Wife selling

[Selling a Wife (1812–1814), by Thomas Rowlandson. The painting gives the viewer the impression that the sale was "a genial affair"]

Prompted by BBC iPlayer, I thought it might be interesting, given our connection with Hampton Court Palace, to take a look at 'A man for all seasons', a film about Sir Thomas More which BH remembered from her younger days as being rather long. I dare say I saw it at some point, but it must have been a long time ago.

Looking at Wikipedia this morning, I was led to a rather shifty - but successful - chap called Richard Rich, who personally took part in the torture of one Anne Askew in the Tower of London. This led to Margaret Cheyne, similarly so tortured, to be found at reference 1. Askew was a heretic, Cheyne a rebel.

At reference 1, I read that as a young wife, Cheyne was sold by her husband to another man, a transaction which appears to have been satisfactory to all concerned. This led to references 2 and 3.

First impression was that wife selling was rare, but well documented in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the argument of reference 3 seems to be that it existed well before that, not least because wife selling turned up in plays. From where I associate to its turning up at the beginning of the 'Mayor of Casterbridge', written at the end of the nineteenth century.

Although such selling was often got up in the way of selling a cow in a cattle market, it seems that the social function was more a form of divorce, at a time when divorce proper was only available to the very rich. Occasionally to monarchs.

 A curious business and one more thing which I might pursue later...

Sir Thomas More might be rather sooner.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Cheyne.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_selling_(English_custom).

Reference 3: Negotiating spaces : women and agency in English Renaissance society, plays and masques - Gourlay, Jennifer Eowyn - 2003. A PhD thesis of near 300 pages.