Some men even put their own wives and children up for sale after they tired of them. One deed for such a sale declared that a Mr. Osborn “does agree to part with my wife Mary Osborn and child to Mr William Sergeant for the sum of one pound, consideration of giving up all claim.” In another instance, a journalist wrote of a butcher who had dragged his wife to Smithfield Market “with a halter about her neck, and one about her waist, which tied her to a railing.” The husband ended up selling his wife to a “happy purchaser” who paid the man three guineas and a crown for “his departed rib.” Between
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