From time to time cases in the police court show that there is still a belief, especially amongst colliers, that a man may legally sell his wife. Formerly the error was widespread amongst the lower classes in Lancashire, it being thought to be a purely legal transaction if the wife was taken to the place of sale with a halter round her neck, and the buyer was given receipt by the husband for the money paid. Quite late in the nineteenth century a man pleaded in a Lancashire county court that he was not liable for his wife's debts as he had sold her to another man for half-a-crown long before the debts in question were contracted, and had given a receipt for the money!
Stories and Tales of Old Lancashire by Cliff Hayes.
Stephanie.
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