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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NoOneofConsequence" data-source="post: 431255" data-attributes="member: 5400">Re: Rape & slaveryPhew! Now we're on the same page. Refer to my post above for my apology to this quote.There's a gap in reasoning between your annecdotal LA Times reference (which I agree with you about) and the assumption that the "widespread attitude" is "completely fantasy (which I don't have enough evidence to agree or disagree about).This assumes that the wife can do anything about it if she does catch him. