WATCH: Wives for sale in 1950s Bedouin market
Cheerful footage from Beersheba takes a startling turn when bargains at the Bedouin market include sheep, camels — and women
Buyers test horses’ teeth, customers haggle over coffeepots — and females are apparently offered for sale as Israeli Bedouin go shopping in this newsreel from Beersheba in 1957.
“Women in the market display their dowries in the shape of gold or silver coins,” the bemused narrator announces. “As a rule, the more they’ve got, the older they are.”
“A wife can be expensive — can’t they all!” he quips in conclusion. “But to a Bedouin, a first-class camel really is something.”
(The Associated Press and Movietone News recently released their vast video archives on YouTube, allowing the public to freely access a million minutes worth of historical news clips dating back to 1895 — including many iconic scenes from Israel’s history featured in this Times of Israel series.)
