Wife Selling!

The latest post on my blog looks at wife selling...only dont worry...I am writing about the 18th century! But still, it does raise the question of if you were going to exchange your partner, what would be a fair trade?

'In 1553, clergyman Thomas Snowdell sold his wife to a butcher. After a decree by Queen Mary I, that any clergy who married during the brief period of Protestantism during the preceding reign, would be put out of their living, it was a straight choice for Thomas, in which his wife lost.

Indeed since a wife was her husband’s property and there were no laws against selling a spouse, it was not an uncommon occurrence (as described in Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge.’)

One shilling was an average price for a wife….'

http://graceelliot-author.blogspot.com/2011/03/wife-selling-in-18th-century.html