From History Laid Bare: Love, Sex, and Perversity from the Ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding by Richard Zachs:
From the time of Queen Elizabeth up to Victoria, wives were actually sold in the public marketplace in England, according to Wives for Sale, by Samuel Menefee. How pervasive the practice was is unclear, but Thomas Hardy included a scene of it in his Mayor of Casterbridge, and newspaper accounts and church records documenting it have survived.
One printer made up the following song: [1696]
Come all you kind husbands who have scolding wives
Who thro' living together are tired of your lives,
If you cannot persuade her, nor good-natur'd make her,
Place a rope around her neck & to market pray take her.
Newspaper ad, 1796:
To be sold for five shillings, my wife, Jane Hebland. She is stout built, stands firm on her posterns and is sound wind and limb. She can sow and reap, hold a plough, and drive a team, and would answer any stout able men, that can hold a tight rein, for she is damned hard mouthed and headstrong; but if properly managed would either lead or drive as tame as a rabbit. She now and then, if not watched, will make a false step. Her husband parts with her because she is too much for him.
--Enquire of the printer.
N.B. All her body clothes will be given with her.
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Ginny