These included putting a straw halter round her neck and leading her – gently – to your auction, having first announced publicly that both events had been decided to end the wedding in this manner: and significantly that the spouse would then be bound to transfer her affections to your bidder that is highest.
Some spouses went for the pounds that are few also a couple of shillings: others for the pint of ale or a jug of gin or in one single situation, a couple of shillings and your dog.
The bid accepted, it had been essential for the customer to then lead their new “wife” home by that exact same bridle rather than take it off before the few had crossed the limit of her new abode. This, they thought, made everything legal and aboveboard.
This ‘quaint’ rural customized persisted in certain areas of Devon particularly mid and north Devon (less so within the south) until briefly prior to the Great War, the past spouse purchase into the county being recorded during the early 1900s because of the Rev. (mehr …)