Discarding Unwanted Children

[Kosmo]

I want to know when this custom of discarding unwanted children in a pot came to end and if this has something to do with christianity. I know some emperors financed 'colona lactaria', a place were abandoned children were taken in care, but this custom of discarding children was not considered a crime or morally wrong.

[Favonius Cornelius]

I'm sure it was a gradual process rather than one fine point. Even though the whole Empire might adopt a law from a good emperor on the practice, or even if the Empire adopted 'Christian values', you can be sure of little villages in the mountains holding out against the progress of time.

[Virgil61]

I'm sure it was a gradual process rather than one fine point. Even though the whole Empire might adopt a law from a good emperor on the practice, or even if the Empire adopted 'Christian values', you can be sure of little villages in the mountains holding out against the progress of time.

 

One could probably expect it to happen in the poorer areas, Christian or not, when mouths to feed could have been a problem in hard times and a potential son in the fields was worth more than a daughter. Not to draw this off-topic but it hasn't died out today if stories about the effect of China's One Child Policy are true.

[Ursus]

I'm not sure if Christianity had much to do with it. Christianity once seriously debated whether or not grown women had souls. Whether or not a newborn or a fetus had a soul is something I don't think they worried about until later.

 

Ever since the age of Augustus, social conservatives worried about the declining Roman birth rate. Perhaps the answers lie there, in the general willingness of the government to have more Romans born into the world to be soldiers, farmers and tax payers.

[Andrew Dalby]

Has anyone seen a guesstimate of what proportion of abandoned children died and what proportion were picked up by someone else? I ask this because many Greek comedies turn on family rediscoveries -- an abandoned child brought up by another family and eventually recognised because of the tokens left with him/her -- so, clearly, this must have happened sometimes, even if much more rarely in truth than in fiction.

[Kosmo]

In order to be abandoned this custom must become illegal/imoral. I don't think that poverty playes any part in this. We know that many people with enough money used it and that many poorer civilisations never had such a custom. Actually, always richer people have fewer children. Compare Sweden and Sudan, urban vs rural and today rich versus poor.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Actually, always richer people have fewer children. Compare Sweden and Sudan, urban vs rural and today rich versus poor.

 

Yes, the correlation is quite strong--but what's the causal variable? It's not wealth per se, but women simply postponing their child-bearing (e.g., whether because of education, career, or just choosiness about her future mate). According to UN statistics, simply by women postponing their child-bearing a few years, a nation can go from population growth to population decline. The same is inevitably true for all sub-groups within nations.

[sullafelix]

Has anyone seen a guesstimate of what proportion of abandoned children died and what proportion were picked up by someone else? I ask this because many Greek comedies turn on family rediscoveries -- an abandoned child brought up by another family and eventually recognised because of the tokens left with him/her -- so, clearly, this must have happened sometimes, even if much more rarely in truth than in fiction.

 

 

newborn, cold at night hot in the day no liquids my best guess something less than 16 hours in most cases, less for those abandoned at night, also remember predation by animals, not nice.. I think it was probably a romantic ideal the Greek stuff

[M. Porcius Cato]

Has anyone seen a guesstimate of what proportion of abandoned children died and what proportion were picked up by someone else?

 

I'd bet the newborn would be screaming his or her lungs out, so the chance of being found would have differed substantially from zero. Moreover, Roman law (I'm pretty sure) allowed you to enslave foundlings, so there would have been a pretty strong motivation for picking up the abandoned baby.

[Kosmo]

Of course that women postponing their child-bearing will be an important factor, but I think that has to do with the social position of the women. If she can take a decision like that she has a lot of power overherself and in imperial Rome they had a lot of independence.

The abandoned children were often eaten by dogs and pigs. It was not very economic to raise a slave from birth.

[M. Porcius Cato]

It was not very economic to raise a slave from birth.

 

Given that children in the ancient world often started working from about the age of 4, it's important not to exaggerate the costs involved. A docile child, accustomed to a life of servitude, might in fact be more economical to use as slaves than wild Goths who might slit your throat while you're sleeping.

