Sale of a Wife
Whenever a foreigner used to write that Englishmen sold their wives in open market, with halters round their necks, they were not believed in England; but it was nevertheless a fact, and even as lately as last year a man sold his wife. In two of my books (“Old Times” and “The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century”) I have given numerous instances. The halter round the neck was used when the wife was sold at market, it being considered that, being thus accoutred, she was on a level with the cattle, and thus could legally be sold.
Attend to my ditty, you frolicsome folk,
I’ll tell you a story—a comical joke;
’Tis a positive fact, what I’m going to unfold,
Concerning a woman, who by auction was sold.