Man offers to sell wife for $50

[The_Professor]

I wondered how often this is thought of but not actually done, by BOTH sides.

Man offers to sell wife for $50

Story Highlights• Brazilian authorities demand removal of Internet advertisement
• Man praised wife but said "I really need the money"
• Not clear if advertisement was a joke, Estado news agency reported

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- The government has ordered an Internet auction site to remove an advertisement in which a Brazilian man offered to sell his wife for about $50.

The Secretariat of Public Policies for Women announced late Friday it had ordered Mercado Livre, partially owned by eBay Inc., to remove the ad and warned it was violating a law banning the offer or sale of "human organs, people, blood, bones or skin."

The advertisement was no longer visible on the site Saturday.

It was posted by a man who gave his name as Breno and said: "I sell my wife for reasons I prefer to keep short ... I really need the money."

The described his wife physically and listed her qualities as a homemaker and companion. He reportedly said she was 35 and "worth her weight in gold."

The Estado news agency said it wasn't clear if the ad was meant as a joke. It said Mercado Livre told it the ad hadn't been noticed earlier because of the large number of products offered on the site -- nearly 1 million.

There was no answer Saturday at phone numbers for Mercado Livre or its public relations agency.

 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/05/05/wife.sale.ap/index.html 

[Lanya]

At our former church, the youth leader sold his daughter to the landlord for the rent.  She was 14.

[BT]

At our former church, the youth leader sold his daughter to the landlord for the rent.  She was 14.

Really? When did this happen? Was he arrested? What was his name?

[Lanya]

I don't remember his name.  My older son who would remember it is at work.  I remember we went to Shoney's and saw the girl with her aunt, and the aunt said she had custody because of what had happened.  And I really don't remember if he went to jail or not.
The girl's mother tried to burn down their house because she was hearing a voice (God, she thought) telling her to do this.  She went to a psych inpatient place for a while.  A troubled family...

[BT]

You would think a story like that , youth minister and all, would have made the papers. Bad enough a run of the mill father would sell his daughter, but a youth minister with a church, some folks would run with that story a country mile. Not only because of the daughter, but because of the church.

[Lanya]

No, he didn't have a church, he was the youth leader.  He was the teen Sunday School teacher, as I recall.  It was not a big church but there was a pastor who had been to seminary.  The youth leader delivered pizza and did this on Sundays.  Then the trouble with  his wife, and so on...
This was after we had stopped going there, in 2000. 
I don't remember this being in the paper, but that doesn't mean it was not.