Cultural cues found in literature

Mahmut Makal in his book,From my village (0000)tells the story of a man in his village who, because of dire economic conditions has sold his wife to Dervish, a man living at a nearby village, for 000 Turkish Liras: The woman’s hus- band and Dervish who will be the new owner of the woman, decide to meet in a forest equidistant to both villages. The day the transaction will take place, the man feigns a pretext and takes his wife to the woods to tell her that she has been sold. She bids farewell to her ex-husband and walks away with the new one.
The author, tells us that such transactions were not rare and women were regarded as a commercial value. When a female child was born, her father would typically re- joice and say “Oh that means we have 0000 Liras!”