WIFE-SELLING SURVIVES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19761, 12 April 1926, Page 11

WIFE-SELLING SURVIVES.

• v STRANGE STORIES TOLD. Remarkab.e as it may seem, wife-selling still Prevails in Britain as was shown .n a case heard at the Leeds Police Court in February. In this instance, a man went to live with a married couple, and ejen uallv the husband agreed to sell his wife *°The system ol buying and selling wive* prevails chiefly in certain parts of Yorkshire (particularly in the mining districts). South Wales and Durham. It has come to be regarded as a rough-and-ready means ot solving the divorce problem. 4 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 » for a sum varying between a few shillings and £lO the wife is henceforward the “property” of the purchaser. . There was a striking incident m a Yorkshire public house. A miners wife had transferred er all'ertions to another man, and. although her husband was piqued, he was willing to give up his claims to her for a monetary consideration, the partiea met to discuss matters—the husband the wife (with her father and mother), and the orospective purchaser (with a fnenol. The husband demanded £5, but the wife herself said it was too much, and in the end he agreed to accept 30s. .Then this agreement v.-as drawn up andsigned: “Mr Taylor to have my wife, Elizabeth Smith, free from me for ever, to do as she ha 4t* Leeds Assizes a man charged with bigamy pleaded that his first wife proved troublesome, and as repeated good *“* ings” had no effect he sold her to a sojdier for 2= 6rl. She went willingly. and. he consecmeDtlv claimed that he had the n^ht *° Yorkshire bigamist said he had no wife, as he had sold her for ste: while a third admitted that he had got rid of hi* wife to a chimney sweep for Is bd. In the North Riding of Yorkshire there is a certain amount of wife-selling, but there is a convention that three conditions should be observed:— A wife must net be sold more than once: she must not, change hands for l?ss than Is. and she must be taken sway immediately. A shilling does not seem much for a wife, hut there have been cases in which even less was paid. At Alfredton. in Derbyshire. there was a remarkable scene in a public house, a man affenng. before a lar.-e company. to sell ms better half for .1 glass of beer. Some one accented, and the woman promptly took off ber wedding ring and passed over to her new “husband.”