![]() ![]() ![]() Along with other English customs, wife selling was exported to England's American colonies, where one man sold his wife for "two dollars and half dozen bowls of grogg". The Duke of Chandos bought his second wife at one such sale in Newbury in about 1744. Prices paid for wives varied considerably, from a high of £100 (plus £25 each for her two children), to a low of a glass of ale, or even free. Any children from the marriage might also be sold along with their mother. Instead of dealing with an expensive and dragged-out divorce, a husband would take his wife to market and parade her with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, before publicly auctioning her to the highest bidder. Wife selling was a traditional English practice for ending an unsatisfactory marriage.
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