The cattle slowly drag the old-fashioned plough as a bone-thin farmer walks behind, encouraging them to move faster with a series of yelps.

 Drought, debt and desperation have pushed some farmers in rural India to sell their wives. It is a scene from times of old, but still the way many farmers operate in rural India, where the harvest often determines feast or famine.

To survive the bad years, some farmers say they turn to the Paisawalla — Hindi for the rich man who lends money. When the interest mounts up, lenders demand payment. Some farmers work as bonded labourers for a lifetime to pay off their debts. Others are forced to give moneylenders whatever they ask for. Sometimes that includes their wives.

"It happens sometimes when somebody borrows money," says a farmer’s wife who did not want to be identified. She said a rich man bought her from her husband. "He did buy me," she says. "That’s why he told me he bought me." For 30 days she says the man forced her to live with him.

When her case drew public attention, she retracted her police report and her husband took her back. In another village, the story is told of another farmer and a moneylender.

"I sold my water engine and land and gave back his 30,000 rupees," the farmer says, describing his loan payment.

The farmer says the lender then asked him to send his wife to help with chores while the lender’s wife was sick. The farmer says he complied, and his children —including his daughter — went too.

But the mother never returned. The farmer says he believes she was stolen from him. The daughter says the lender sold her mother to another man.

State authorities say they have investigated the matter and found that the mother denies she was sold and has simply gone to live with a lover.

The daughter says that’s not true, and claims that she and her father were told to keep quiet by some of the village leaders.

An Indian government report completed in 1998 says the region is prone to what it calls "atrocities", including the buying and selling of women. However no one can say just how common such incidents are.

A farmer’s wife in yet another village in the region said she was sold by her own parents 14 years ago. "My mother and father got 10,000 rupees (about $200)," she says. "That’s why they sold me."

She says she was 12 years old at the time her husband bought her. She never considered going to authorities because she says she had nowhere else to go. She accepted it as her destiny.