{"id":1892,"date":"2025-10-25T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chr.org.uk\/anddidthosefeet\/?p=1892"},"modified":"2025-10-25T21:30:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T20:30:19","slug":"wife-selling-the-bonds-of-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chr.org.uk\/anddidthosefeet\/wife-selling-the-bonds-of-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Wife-Selling & the bonds of Marriage October 1837"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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October 1837, Wolverhampton Chronicle. A case of wife-selling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A strange and unwonted exhibition took place in Walsall market on Tuesday last,” the Wolverhampton Chronicle said about a case of wife-selling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A man named George Hitchinson brought his wife, Elizabeth Hitchinson, from Burntwood, for sale, a distance of eight or nine miles. They came into the market between ten and eleven o’clock in the morning, the woman being led by a halter, which was fastened round her neck and the middle of her body. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In a few minutes after their arrival she was sold to a man of the name of Thomas Snape, a nailer, also from Burntwood. There were not many people in the market at the time. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The purchase money was 2s 6d [about 13p today] and all the parties seemed satisfied with the bargain. The husband was glad to get rid of his frail rib, who, it seems, had been living with Snape three years, at any price, erroneously imagining that because he had brought her through a turnpike gate in a halter, and had publicly sold her in the market before witnesses, that he is thereby freed from all responsibility and liability with regard to her future maintenance and support.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wife-selling and the Mayor of Casterbridge<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Readers will note the similarity of this to the plot of the Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, published in 1886. Michael Henchard, gets drunk on spiked Furmity. This is also known as frumenty – a mixture of Corn, milk, raisins and currents. The Furmity Woman at Weydon-Priors Fair adds Rum. Henchard, in a drunken rage, offers his wife for safe. She is purchased by Richard Newson, a sailor who goes on to have\u00a0a successful relationship with Henchard’s wife until the sailor is drowned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A cruel humiliation or a practical solution?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While not exactly legal, records show that wife-selling at markets happened occasionally from the 17th Century onwards. As in the case at Walsall Market, it seems to have been a recognised mechanism to end an unsuccessful marriage. In both factual and fictional cases, the wife accepts the sale to rid herself of a difficult husband. The husband is relieved of his lifelong duty to be financially responsible for his wife, and, for a fee, he passes that duty on to the buyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sale seems to a modern onlooker to be a humiliation. But the public nature of it might be rather a public acknowledgement that the marriage has irrevocably broken down, and that another union has superseded the failed marriage. In the Walsall case, the new husband has, in fact, been living with the wife for some years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this time, there was no legal way to divorce except by the means of an expensive private Act of Parliament, far beyond the reach of any but the richest. Marriage itself was also a looser institution than we think. Hand-fasting and common-law marriages were very common in pre-Victorian times. The difficulty of divorce is also a theme in Hardy’s ‘The Woodlanders’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recipe for frumenty:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To make a rich frumenty for 10 people. Steep 1 lb of whole grain of wheat in water overnight, and then boil the steeped grains in one pint of milk until the whole be soft. Add thereto raisins and sultanas, honey a nutmeg freshly grated, a little cinnamon, brandy and cream: and serve it forty hot or cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mistress Bartons Cookery book c1680. quoted in Charles Kightly’s Perpetual Almanac of Folklore<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might like to also see my post on the shaming skimmity ride, which also appears in the Mayor of Casterbridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Skimmity Ride<\/a><\/blockquote>