~Leasing Wives.~--In the histories of sundry strange lands we read of
curious customs appertaining to marriage and the giving in marriage.
Taking a wife on trial is the rule of more than one happy clime, but
taking a wife upon lease is quite a Brummagem way of marrying (using the
term in the manner of many detractors of our town's fair fame). In one
of the numbers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for the year 1788, Mr.
Sylvanus Urban, as the editor has always been called, is addressed as
follows by a Birmingham correspondent:--"Since my residing in this town
I have often heard there is a method of obtaining a wife's sister upon
lease. I never could learn the method to be taken to get a wife upon
lease, or whether such connections are sanctioned by law; but there is
an eminent manufacturer in the vicinity of this town who had his
deceased wife's sister upon lease for twenty years and upwards; and I
know she went by his name, enjoyed all the privileges, and received all
the honours due to the respectable name of wife." A rarer case of
marital leasing has often been noted against us by the aforesaid
smirchers of character as occurring in 1853, but in reality it was
rather an instance of hiring a husband.
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