Alex Castles: Back in the 1840s, they followed an old English folklore practice which had relationships to the law, when in fact as reported at the time, 'a smart comely dame of the age of five-and-twenty' was brought to a back room of this pub, here on the Port Road in Adelaide, and she was auctioned by her husband. She was led in, in the traditional English way, with a halter around her neck and she was sold to the highest bidder, and she was sold for 2-pounds, seven-and-sixpence, which was less than the lady was bought for in 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'.
We know that wife auctions were common in England, certainly from the middle ages and probably in some cases, through to the 20th century. And on some occasions it may well have been that the women were willing participants; in this and in other cases, they weren't. We have evidence of wife auctions in early New South Wales, in early Tasmania. We have them in Western Australia and here in South Australia.
At the time there was no such thing as judicial divorce as we now know it. Indeed there was no way at all until the 1850s, the late 1850s, where people living in Australia could obtain a divorce. And so very often it may well have been that following the time-honoured English practice, what they would do if they wanted to break the arrangement, was to publicly make notification of this, and the auction sale was purportedly a means - not legal means - of showing to the community. Sometimes for example, with the first wife auctions in New South Wales and the first in Tasmania that I've been able to find, the people are actually charged - the males were charged with criminal offences, relatively minor offences, after the auction sales.
But here in South Australia, there's no evidence at all that this auction sale in the Land of Promise Hotel, and a later one in Narracoorte later in the century, ever led to any criminal charges being launched.
It's very difficult. We can't tell from the records we've got - because they're very sparse - we can't tell whether these were voluntary activities on the part of the women or not. Women of course were placed in an extremely difficult position by the law, the English law, as it applied in most Australian jurisdictions, right through for most of the 19th century. A married woman was in a sense, the property of her husband. Man and wife were one person, and the man was that person.
There were very special problems in Australia, particularly disadvantageous for women. One of the big problems was the desertion of women by their husbands going to other places. For example, a goodly number of women were deserted in South Australia at the time of the Victorian gold rushes, where the men went to Ballarat and Bendigo and never returned, and theoretically they were not entitled to have legal rights in South Australia, they could get no maintenance because what had happened was a fleeing to another jurisdiction which the local law had no control over. And so the desertion of wives was a very serious problem.
Go to the Humor forum!!! I posted a link to this story, that you posted.
