Common Customs is the remarkable follow-up to E.P. Thompson The formation of the working class in England. The product of years of research and debate, he describes the complex culture out of which England's working-class institutions arose, a series of traditions and customs that the new working class fought to preserve until Victorian times. Thompson investigates the gradual disappearance of a series of cultural customs in the context of the great upheavals of the eighteenth century. As the villagers were subjected to a legal system increasingly hostile to custom, they tried to resist and preserve tradition. For Thompson it is the rulers and landlords who were a problem for the people, whose exuberant culture preceded the formation of working-class institutions and consciousness. He shows how careful attention to fragmentary evidence helps to decipher the fascinating symbolism of some dishonoring rituals such as the "caceroladas", and other curious practices of the time such as the ritual divorce known as "wife sale".