A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/700 (page 54)
    purchase another wife for the wronged husband and bring her to the house1. Very speculative fathers sometimes even sold the same daughters to different men2. Marriage by purchase continued in England up to the nineteenth century. In its first decades the sale of women was still relatively frequent. But even so late as 1884 such cases are on accredited record. In an article in All the Year Round of the 20th December 1884, more than twenty cases were given from the preceding year, with names and all details in which prices were paid for women varying from five and twenty guineas and half a pint of beer, to a penny and a dinner3. Marriage by purchase was very frequent in the eighteenth century, especially towards its end, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century. ' Never was the sale of women so frequent', says Archenholtz, ' as now. Scenes of this kind, once so rare, have become common. The sale of women among the common people is more frequent than ever4.' Jouy remarks that in his time (about 1815) all efforts of authority to remove this scandal proved vain5. Most often 1 Merryweather, loc. cit., p. 192. 2 ' It was not uncommon for a greedy and unprincipled father, in this old period, to sell a handsome daughter to three or four different suitors, and, after receiving as many handsome payments for her without sur- rendering immediate possession of her person, to give her at last to another admirer for an adequate consideration.'—Jeaffreson, loc. cit., Vol. I, pp. 39-40. The possibility of this repeated sale is explained by the fact the money could be paid long before marriage (even while the bride was still a child), and that, too, to cover the expenses of a good upbringing and good fare for the bride. 3 Finck, loc. cit., Vol. II, p. 47. 4 Archenholtz, Annals. Vol. V, p. 329. Vol. XIX, p. 187 (of the years 1790 and 1796). 6' Une coutume aussi infame s'est conservee sans interruption, qu'elle est mise chaque jour a execution; que si quelques magistrats des comtes, informes que de semblables marches allaient se faire, ont cherche a les empecher en envoyant sur les lieux des constables ou huissiers, la populace les a toujours dispenses, et qu'elle a maintenu ce qu'elle considere comme son droit.' Jouy, UHermite de Londres, Vol. II, p. 324. [54]