[Kosmo]

About modern slavery we have lots of data and in most cases the slave population was not reproducing itself. Of course, it's a huge difference between classical slavery and the modern one, but it is possible that the situation was similar in reproduction.

 

Why would someone put lots of money and care to raise a slavechild that might be really usefull in 20 years?

This will be worthy only if you train the slave to be a highly trained specialist, because otherwise it will be cheaper to buy one from the market (I think). In fact, in most places and eras slaves were prohibited to have children despite the apparent profit of the owner.

 

Somewhere in this forum is a link to a study of the purchase power of romans in the times of Vasile II Bulgarochton and a little about the times of Augustus and, if I remember well, it was stated that the use of slaves was very profitable because the price of the slave will be covered by his work in 4 years. If you can make a profit now why make an unsure investment for a distant future?

 

I think that raising children from infancy was a rare thing and justified for special cases like eunuchs (better to be dead, if you ask me)

Edited February 22, 2006 by Kosmo

[M. Porcius Cato]

About modern slavery we have lots of data and in most cases the slave population was not reproducing itself. ....I think that raising children from infancy was a rare thing

 

Quite the opposite. According to Veyne's chapter on slavery in "A History of Private Life" (pp. 54-55):

The subjugation of vanquished peoples and slave trade at the borders supplied only a small fraction of the servile work force. Slaves reproduced themselves; their ranks were swelled by abandoned infants and free men sold into slavery.... Slave traders picked up babies exposed in temples or at public dumps. Last but not least, poverty drove the indigent to sell their newborn to slave traffickers (who took children scarcely out of the womb and still covered with blood, before their mothers had had a chance to see and develop affection for them).

[sullafelix]

About modern slavery we have lots of data and in most cases the slave population was not reproducing itself. ....I think that raising children from infancy was a rare thing

 

Quite the opposite. According to Veyne's chapter on slavery in "A History of Private Life" (pp. 54-55):

The subjugation of vanquished peoples and slave trade at the borders supplied only a small fraction of the servile work force. Slaves reproduced themselves; their ranks were swelled by abandoned infants and free men sold into slavery.... Slave traders picked up babies exposed in temples or at public dumps. Last but not least, poverty drove the indigent to sell their newborn to slave traffickers (who took children scarcely out of the womb and still covered with blood, before their mothers had had a chance to see and develop affection for them).

 

Completely agree apart from one small proviso. A lot of the slaves in the Republic were first generation and this continued to be the case with rural slaves well into the Second and First Centuries BC. They were bred but many farms found bringing up slave children to be an unneccesary burden and they did not keep the gender mix required to do so anyway. Also in bad years slave infants were routinely exposed.

 

There is mention in the agricultural writers of good slave breeding practice but it is thought that not all large farms practiced it. On a farm a child is essentially unproductive for at least the first five years of its life and that is being conservative, because even after this age there is a need for some maternal input into childrearing and that keeps the female slaves from full productivity. There is also the issue of profitability, when it is remembered that in some parts of the Empire the exchange rate for Roman goods to slaves was ludicrously low. I have often wondered whether that much slave breeding went on in reality, a slave would have to be very expensive to be more expensive than rearing one until the time came to sell it or use it. Domestic breeding programmes in urban areas are a lot more realistic as models, especially for large households and brothels but for the rural area it would seem to be that either they had to be bred as a form of livestock when prices were high enough to make it profitable or that the farms would have to buy in slaves. Also there was in the countryside quite a large amount of free non-slave labour that could be utilised when possible. The imperial age is not really my bag but I know that in the Republic we are talking about the vast majority of slaves being agricultural and thought to be first generation.

 

Sulla Felix

[Kosmo]

To have a decently proven esstimate about the proportion of slaves in the population is a very difficult job, but to esstimate the way they became slaves it's impossible.

If there was no death from exposure because of slavetraders why institutions like "columna lactaria" developed?

Edited February 22, 2006 by Kosmo