Wife for Sale

No, not me.

Or wait, if you're interested, just out of curiosity, how much are you offering? A bit about me: I have penis envy, I love to have sex for hours, I am addicted to Reality TV, I am a fantastic cook, and believe men are the superior sex. (Disclaimer: some, or all of these statements may be untrue. Marriage to Mommyhasaheadache may also lead to heartburn, flatulence, migraines, impotence or fatal heart attack).

The funny, or not so funny thing, is that had I been alive in the 1830s, my husband could have sold me if he got fed up of the fact that I don't always cook meals from scratch/I only clean windows when you can no longer see through them/my breasts aren't as pert as they were when he married me. I was just reading Sarah Wise's book about the poor of Georgian London, The Italian Boy, when I came across this passage:

A market was held in Smithfield from time to time: making a "Smithfield bargain" referred to the sale by the husband of his wife and was believed in many working-class communities to be a perfectly valid form of divorce (it has its roots in Anglo-Saxon common law). The sale was usually prearranged, and the buyer was often a friend or a neighbor who, motivated by pity, wanted to bring an unhappy union to an end; the public nature of the sale was to validate for the community the ending of the marriage. At two o'clock on the afternoon of Monday, 20 February 1832, a man brought his twenty-five year old wife in a halter and tied her in the pens opposite the Half Moon pub, close to the gate of St. Bartholomew the Great. A crowd gathered and the auction began. Throughout, the woman made no complaint about her treatment. Some twenty cases of wife selling at Smithfield are on record between the 1790s and the 1830s, although the true figure is likely to be higher.

I suppose that in this context, women have come quite a way since then. But if it was still common practice, how many men would put their wives in a halter and sell them off?? Not mine, naturally, but there are some that would, methinks. I wonder how much they made, per wife?

And while we're on the subject of what a wife is worth, let me get onto one of my pet peeves. I meet middle class women all the time who tell me that it is such a 'luxury' that they don't have to work and can spend time at home with their kids before they start school. To which I reply that it is perfectly doable, if you are prepared to live within your means. If you don't live in a fancy neighborhood, send the kids to private school and buy clothes from thrift stores, like I do, you can easily afford to have one parent at home while the other earns a good but not spectacular wage (or am I being hopelessly naive here? Tell me if I am). But no, most American moms 'need' a minivan (Why? Two or even three kids can fit in a sedan, and extra children can easily be strapped to the roof rack with bungee cord). These moms also 'need' to shell out for lots of expensive music/art/Gymboree classes, as well as manicures, pedicures and bikini waxes (For crying out loud, why can't you do your own nails and rip out your own pubes?) Consequently, the only way you can stay home is if the man earns a massive income. Amazingly, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it has become a status symbol to stay home with the kids!!

In my opinion, it's bollocks. And as for looking after kids being a luxury, it isn't. It's work. That's why if you don't do it yourself, you hire someone to do it for you. Nannies make at least $500 per week, and I'd argue that in most cases a mother (or father) looking after the kids is better than a nanny. I see nannies at the park who treat their charges more like objects to be washed, clothed, diapered and fed, but largely ignore them. And why shouldn't they? They're not constantly guilt wracked like your average mother/father about whether they're stimulating and entertaining the children enough.

So basically, I don't think it should be a luxury for the mother (or father) to stay home with the kids. It should be a human right.

Maybe I should just move to Sweden.