WIFE FOR SALE OR RENT—$10.50

Just as marriage customs change through the years, so too do customs of getting rid of an unwanted wife. A La Mesa, California man advertised his ex-wife at a garage sale, though there was no information as to whether the sale was consummated.

Wife-sale dates back to 1073, and in England for nearly a thousand years, a man could slip a halter around his wife’s neck, lead her to the cattle market and sell her to the highest bidder. She was sometimes happy to get out of the marriage, so in that case went willingly. A drunken husband sells his wife in the opening chapter of Thomas Hardy’s “The Mayor of Castorbridge”. No doubt that she was glad to get out of that arrangement. Amazingly this informal route to divorce lasted until 1887, according to “The Family Sex and Marriage”, by Lawrence Stone and Samuel Menefee in “Wives For Sale”.

In the Old Testament, the law allowed for divorce because of infertility and other vague reasons, but wives could not divorce a disreputable or impotent husband for any reason. If he finds something obnoxious about her, he simply writes her a note of divorcement, hands it to her and throws her out of his house. He’d better be sure that this is what he wants, because he can’t have her back again.

Henry VIII proved that a wife who failed to provide him with a male heir simply lost her head. With that pronouncement in her future, bedtime became a dodgey occasion.

Interestingly, some Native American wives had similar rights of divorcement. If a wife decided she wanted to be rid of her lazy husband, she simply put his boots outside her door, and he was gone. Often his only other possession was his saddle, which he probably kept to ride away.

The Bible leaving nothing to chance, provides soldiers taking enemy women to wife a lesson on managing them. You don’t just throw her to the ground and have your way with her immediately. No, you bring her into your home and clean her up first. She must trim her hair and nails, and get rid of her captive’s garb. ‘She shall lament her father and mother,’ and I’m sure, clean and cook. After a month, you may possess her and call her your wife.

The lesson includes instruction on how to get rid of her, too. ‘Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money; since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.’

I write all this in warning. This is a real drop in the bucket for what life may have in store for you.

WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN

The Church Pew” stoneware sculpture by kayti sweetland rasmussen

I was not a willing churchgoer as a child. Beyond dressing up in my hat and little white gloves, I was probably like the child on the far right of the sculpture. And then I discovered music.

The music in the church of my grandmother did not reach in and grab me by my soul as I thought it should, but by my teen years I had quietly visited a number of other denominations, including a Southern Baptist church where mine was the only white face. I found the music uplifting, and the faces of the faithful inspiring.

I dressed my daughters in hats and little white gloves and sent them off to church, until my youngest embarrassed us all by singing an old Salvation Army song in the middle of the service; “Put a nickel on the drum, save another drunken bum, Hallelujah!” at which time she was whisked off the stage. Be careful what you sing to your children.

Sitting in the front pew at a guitar Mass in the 70’s I looked down at a quiet grandson and stage whispered him to “Sing”; “I don’t sing” he said. “Of course you sing. EVERYONE sings.” “I don’t sing”. When we left the church I asked him “If you don’t sing, why do you want to go to church?” His answer was “I like the stories.”

My father was an agnostic, sent off to a parochial school as a child after being suspended for being somewhat of a troublemaker. His delight during his stay at the new school was researching the Bible to refute any chapter the teacher had assigned. He had a sharp wit and an astonishing memory and was able to point out dozens of phrases which contradicted a previous one. He was not beloved by his teachers, but the other children loved him.

My maternal grandmother set the style of my religious education, and my mother and aunt followed in her footsteps. I’m sorry to say I was a rebel and a disappointment to them, but my wise little grandson was right; the stories are not bad.

VISION SEEKERS

“The Vision Seeker” Molded Plastic, leather, fur, feathers and beadwork by KSR

We are all vision seekers. We seek knowledge of the past; hope for the future. The Native American may have gone into a secret place to commune with the unknown. We go into the world of books.

My passion for books came into being at such an early age that I presumed that it was an intrinsic quality, much like having brown hair. There were no books to read at my grandmother’s house, save her Bible and church literature. When my father was not at sea, his reading matter was far more interesting to me. He was an inveterate reader of fast-paced detective stories, as well as complicated naval manuals.

