Is "Happy Ever After" Just a Fairy Tale?

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Romance readers expect a 'happy ever after' ending - but is this just a fairy tale?

Whilst doing research for my historical romances, it is amazing how the truth can be stranger than fiction. In the past, when couples married if their dreams didn't come true and a husband tired of his wife, it seems selling the spouse was an acceptable means of disposing of her. If this theme seems familiar, it may be because Thomas Hardy used the subject of wife-selling in his novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Wife-selling on market day.

Since a wife was legally her husband's property and there were no laws against selling a spouse, it seems it was not an unusual occurrence.
The toll book of the Bell Inn, Birmingham records such a sale:
‘Samuel Whitehouse….this day sold his wife, Mary Whitehouse, in the open market to Thomas Griffiths…value 1 shilling. Taken with all her faults.’

31^st August 1773

 

It was even noted with alarm (or sarcasm?) in the Times on 22^nd July 1797:
‘The increasing value of the fair sex is esteemed by several eminent writers to the certain criterion of increasing civilization…and refined improvement as the price of wives has risen at that market [Smithfield] from half a guinea to three guineas and a half [GBP 294 today!].’

Indeed, another example was the clergyman, Thomas Snowdell, who married during the brief reign of King Edward VI (Henry VIII's son). When Edward died and his half-sister Mary took the throne, Queen Mary changed the law such that married clerics faced a choice between giving up their living…or their wife. The Rev. Snowdell decided his stipend was the more important of the two options and sold his wife to the local butcher!

 

Contempary drawing by Thomas Rowlandson.

 

However some husbands were a little too honest when selling their wives, as with farmer Joseph Thomson and his spouse of 3 years. He offered her for auction in Carlisle, listing her bad points as
‘Born serpent’ and ‘his tormentor.’
Amongst her better features he lists;
‘She can read novels, milk cows, makes butter and scold the maid…she is a good judge of the quality of rum, gin or whisky from long experience of tasting it.’
Thomson wanted 50 shillings (GBP 160 today) but accepted the knock down price of 20 shillings and a Newfoundland dog, which all parties were happy with!

We all know marriage is no fairy tale (except in romantic fiction J )but really, part- exchanging a wife for a dog - whatever next?

 

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