WIFE-SELLING SURVIVES

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3311, 6 April 1926, Page 4

WIFE-SELLING SURVIVES

STRANGE STORIES TOLD - BRITISH MINER’S WAYS. Remarkable as It may seem, wifeselling still prevails in Britain, as was shown in a case heard at the Leeds. Police Court in February. In this instance, a man went to live with a married couple, and eventually the husband agreed to sell his'wife for £lO. The system of buying and selling wives, prevails chiefly in certain parts of Yorkshire (particularly in tne raining districts), South Wales and Durham. It has come to be regarded as a rough-and-ready means of serving the divorce problem. A man who is tired of his wife, and probably she of him, meets a few companions in a public house, and asks for bids for her. A bargain is' made, and for a sum between a few shillings and £lO the wife is hence forward the “property” of (the purchaser. A Transfer Contract. There was a striking incident In a Yorkshire public house. A miner's wife had transferred her affections to another man, and, although, her husband was piqued, he was willing to give her his claims to her for a mone ■ tary consideration. The parties met to discuss matters —the husband, Che wife (with her father and mother), and the prospective purchaser {with a friend). The husband demanded £3, but the wife herself said it was too muen, and in the end he agreed to accept 30s. Then this agreement was drawn up and signed:— “Mr. Taylor to have my wife, Elizabeth Smith, free from me for ever, to do as she has a mind.” At Leeds Assizes a man charged with bigamy pleaded that his first' wife proved troublesome .and as repeated “good hidings’ 'had no effect ho sold her to a soldier, for 8/6. She went willingly, and he consequently claimed that he had the right to marry again.

Another Yorkshire bigamist said ho had no wife, as ho had sold her for 60s; while a- third admitted that he had got rid of his wife to a chimney sweep for Is fid. Local Convention, t

' In the North Riding of Yorkshire there is a certain amount of wireselling, but there is a convention that three conditions should be observed: A wife must not-be sold more man once; she must not change hands for less than Is. and she miist be tanen away immediately.

A. shilling does not seem much ror a wife, but ther 6 have been cases in which even less was paid. At Alfredton, in Derbyshire, there was a remarkable scene in a public house, a man offering, before ; a large company, to sell Ms better half for a.; glass of beer. Someone accepted, and the woman promptly took off her wedding ring and passed over to her new “husband.” *