 In Sussex , inns and public houses were a regular venue for wife @-@ selling , and alcohol often formed part of the payment . For example , when a man sold his wife at the Shoulder of Mutton and Cucumber in Yapton in 1898 , the purchaser paid 7s . 6d . ( £ 40 in 2016 ) and 1 imperial quart ( 1 @.@ 1 l ) of beer . A sale a century earlier in Brighton involved " eight pots of beer " and seven shillings ( £ 30 in 2016 ) ; and in Ninfield in 1790 , a man who swapped his wife at the village inn for half a pint of gin changed his mind and bought her back later . 