On the occasions in which I lived with Auntie and Uncle Phil, I headed immediately into their small library, which held all the old books from their daughter’s childhood, as well as reading material of interest to themselves. A small sunroom led off from the library, which formed a secret hiding place for me to sit with a book or two. The two of them had two comfortable chairs in the middle of the living room with table and lamp in between, where they spent their evenings reading before retiring at eight p.m. sharp.

My favorite places in the world are book stores, both new and used. As an only child I lost myself in the life and times of other people and places. Since we moved frequently at the Navy’s behest, books were a familiar and loved escape. The direction to the local library always came shortly after we settled into the new place, and a library card of your own was a treasured possession.

The delight of used bookstores came much later. Sadly there aren’t a lot of them around anymore, and the large chain bookstores seem to have disappeared with the advent of e-books. Fortunately internet shopping and the Half Price Book chain give us access to the world of books both old and new. There is something quite special about rummaging about in an old book store. There is always the possibility of finding something rare, or of finding a long-searched for book you can’t live without.

Both San Francisco and Seattle once had large old bookstores which carried not only books but old maps and prints. Dr. Advice once felt terribly proud to bring me a complete set of Dickens as a birthday gift. My granddaughter, an inveterate reader, shares my love of books, and I know I can always find something in an old bookstore she will love as well as I do.

There are so many people reading on their Kindle or computer these days, and Amazon and other companies make it simple for them to download a book immediately. Personally I would miss the feel and the smell of a book, plus the pleasure of passing it along to someone else. Browsing through friend’s homes to see what they keep on their bookshelves becomes another way to know them. I have one friend who scours thrift stores for old cookbooks. My home bookshelves are crowded with all sorts of books and we have shelves in every room in the house including bookshelves in the garage. A friend of my daughter looked around once and asked shat we did with all of them. “We read them of course”, I said, and them read the very good ones over again.

Dr. Advice had a knee replacement a decade ago, and since he only read the newspaper sports news up until that time, I wondered what he would do with all the long hours long during his recovery. The TV offerings can’t keep people fascinated for very long. I suggested he take up reading, and now he is never without a book in his hand. Louie Lamour, the author of many Western style books, was self-educated, and it is said he always had a book in his pocket. I have a number of friends I know to be great readers, and a normal greeting would be “What are you reading?”

Part of the excitement of an old bookstore is the smell which seems to have been absorbed into the woodwork. A combination of old paper, ink, and probably a lot of dust. A friend once stood in the doorway of my living room and announced that she “loved the smell” of it. It is a room we seldom use, and has the usual wall overflowing bookshelves. I asked her if she thought it might be like the smell of an old bookstore, and she went through a “Eureka!” moment before saying “That’s it!”

SUFFER THE FOOLS GLADLY

Suffer fools gladly. You read that phrase often about prominent people who don’t suffer fools gladly. It’s often taken as a compliment by them. suggesting that a person is so smart he has trouble tolerating people who are far below his own high standard. It’s used to describe people who have the guts to tell idiots what he really thinks. It sounds OK, but when you actually see people in the act of not suffering fools gladly, it looks rotten.

The philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville argues that “politeness is the first virtue, and the origin perhaps of all the others.”

Surprisingly, the phrase originally came from William Tyndale’s 1534 translation of the Bible. In it, Paul was ripping into the decadent citizens of Corinth for turning away from his own authoritative teaching and falling for a bunch of second-rate false apostles. “For ye suffer fools gladly,” Paul says with withering sarcasm, “seeing ye yourselves are wise.”

Many people handle fools well; members of the clergy and many great teachers. I don’t give myself high marks always, but I would never knowingly put anyone in an uncomfortable position.

G. K. Chesterton had the best advice on suffering fools gladly. He put emphasis on the word gladly. “A man and a woman cannot live together without having against each other a kind of everlasting joke. Each has discovered that the other is a fool, but a great fool. This largeness, this grossness and gorgeousness of folly is the thing which we all find about those with whom we are in intimate contact; and it is the one enduring basis of affection, and even of respect.”

At the end of the day, only kindness matters.