Wife selling
Wife selling is the practice of a husband selling his wife and may include the sale of a female by a party outside a marriage. Wife selling has had numerous purposes throughout the practice's history; and the term "wife sale" is not defined in all sources relating to the topic.
Overview
Wife selling is the practice of a husband selling his wife and may include the sale of a female by a party outside a marriage. Wife selling has had numerous purposes throughout the practice's history; and the term "wife sale" is not defined in all sources relating to the topic. Sometimes, a man sold his wife to a new husband as a means of divorce, in which case sometimes the wife was able to choose who would be her new husband, provided she chose within a certain time period, and especially if the wife was young and sexually attractive. In some societies, the wife could buy her own way out of a marriage or either spouse could have initiated this form of divorce. Reducing a husband's liability for family support and prenuptial debts was another reason for wife sale. Taxes were sometimes paid by selling a wife and children and paying the value as the required amount, especially when taxes were too high to permit basic survival. Famine leading to starvation was a reason for some sales. Gambling debts could be paid by selling a free or slave wife. A society might not allow a woman the rights reserved to men regarding spouse sale and a society might deny her any rights if her husband chose to sell her, even the right to refuse the sale. A divorce that was by mutual consent but was without good faith by the wife at times caused the divorce to be void, allowing her to then be sold. A husband might sell his wife and then go to court seeking compensation for the new man's adultery with the wife. By one law, adultery was given as a justification for a husband selling his wife into concubinage. A free wife might be sold into slavery, such as if she had married a serf or her husband had been murdered. Sometimes, a slave-master sold an enslaved wife. Enslaved families were often broken up and wives, husbands, and children sold to separate buyers, often never to see each other again, and a threat to sell a wife was used to keep an enslaved husband under a master's discipline. In wartime, one side might, possibly falsely, accuse the other of wife sale as a method of spying. A wife could also be treated as revenue and seized by the local government because a man had died leaving no heirs. Wife sale was sometimes the description for the sale of a wife's services; it might be for a term of years followed by freedom. If a sale was temporary, in some cases wife sale was considered temporary only in that the sold-and-remarried wife would, upon her death, be reunited with her first husband. Constraints existed in law and practice and there were criticisms. Some societies specifically forbade wife sales, even imposing death upon husbands violating the law, but a legal proscription was sometimes avoided or evaded, such as by arranging an adoption with a payment and an outcome similar to that of a sale. A society might tax or fine a wife sale without banning it. The nearness of a foreign military sometimes constrained a master in a slave sale that otherwise would have divided a family. Among criticisms, some of the sales (not of services alone but entirely of wives) have been likened to sales of horses. Wives for sale were treated like capital assets or commodities. One law made wives into husbands' chattels. Other sales were described as brutal, patriarchal, and feudalistic. Wife sales were equated with slavery. One debate about the whole of Africa was whether Africans viewed the practice as no crime at all or as against what Africans thought valuable and dear. Some modern popular songs against wife sale are vehicles for urban antipoverty and feminist organizing for rights. A story in a popular collection written by a feminist was about a suggestion for wife sale and the wife's objection to discussing it followed by no wife sale occurring. Another story is about a feminist advocate for justice in which a husband is censored or censured for selling his wife in a gamble. Wife selling has been found in many societies over many centuries and occasionally into modern times, including the United States (including in Hawaii among the Japanese, among Indians in the Gallinomero, Yurok, Carolina, and Florida tribes and in the Pacific Northwest, and among natives on Kodiak Island in what is now Alaska), Colombia, England, Australia (among aborigines), Denmark (possibly), Hungary, France, Germany, India, Japan, Malaya (among Chinese laborers), Thailand (at least permitted), Northern Asia (among the Samoyads), Asia Minor (among the Yourouk), Kafiristan, Indonesia (albeit not outright), Tanganyika, Congo, Bamum, Central Africa (among the Baluba), Zambia, South Africa (among Chinese laborers), Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Nigeria (possibly), Abyssinia, Egypt, Lombardy, ancient Rome (sometimes as a legal fiction and sometimes as actual), ancient Greece, and ancient Emar (of Syria). In Rwanda, it was the subject of a wartime accusation. Specific bans existed in Thailand, Indonesia, ancient Rome, and ancient Israel and partial bans existed in England and Japan. Wife sale was a topic of popular culture in India, the U.S., China, Scandinavia, Nepal, Guatemala, and the Dutch Indies.
