Women and Children Are Men's Properties? People as Property Still Exist in This New Millennium

I read this story just recently: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18508427/?GT1=9951. It is a story about a man that attempted to sell his wife on Ebay for $50 for unknown reasons. After I came down from my initial shock and disgust I began to think that overall this story although aberrant is not unique. The sale of people has property is as old as humanity itself. Ancient texts including the Old Testament describe slavery as part of daily life. Historically speaking it wasn't that long ago that Africans were used as chattel to be bought and sold at the master's will. Sadly even to this day that type of slavery exists in many African countries as well as the Middle East. Different types of slavery exist all over the world. Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia is plagued with child prostitution where people (men mostly) go to those countries for sex tourism. If you want to know what it is please do some research. The exploitation of women (and children) in the media and societies overall, from the third world to first powers may not be necessarily call slavery, but the idea of women and children as property propagates still to this day. We have seen it from the royals down to the poor classes where daughters are sold, bartered/exchanged for the greater good of the family. The ones that tend to make these decisions tend to be generally the men.