in previous eras, a woman who entered into marriage became something close to a slave of her husband
If it was Reddit, I would reach for the downvote button. Since it is not, I will try to make a shot why this type of argument is problematic. The Past is a big place, ranging from the beginnings of written history to the recent minute and over the planet. While on the conservative side there is an equally erroneous tendency to glorify the whole of this range, often on the progressive side there is an equally erroneous tendency to vilify the whole of it. These tendencies come from various philosophies of history, “kali yuga” in the first case and “whig theory” in the second case, your one. This—both—simply puts the politics of today into an unrealistic perspective. Both errors set up the mood of discussing political changes into a distorted “one more step away from our glorious past” vs. “one more step away from the horrors of our past”.
Your example illustrates this meta problem excellently. The last time I remember men were actually allowed to sell their wives to slave traders was Pagan Rome. What matters of the past for current politics is largely the last 250 years of largely western nations, so the Enlightenment era, where none of the actual characteristics of slavery were present in marriage. What there was instead is broadly the status of women in marriage as minors, not slaves, i.e. comparable to children but even that was changing was early as 1809-1848 in the US and in similar developed nations. So plain simply in that kind of past that matters, that is relevant, because it affects the present through the weight of being an established tradition it is not so. None of your grandmothers even remembers what it was like to not own property in a marriage and similar things. Non-equality does not imply being a slave unless you felt like a slave at 17.
You seem to define slavery as the right to sell slaves. This is usually called “chattel slavery” because it is a very small fraction of all the people called “slaves” throughout history.
It is true that a Roman husband had great rights over his wife, but that has nothing to do with marriage. The husband simply assumed the rights previously held by the father, the same rights the father had over his sons.
This is true but also true that non-chattel slavery used to have a lot of other names as well, serfdom, indentured servitude etc. I generally don’t know many examples where non-chattel slavery did not have some other name as well.
No, I am not talking about serfs and indentured servants. I am talking people called slaves. Almost every example where you think slaves are chattel is because you are wrong about history. For example, the great diversity of slaves in the Bible are not chattel.
I mostly agree with the object level statements. IMO an adult treated a minor qualifies as “something close to a slave”, but let’s not argue over terminology.
If it was Reddit, I would reach for the downvote button. Since it is not, I will try to make a shot why this type of argument is problematic. The Past is a big place, ranging from the beginnings of written history to the recent minute and over the planet. While on the conservative side there is an equally erroneous tendency to glorify the whole of this range, often on the progressive side there is an equally erroneous tendency to vilify the whole of it. These tendencies come from various philosophies of history, “kali yuga” in the first case and “whig theory” in the second case, your one. This—both—simply puts the politics of today into an unrealistic perspective. Both errors set up the mood of discussing political changes into a distorted “one more step away from our glorious past” vs. “one more step away from the horrors of our past”.
Your example illustrates this meta problem excellently. The last time I remember men were actually allowed to sell their wives to slave traders was Pagan Rome. What matters of the past for current politics is largely the last 250 years of largely western nations, so the Enlightenment era, where none of the actual characteristics of slavery were present in marriage. What there was instead is broadly the status of women in marriage as minors, not slaves, i.e. comparable to children but even that was changing was early as 1809-1848 in the US and in similar developed nations. So plain simply in that kind of past that matters, that is relevant, because it affects the present through the weight of being an established tradition it is not so. None of your grandmothers even remembers what it was like to not own property in a marriage and similar things. Non-equality does not imply being a slave unless you felt like a slave at 17.
You seem to define slavery as the right to sell slaves. This is usually called “chattel slavery” because it is a very small fraction of all the people called “slaves” throughout history.
It is true that a Roman husband had great rights over his wife, but that has nothing to do with marriage. The husband simply assumed the rights previously held by the father, the same rights the father had over his sons.
This is true but also true that non-chattel slavery used to have a lot of other names as well, serfdom, indentured servitude etc. I generally don’t know many examples where non-chattel slavery did not have some other name as well.
No, I am not talking about serfs and indentured servants. I am talking people called slaves. Almost every example where you think slaves are chattel is because you are wrong about history. For example, the great diversity of slaves in the Bible are not chattel.
I mostly agree with the object level statements. IMO an adult treated a minor qualifies as “something close to a slave”, but let’s not argue over terminology.