It was happening in England from the late 17th century until 1913! Moreover, real memoirs about it have been preserved. Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould from Devonshire County wrote about witnessing such a transaction as a child in those times when a local publisher went to the market and returned... with a wife! Yes, indeed, a wife could be bought from her husband like bread. But what preceded this unusual tradition?<img src="/uploads/1_49394c0ba6.jpg" alt="1.jpg" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_1_49394c0ba6.jpg 245w,/uploads/small_1_49394c0ba6.jpg 500w,/uploads/medium_1_49394c0ba6.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw">@A Brief History Of Wife Selling In The Victorian Era/A Day In History/YouTube.comThe point is that even before 1753, an official church wedding ceremony was not mandatory. All that was required was the consent of both parties and a suitable age (twelve for girls, fourteen for boys). But it was in 1753 that the Marriage Act was passed, which complicated the marriage procedure, but getting a divorce was the most difficult (as it had been since the mid-sixteenth century in England). When a woman got married, she completely ceased to exist as a separate legal entity and lost all her rights. This primarily concerned the wife's property, which was entirely passed to her husband. Women were in a weak position, and getting a divorce was practically impossible!<img src="/uploads/2_172e0efb7f.jpg" alt="2.jpg" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_2_172e0efb7f.jpg 205w,/uploads/small_2_172e0efb7f.jpg 500w,/uploads/medium_2_172e0efb7f.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw">@A Brief History Of Wife Selling In The Victorian Era/A Day In History/YouTube.comIt was only in 1857, with the adoption of a new Marriage Act, that the divorce issue was finally transferred from ecclesiastical to civil court, but again, there was a nuance – getting a divorce was very expensive! Therefore, one of the alternative ways to divorce became the so-called “wife selling.”This tradition usually took place at the market because it was accessible to the poor, and there were always many people, meaning witnesses, who could thus confirm the fact of the "sale," i.e., divorce. In most cases, this unwritten custom, which, we emphasize, had a symbolic character, was carried out with the mutual consent of both spouses and was the cheapest and most accessible way for them to divorce in society's eyes.<img src="/uploads/3_400c558887.jpg" alt="3.jpg" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_3_400c558887.jpg 207w,/uploads/small_3_400c558887.jpg 500w,/uploads/medium_3_400c558887.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw">@A Brief History Of Wife Selling In The Victorian Era/A Day In History/YouTube.comSometimes the amounts for which wives were sold were quite impressive, amounting to tens or sometimes hundreds of pounds sterling! But it was still more of a symbolic procedure, so sometimes, a wife was sold for nothing more than a pint of beer!

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In England, it was possible to sell and buy wives even for a pint of beer

This conclusion was reached by American scientist Ali Binazir, who says that each of us has to complete a complex puzzle in order to be born. The odds of something going wrong at each stage of "putting the puzzle together" greatly outweighed the chances of success.&nbsp;<img src="/uploads/Depositphotos_narodzhennya_malenkoyi_ditini_2_624698bfe9.jpg" alt="Depositphotos-народження-маленької-дитини-2.jpg" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_Depositphotos_narodzhennya_malenkoyi_ditini_2_624698bfe9.jpg 223w,/uploads/small_Depositphotos_narodzhennya_malenkoyi_ditini_2_624698bfe9.jpg 500w,/uploads/medium_Depositphotos_narodzhennya_malenkoyi_ditini_2_624698bfe9.jpg 750w,/uploads/large_Depositphotos_narodzhennya_malenkoyi_ditini_2_624698bfe9.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Think about what you went through to be born and become who you are.Your parents met. Ali Binazir estimated that the odds of meeting each other were only 1 in 20,000, but your parents took advantage. And they started dating- the odds were ever more than 1 in 2,000.<img src="/uploads/Depositphotos_214923086_XL_2_3_2_2_fcd30a33f0.jpg" alt="Depositphotos_214923086_XL-2-3-2-2.jpg" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_Depositphotos_214923086_XL_2_3_2_2_fcd30a33f0.jpg 204w,/uploads/small_Depositphotos_214923086_XL_2_3_2_2_fcd30a33f0.jpg 500w,/uploads/medium_Depositphotos_214923086_XL_2_3_2_2_fcd30a33f0.jpg 750w,/uploads/large_Depositphotos_214923086_XL_2_3_2_2_fcd30a33f0.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">The right sperm met the right egg. If you are not a mathematician and are not used to working with big numbers, calculating the probability of a particular egg meeting a particular sperm might make you yawn. In short, given the number of reproductive cells the human body produces, the odds of you becoming yourself are only 1 in 400 trillion.<img src="/uploads/egg_fertilization_902df40c5d.jpeg" alt="egg fertilization.jpeg" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_egg_fertilization_902df40c5d.jpeg 228w,/uploads/small_egg_fertilization_902df40c5d.jpeg 500w,/uploads/medium_egg_fertilization_902df40c5d.jpeg 750w,/uploads/large_egg_fertilization_902df40c5d.jpeg 1000w," sizes="100vw">@parenting.firstcry.com/Fertilisation – When Does It Take Place?Add to this the risk of something going wrong in pregnancy or childbirth, and you can understand that it is truly a miracle that you were born and are reading these lines right now.

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In England, it was possible to sell and buy wives even for a pint of beer

Were you born? You are a really lucky guy!

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