Illustrated on this page is an 1876 engraving titled “Wife Auction in England,” originally illustrating a story by Charles Reade in the November 18 edition of Harper’s Weekly. The article focused on the auction of Joseph Thompson’s wife by Thompson on April 5, 1832 in a village three miles from Carlisle, England.
Is this a spoof? Was this an alternative to divorce? Could this use of the auction method of marketing be legal? Was it common practice or just some form of punishment or public humiliation to a spouse? These were the questions I set out to find answers to.
Keep in mind as we explore this subject that we are not talking about the sale of unwed women by their fathers to be sold as wives which was practiced in ancient Babylon as described by Historian Herodotus. Also, this subject should not be confused with the crime of kidnapping women to be transported and sold into marriage, which has happened throughout the history of humanity and continues today with the contemporary example of Vietnamese women being kidnapped and auctioned in China to serve as wives. Still further, this is not an article on slave auctions.
Charles Reade’s article written in 1876 provides some insight into “Wife Auctions.” Reade explains, “To the tenacity of old tradition I ascribe a prevalent notion, in rude parts of this country, that an Englishman and his wife can divorce themselves under certain conditions. 1st, the parties must consent; 2nd there must be a Public Auction; 3rd, the lady must be sold with a halter around her neck. That our rural population ever invented this law is improbable in itself and against evidence: there are examples of the practice as old as any chronicle we have; and I really suspect that in some barbarous age -- later, perhaps, than our serious worship of Baal, but anterior to our earliest Saxon laws -- this rude divorce by consent was the unwritten law of Britain.”
An article by Max Dashue titled the “Patrician Order” reviews some of the laws and customs of the “barbarous age” and Roman law. During this time “Patriarchy had gained ground, replacing the old “usus” marriage (based on cohabitation) with the more prestigious “coemptio” (based on sale).” Roman law was based on “patria potestas,” the life-and-death power of the father over his wife, children and slaves.
This power was evidenced in the Twelve Tables of the Law. The Roman word “familia” referred to slave holding rather than the love of “family.” (Note: The custom of the husband lifting his bride over the threshold commemorated Roman men’s capture of the Sabine women, according to Plutarch.)
Example of wife sold without reserve
Meade, in his 1876 article notes that he had many examples of wife auctions taking place in rural “markets” during the first half of the 19 century. The most colorful was the one that he had illustrated in his article.
He wrote: “Joseph Thompson rented a farm of forty acres in a village three miles from Carlisle. In 1829 he married a spruce, lively girl twenty-two years of age. They had many disputes and no children. So after three years they agreed to part. The “bellman” was sent around the village to announce that Joseph Thompson would sell Mary Anne Thompson by Auction on April 5, 1832 at noon precisely.”
According to Meade, “At the appointed time Joseph Thompson stood on a table, and his wife a little below him on an oak chair, with a halter of straw around her neck. He put her up for sale in terms that a by-stander thought it worth while taking down on the spot… Gentlemen, I have to offer for your notice my wife, Mary Anne Thompson, otherwise Williamson. It is her wish as well as mine to part forever, and will be sold without reserve to the highest bidder.”
He talked about her qualities, in part, “She can read novels, milk cows, and laugh and weep with the same ease that you could toss off a glass of ale.” When he couldn’t get a bid he entertained an offer from a man named Mears to swap her for a Newfoundland dog! According to Mears, “He can fetch and carry; and if you fall in the water, drunk or sober, he’ll pull you out.” Eventually the deal was made for the dog and twenty shillings more. The last duty for Thompson to perform was to “drink to the new-married couple’s health.” The crowd moved into the “public-house” where the twenty shillings was spent on the celebration. All Thompson took home was the Newfoundland.
Mutual consent
The first edition of Pease and Chitty's Law of Markets and Fairs was published in 1898. It described, “Wife selling," which was a form of informal divorce by mutual consent practiced among the lower classes, was never particularly common. Where it did occur, a ritualized sale normally took place in a market or fair in order to obtain maximum publicity. This was, of course, precisely the same rationale as early markets, which were created as a means of witnessing the transfer of title to goods and thereby avoiding disputes.
“The practice of ‘sale’ in the marketplace was adopted in divorce cases because publicity was important to all parties concerned. It lessened the risk that the de jure husband would be imprisoned for debts incurred by his (ex) wife and avoided the possibility that she would claim dower from his estate after his death. The advantage for the wife was first that the (ex) husband would not in practice exercise his right to claim all her after acquired property and earnings and secondly, having publicly condoned the adultery could not bring an action for damages in criminal compensation against her new lover,” the book described.
This 1898 book suggests that wife sales reached a peak of popularity in the first half of the 19th century. In the decade 1820-1829, 49 wife sales were recorded. The 1830s witnessed only 51 cases. Supposedly, reformed divorce laws in the 1850s helped to eradicate wife auctions in England. Incidently, there is evidence that wife auctions took place in other areas under English rule, such as Southern Australia during the same Pre-1850 period.
Thomas Hardy, the English writer, famously describes such a wife auction in The Mayor of Casterbridge published in 1886 but the imaginary event is supposed to have taken place at the famous Weyhill Fair circa 1825-30.
Today, to my knowledge, there are no auctions of wives by their husbands in England any longer. However, according to, Divorce-Online News, A Birmingham businesswoman, Kay Hammond, put herself up for auction to be a wife and received a successful bid from Ben Webb, of 251,000 pounds sterling; which was 1,000 pounds over the minimum on January 29, 2002.
Kay set out her own terms and conditions. According to the article this was no publicity stunt. Miss Hammond stated, “She’s just too busy to find a partner.” Cupid says the auction method of marketing is alive and well.
