Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c./Part 4/Wife Selling

WIFE SELLING.

It is not uncommon for wives to be sold by their husbands. There is a wide-spread popular error that this is a legal transaction, when the wife is brought into the place of sale with a halter round her neck, and when the buyer obtains a written receipt for the money he has ventured upon her. Some years ago, a case of this kind occurred near Haslingden; and, on one occasion, it was urged in a county court that the real husband was not liable for his wife's debts, since he had sold her some time before for half-a-crown.