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.

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    market-place at Marchin Green with the rope round her neck. A journeyman carpenter in London sold his wife to a mate, who was overjoyed when a few weeks afterwards his new wife inherited an unexpected legacy of £1,500. In Notting- ham a man sold his wife three weeks after the wedding: a blacksmith bought her for a shilling. A countryman living near Thame in Oxfordshire had sold his wife a few years back, but without any formalities. His neighbours told him that the sale was not valid, and so he decided upon a repetition of the ceremony, fetched his former wife and led her seven miles round to Thame, where she was duly sold for half-a-crown. The more remarkable thing about it was that he had to pay fourpence tax on the woman, the same as for the purchase of a beast. A donkey-driver in Westminster sold his wife and his donkey together for 13 shillings and two pots of beer to another donkey-driver, whereupon they all three repaired to a public-house and drank up the beer. In February 1790 the head of a parish by Swadlincote had a woman sold in Burton. Her husband had absconded from the woman, who in consequence had to be supported by the parish. To be rid of this burden, the parish councillors sent the woman to Burton market, where she was bought for a florin. The purchase was carefully entered in the parish accounts, and the cost of the rope was included1. In March 1796 a button-maker in Sheffield disposed of his wife to a porter for the large sum of sixpence: the overseer of the market acted as witness for a fee of fourpence2. On the 9th December 1819 a man sold his wife to a painter for 5s. Qd.; on 30th January 1817 a gentleman of private means got rid of his wife for Is. 6d., whereupon he stood the buyer a glass of beer to drink his health in, he was so delighted. In April of the same year a very brutal man dragged his 1 Archcnholtz, Annals, Vol. V, pp. 330-331. •Ibid., Vol. XIX, p. 187. [57]