WIVES FOR SALE

Southland Times, Issue 22992, 11 September 1936, Page 7

WIVES FOR SALE

CUSTOM SURVIVES. Official attempts have failed to suppress wife bartering among the tribes inhabiting the Turkestan plateau in Central Asia. Here, true to immemorial custom, shrewd merchants haggle over the prices of women herded together in the village market or bazaar like sheep or camels. Frequently young girls are kidnapped from their mountain homes and forced into marriage, their own parents sometimes being at the back of these revolting transactions. With the wealthier tribesmen all keeping big harems, the Asiatic marriage markets are always busy. . About a century ago, sales of wives were publicly tolerated in England. In March 1802, ‘at the market cross, Chapel-en-le-Frith, a labourer, though bidding opened briskly, could get no more than 11/- for his wife, a child and a few oddments of furniture. That same year a butcher’s wife, put up for sale at Hereford, fetched £1 4s and a bowl of punch. . Some husbands even negotiated their wives on leasehold terms. Strapping provincial lasses, caught by London wife traders, were generally disposed of at Smithfield, their average price being 15/-! _________