England
The English custom of wife selling largely began in the late 17th century when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthy. In the ritualized form, after parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the highest bidder. Although the custom had no basis in law and frequently resulted in prosecution, particularly from the mid-19th century onwards, the attitude of the authorities was equivocal. At least one early-19th-century magistrate is on record as stating that he did not believe he had the right to prevent wife sales, and there were cases of local Poor Law Commissioners forcing husbands to sell their wives, rather than having to maintain the family in workhouses. The English custom of wife selling spread to Wales, Scotland, Australia, and the United States before dying out in the early 20th century.
United States
In 1781, in South Carolina, a "Bill of Sale" of a "Wife and Property" for "Two Dollars and half Dozen Bowls of Grogg", the buyer "to have my said Wife for ever and a Day", is, according to Richard B. Morris, "unique of its kind". According to Morris, "although the administration of the law was in a somewhat unsettled state during this ["British"] military occupation [of Charleston], neither at common law nor under the marriage laws then in force in South Carolina would the sale of a wife have been valid". The document likely was a way, wrote Morris, for "dissolving the marriage bond" since the state forbade divorce "and the marriage laws of the Church of England were widely disregarded among the poorer whites and in the back country", but it could also have been intended to reduce the husband's liability for debts for support of the wife and her children and for her pre-wedding debts, while it was unlikely to have been for the sale of a Black slave or an indentured servant, though being for the sale of an Indian woman or a mestizo, while unlikely, was not impossible.
Native Americans and other natives
The Carolina tribe of Native Americans, according to William Christie MacLeod, as reported in 1925, engaged in debtor slavery, where slave is defined by the Carolinas as "that which is obsequiously to depend on the master for subsistence". According to MacLeod quoting J. Lawson, "if a man takes a widow ... laden with her husband's debts, she seems to have some of the attributes of a chattel, although also a wife. Her husband may .... '... take her for his money paid to her deceased husband's creditors, and sell her to another for his wife'". "[Lawson had] seen several of these bargains driven in a day", and "[Lawson said] you may see men selling their wives as men do horses at a fair, a man being allowed not only to change as often as he pleases but likewise to have as many wives as he is able to maintain." According to George Elliott Howard, as published in 1904, "if dissatisfied with his wife, the young Gallinomero of [California] ... may 'strike a bargain with another man' and sell her 'for a few strings of shell-money.'" Also according to Howard, as published in 1904, "among the California Yurok 'divorce is very easily accomplished at the will of the husband, the only indispensable formality being that he must receive back from his father-in-law the money which he paid for his spouse.' In the late 17th–mid 18th centuries, among some Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest, according to Elsie Frances Dennis, two Indians of unspecified tribe or tribes had been killed and "the widow and two daughters of one were wailing, for they were to be sold as slaves." Not all tribes of the region and time sold wives; according to Dennis, "Ross said that he never knew a single instance in which a Chinook or one of the neighboring tribes ever sold his wife". In 1802–1803, among native people on Kodiak (Kad'iak) Island, in present-day Alaska and that was then part of Russia, according to Gavriil Ivanovich Davydov, "marital fidelity is not always considered a virtue by the islanders ["Koniagas"], and in many cases a husband will sell his wife for a small present." In Florida, apparently c. in the 16th century, according to an unnamed "eye-witness", among Florida Indians, "the ruler has power to give or rather to sell wives to those desirous of marriage." In Canada the buying and selling of wives was common practice among Chiefs and wealthier “commoners” in the West Coast tribes.
People of African descent
According to W. R. Riddell, "a ... man with some Negro blood .... had a ... daughter ... showing little trace of Negro origin. It was understood that she would marry no one but a white man, and that the father was willing to give her a handsome dowry on such a marriage. A person of pure Caucasian stock from the Southern States came to Toronto, wooed and won her. They were married and the husband took his bride to his home in the South. Not long afterwards the father was horrified to learn that the plausible scoundrel had sold his wife as a slave. He at once went South and after great exertion and much expense, he succeeded in bringing back to his house the unhappy woman, the victim of brutal treachery." Not all people of African descent in the New York City area in 1776–1783 were slaves. In some cases, records may not reveal their status. A "group of black men ... [were being "court martial[led]" for] killing a white slaveowner (who had just sold the wife of one of the accused in New York City)". In 1863, William W. Ryan, II, who had opposed slavery and secession and had enlisted into Union military service, was discharged from the military. According to his daughter, Margaret Ryan Kelley, he came home and "brought with him a negro named August", whom he paid. According to her, August said, "his white folks ... had sold his wife 'down the river.' It was a source of constant grief for him.... When he had $200, he intended to return to Virginia and find his people."
