How To Buy A Wife…

…in Ancient Babylon?

Well, it was very simple. You just went to the wife market!

Here’s how British painter Edwin Long depicted it in his 1875 work:

Long took great pains to make his representation as accurate as possible. He provided “a meticulous reconstruction of the customs, architecture, decor and costume of a past civilization”, according to the current owners of the work.

Note the obvious enthusiasm of the auctioneer on the left. And take a look at his cohort who is showing off the woman’s “assets” so that she’ll fetch the best possible price.

The competing bidders certainly look smitten, don’t they? Dude with the long black beard is looking all like “hand me my checkbook man, I’ve gotta buy this bitch and bring her back to my hut so I can fuck her while she calls me Sargon”… or something like that.

The women should cheer up. Why so gloomy, girls? They’re probably just bitter that they weren’t the first girl chosen to be put on the block– the auctioneer started with the most beautiful and worked his way down from there. Women can be petty like that.

Long based his depiction on the writing of the Greek dude Herodotus, who is generally regarded as the “Father of History”. Herodotus wrote his magnum opus The Histories back in the 5th Century B.C.

Parts of The Histories give an accounting of the customs of the various societies in Herodotus’s world. In particular, Herodotus explains how the Babylonian marriage market worked:

Of their customs, whereof I shall now proceed to give an account, the following (which I understand belongs to them in common with the Illyrian tribe of the Eneti) is the wisest in my judgment.

Once a year in each village the maidens of age to marry were collected all together into one place; while the men stood round them in a circle. Then the auctioneer called up the damsels one by one, and offered them for sale. He began with the most beautiful. When she was sold for no small sum of money, he offered for sale the one who came next to her in beauty.

All of them were sold to be wives.The richest of the Babylonians who wished to wed bid against each other for the loveliest maidens.

But what about the ugly chics? Herodotus explains that the system was built to handle them too:

But the humbler wife-seekers, who were indifferent about beauty, took the more homely damsels with marriage payments. For the custom was that when the auctioneer had gone through the whole number of the beautiful damsels, he should then call up the ugliest- a cripple, if there chanced to be one- and offer her to the men, asking who would agree to take her for the smallest marriage payment. And the man who offered to take the smallest sum had her assigned to him. The marriage payments were furnished by the money paid for the beautiful damsels, and thus the fairer maidens ended up paying for the uglier ones to be married.

It was one big free and open market. And participation was mandatory:

No one was allowed to give his daughter in marriage to the man of his choice, nor might any one carry away the damsel whom he had purchased without the intent to truly to make her his wife; if, however, it turned out that they did not get along, the money might be paid back. All who wished to could come even from distant villages and bid for the women.

So did Herodotus think the marriage market was a good idea?

This was the best of all their customs, but it has now fallen into disuse.

“The best of all their customs”? It seems that the father of history knew a good thing when he saw it!

And if you think about it, it’s not too different from the way the marriage market works now. The Babylonians were just more honest about it.

Going once, going twice… SOLD!