated incidents happened as late as 1972.
Kimberly R. Smith is the secretary/treasurer of the Presque Isle Historical Society.