Black slavery
Cases were reported from different states. A slave born in North Carolina who moved 50 miles recalled that, while she was between 5 and 8 years old, "'[w]hile here, he [unspecified who] sold my mother to New Orleans, leaving my father at home.' .... Her master moved to Alabama, and died ..., leaving behind unpaid bills and seven slaves, all of whom a sheriff sold, save for her father", according to Daniel Meaders. According to Isaac Johnson, in childhood a slave, his "mother was stolen ... from ... Madagascar", "given" to Johnson's grandfather, evaluated as a "servant", and "bequeathed" to Johnson's father in Kentucky and Johnson's father "used Jane in all respects as a wife and she, in her innocence, supposed she was such". In c. 1851, Johnson's father, who had decided to move and therefore to sell his "farm and stock", ordered the sale of Johnson's mother and her children. No bids were offered for the mother with a 2-year-old child, but when they were separated she was sold for $1,100. Thomas Hughes, according to Meaders and Hopper, was a slave "who had apparently taken a large sum of money" from his Louisiana master and left, after which he was tried and sentenced. During his imprisonment, the master visited him, brought Hughes' wife, and promised that if Thomas Hughes went south the master "'would manumit her' and would not 'attempt to make a slave of him.'" But, according to Meaders and Hopper, [w]hen they reached Baltimore, ... [the master] had sold his wife, and intended to make a slave of him' ... [however,] Hughes left". An "old slave" from "near Memphis" told a soldier (Chauncey H. Cooke) that "his master sold his wife and children to a cotton planter in Alabama to pay his gambling debts, and when he told his master he couldn't stand it, he was tied to the whipping post stripped and given 40 lashes. The next night he ran to the swamps. The bloodhounds were put on his track and caught him .... This happened in sight of Nashville, the capital of Tennessee. I told this to some of the boys and they said it was all bosh, that the niggers were lying to me. But this story was just like the ones in Uncle Tom's Cabin and I believe them. And father knows of things very much like this that are true." According to Mark P. Leone, reviewing a modern-day historical exhibition in Virginia of Carter's Grove plantation, a "slave overseer was kept in place with threats to sell his wife". On the other hand, during the American Revolution, "blacks who remained with their owners found that with the British army so near, they had leverage with their masters they had never before enjoyed." An "advertisement announced the sale of a young Negro woman with four children. 'They are not sold for any fault,' claimed the seller, but because the woman had a husband in town and the mistress did not want to part them. While it is entirely possible that the owner acted out of humanitarian motivation, her liberality may have been influenced by her slave's enhanced chances for successful flight."
Hawaii, among Japanese immigrants
Japanese immigration to Hawaii was promoted during the late 19th century, but their number included a low proportion of women. The first generation of Japanese immigrants to the islands (issei) lived at a distance from their original communities. According to Eileen Tamura, this isolation, combined with failure of the expectation of earning enough to return, resulted in a temporary disintegration of social norms, and the disintegration led to wife-selling. The sheriff of the island of Hawaii, E. G. Hitchcock, wrote in 1892 that "I wish to call your attention to the fact, more or less prevalent on this island, of the Japanese selling their wives or mistresses to each other." In 1901 and 1904, the sheriff of Maui wrote that "In connection with Japanese the custom they have of trafficing [sic] in their women, buying and selling their wives is an evil that should be looked into," and proposed that laws explicitly prohibiting wife-selling be enacted. In a personal narrative related by Joan Hori, the question "Why would anyone want a second-hand wife?" was posed; the response was that the prospect of a wife already present in the islands was more certain than that of a picture bride.
China
The Chinese custom of wife selling or 'selling a divorce' (Chinese: 以财买休) has a long history, spanning both the Imperial and Modern eras.
