Selling young women into marriage was very common in the early 1900s in the United States. Sadly, it is still common today, just hidden from public sight a little better than it used to be.
The newspaper article below comes from 1912 and tells how a young woman’s father tried to sell her to another man for marriage.
Young Girls Are Bought And Sold Like Cattle
Los Angeles Court Investigation Discloses Sale of Girls by Parents for from $100 to $500 Each — Facts Brought to Light by Young Russian Girl Who Fled to Home of Her Sweetheart, Refusing to Let Her Father Sell Her for $500 to a Man She Didn’t Love
Los Angeles, Jan. 25 — Russian parents in this city sell their daughters into marriage for from $100 to $500, according to Elsa Navikoff, a 16 year old Russian girl who fled to the home of herAmerican sweetheart, Ray Hallack, a sailor.
She was arrested and at her trial it was brought out that girls were practically sold into slavery by their parents to men they had never seen. After the stories had been told in court by grey bearded Rusians through an interpreter, Judge Wilbur decided that the girl be held as a charge of the court till she became of age.
Judge Wilbur said:
“The evidence undoubtedly discloses that deplorable conditions exist in the Russian colony. Many girls are married under the age of 16, the legal age, and many so called marriages are performed with the necessary license. Such unions are unlawful and are shameful.”
Judge Wilbur declared from the bench that the illegal practices must cease and caused the interpreter to transmit his decision carefully to the courtroom full of Russians.
A federal inspector attended the trial and it is likely that Uncle Sam’s agents will probe the unwholesome affairs of the colony.
Elsa’s case was brought into the juvenile court through charges of delinquency lodged against her by her parents. The whole Russian colony in their picturesque garb, men in high heeled boots and pleated frocks, with flowing hair and beard, the women in short skirted, gaudy hued dresses and flaming head gear, appeared in court.
Many witnesses, the majority of whom had to give their statements through an interpreter, testified that they had a general knowledge of girls being sold into marriage. The price brought by a bride ranges from $100, $150 to $300 and $500 in the case of extraordinary pretty girls.
E.F. Gerecht, a native born Russian lawyer, declared on the stand that it is a common Russian custom for parents to sell their children into marriage and to choose husbands for their daughters before the girls have seen their intended husbands.
Sometimes the girl’s parents even buy a husband.
“If the girl is attractive the parents figure on receiving a round sum from the bridegroom, but if she is ugly, they frequently pay the prospective husband to marry her and take her off their hands,” declared the witness.
John Vedieneff told the court that his sister, Sarah, had been sold into marriage for $150.
“She cried two days and nights before the ceremony,” the brother related.
Philip Shubin, an eagle eyed patriarch, with a great shock of tousled hair and long, flowing beard, acknowledged leader of the colony, sat bolt upright in the witness chair, with the mien of a ruler, and told, volubly in Russian, of the practice of marrying without a license.
He admitted also, when pressed, that money sometimes changed hands in consideration of marriage vows, but denied that girls were “sold.”
“The greatest number marry, without a license.”
“Ask him,” said the court to the interpreter, “if he does not know that marriage without a license is void?”
“We do here as in the old country,” said the witness, “it was lawful in Russia, therefore we think it is lawful here.”
Navikoff, Elsa’s father, testified that he had a married daughter in Russia and that she is but 13 years of age.
Prosecutions may result in many cases of unlawful marriages as the result of the investigation.
Source: (1912, January 25). Young Girls Are Bought And Sold Like Cattle. The Day Book.
