The very Brtish practice of selling your wife

[papasmurf]

Hardly news to me.



In 1981 I got offered many camels for Moira by an Arab in the market at Rimini.

My Father-In-Law got offered 500 camels for my Mother-in-Law. (She was a big woman.)

[Baron von Lotsov]

And on a slightly different tack...



This whole business revolves around the concept of a wife as a chattel owned by the man in the same way he owned the clothes he wore.



As I pointed out on the other forum, we used to hang rapists, but this was in fact little different from our hanging sheep and horse thieves. The law considered that the crime of rape was little more than unlawful enjoyment of another man's property.

Unfortunately before the Victorians built the prisons many people were hanged, and some for pretty minor offences. Some judges were meaner than others. This however was more your common law at work. Common law means people's law, i.e. not the law of the government and bigwigs in general. Before that the people could be screwed at will by the upper class. So the people thought it was their business if they got married and they would do it in a way to suit themselves, because the church was rather run by the same upper class who would not do them any favours elsewhere. They wanted to cut out the middleman and the bigwig setting out the regs. I like that idea. It's very English. If you want to sell your wife you just sell her and if the police turn up you pelt them with enough shit to make sure they don't try calling again. You see we've always had a problem with middlemen. They always try and place themselves between two parties that never wanted nor needed them.

[johnofgwent]

And on a slightly different tack...



This whole business revolves around the concept of a wife as a chattel owned by the man in the same way he owned the clothes he wore.



As I pointed out on the other forum, we used to hang rapists, but this was in fact little different from our hanging sheep and horse thieves. The law considered that the crime of rape was little more than unlawful enjoyment of another man's property.

[johnofgwent]

Hardly news to me.



In 1981 I got offered many camels for Moira by an Arab in the market at Rimini.

[Baron von Lotsov]

Allow me to educate you in a bit of British history the BBC/schools etc forgot to mention.

Complete with historical cases and quotes from the time. There were wife auctions as well.