What is Wife selling?
[[File:Rowlandson, Thomas - Selling a Wife - 1812-14.jpg|thumb|Selling a wife, image done 1812-14.]] '''Wife selling''' is when a [[husband]] sells his [[wife]] to someone else. It has been done for different reasons throughout history: * Many people could not afford a [[divorce]], so wife-selling was used instead.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2023-10-05|title=English Men Once Sold Their Wives Instead of Getting Divorced|url=https://www.history.com/news/england-divorce-18th-century-wife-auction|access-date=2024-08-01|website=HISTORY|language=en}}</ref> Often, the wife was able to pick the husband she was sold to.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Stone|first=Zara|date=2019-02-13|title=When Divorce Was Off the Table, English Couples Dissolved Their Marriages With Beer|url=http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wife-selling-england-beer|access-date=2024-08-01|website=Atlas Obscura|language=en}}</ref> This was especially the case, if she was young and pretty. * In some societies, a wife could buy herself out of a marriage. that way. Her husband would no longer have to pay for her support. * Sometimes [[Tax|taxes]] or [[Debt|debts]] were paid by selling a wife or [[Child|children]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=How English Men Used To Sell Their Wives|url=https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/how-english-men-used-to-organize-wife-selling-auctions-c024d79c36d3|access-date=31 July 2024}}</ref> * A free woman who was married to a [[Serfdom|serf]] could be sold into [[slavery]], if her husband had been murdered. Enslaved families were often broken up and wives, husbands, and children sold to separate buyers. Masters often used the threat to sell a wife to keep an enslaved husband under a master's discipline. == References == {{Reflist}} [[Category:Marriage]] [[Category:Slavery]] {{stub}}