Roman fathers could legally sell their sons into debt-bondage

Evidence

This Twelve Tables provision implies, by structural assumption, that the father can sell his son at all. Once, twice, and three times before the right of sale is exhausted. The operational reality in fifth-century-BCE Rome was that a father could place his son in temporary debt-bondage — sell his son’s labor to a creditor for a term of years — as a way of paying household debts. This was a real feature of the early-Republican economy. Roman boys could be legally placed in bondage by their fathers without the boy’s consent. — , The Rod and the Child, 1380

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to child-sale and economic exploitation of children in other episodes and to medieval serfdom/bondage histories. — connects to: Roman fathers held unique life-and-death authority over their children — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 1373; Roman fathers exercised less actual power over children than law allowed — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 12347; Dark-skinned Egyptians could sell lighter sons to pay tax debts

Related

• Roman fathers held unique life-and-death authority over their children (similarity 0.82)
• Roman fathers exercised less actual power over children than law allowed (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Roman fathers exercised less actual power over children than law allowed #corroborates (0.40) — , The Rod and the Child, 12347
• Dark-skinned Egyptians could sell lighter sons to pay tax debts #qualifies (0.30)