Historic
According to 14th-century scholar Wei Su quoted by Paul J. Smith, "early in the dynasty, ... the system for assessing taxes and labor services was based ... on household size. As a result ... the poor got even poorer. Poor folk sold their wives and children to meet their payments to the state". The earliest documented ban of the practice appears in Yuan Dynasty law dating to the 14th century. At that time, two types of wife selling were recognized, both considered illegal. The first type was when a husband sold his wife to a man with whom she had been committing adultery. The second type was when a husband sold his wife because she had betrayed him or because they were no longer able to get along. During the Ming Dynasty, it was gradually established that only wife selling motivated by adultery should be punished. By 1568, wife selling was explicitly authorized by the law in several circumstances. Authorized wife selling was preserved by Qing Dynasty lawmakers, as was the prohibition against selling a wife to her lover. Famines are related to wife sale. In 1834, about Kiang-si province, the missionary Mathieu-Ly said of "starvation .... [that] [a]ll crops have been swept away by the inundation of the rivers.... [Some] people ... eat .... [expensive] earth .... The people first sold their wives, then sons and daughters, then their utensils and furniture; finally they demolished their houses in order to dispose of the timber." A 19th-century source characterized the practice as conventional among the lower classes in China: "The poorer people take their wives for an agreed term, and buy and sell them at pleasure." According to Howard, as published in 1904, "by Chinese law ... when the wife is guilty of adultery .... [if] the woman not be slain, ... the husband may ... sell her as a concubine, provided he has not pandered to the crime or does not sell her to the guilty man." Also according to Howard, as published in 1904, in China, "a marriage may be dissolved by mutual agreement" "but the agreement ... must be in good faith. Should the wife plan the divorce so as to form a punishable relation with another man, it is void, and the husband may ... sell her to another as in the case of unfaithfulness". In 1928–1930, in Shaanxi, there was a famine and, according to a local newspaper and Leonard T. K. Wu, peasants who "had already mortgaged and sold all their lands on which they formerly made a living" then sold their wives.
Contemporary
As the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, wife selling was prohibited and the government took measures to eradicate the practice. During the famines caused by the Great Leap Forward, wife selling occurred in many of the poorer areas. As of 1997, the custom was still occasionally reported in some rural areas of the country.
Japan
In Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868), according to J. Mark Ramseyer and Takeyoshi Kawashima, "men routinely sold their wives and children or rented them long-term .... [and this] was endemic to the brutality of Asiatic patriarchal feudalism". Ramseyer continued, "sales and adoptions were transfers in perpetuity", the difference being that sales were sometimes legally banned so that adoptions were likely used as an alternative to like effect, with payment in a like direction. Sales were essentially into slavery. Published sales and adoptions known to Ramseyer totalled 52 contracts in 1601–1860, of the 52 35 being of females and 17 being of males, transfers including children, depending on each contract. After 1740, sale "contracts ... largely disappeared", largely because of a growing demand for nonagricultural labor, making absconding or running away easier and more profitable.
India
In 16th–17th-century Mughal India, according to Irfan Habib, although imperial regulations limited state revenue demands to approximately that which would permit the peasantry to survive, the local collectors often lacked willingness to comply, "violated or evaded" the regulations, and overestimated peasants' ability to pay. Despite at least one order that "prohibit[ed] ... the seizure and sale of the women and children of the combatants", "frequently ... peasants were compelled to sell their women, children and cattle in order to meet the revenue demand.... But the enslavement was not generally so voluntary as even this. 'Villages', we are told, 'which owing to some shortage of produce, are unable to pay the full amount of the revenue-farm, are made prize, so to speak, by their masters and governors, and wives and children sold on the pretext of a charge of rebellion'.... 'They (the peasants) are carried off, attached to heavy iron chains, to various markets and fairs (to be sold), with their poor, unhappy wives behind them carrying their small children in their arms, all crying and lamenting their evil plight.'" Also, in Bengal, in approximately the same time period, according to Habib, "if any peasant or stranger died without leaving a son [or "died without heirs"] ... his wife and daughters were seized [as a "source of revenue"] for the benefit, depending upon the locality, of the ... ["imperial treasury"], the ... [local "potentate"] or the 'dominant ... ["vassal chief", "landlord", or "chief"]'." This practice, called ankora, may have been abolished. As reported in 1897 by William Lee-Warner, "husbands sold their wives from motives of enmity as well as gain. The selling price of girls and women was at all times from four to ten times greater than that of males." In the Western Punjab, in or before 1911, according to A. J. O'Brien, among Muslims, a man "proceeded to sell his wife" to a member of another tribe and a dispute developed on other grounds and was resolved in which "the right of disposal by relatives was freely admitted". In 2009, there were reports of impoverished farmers in the Bundelkhand region of India selling their wives to settle debts; the frequency of such cases is unknown.
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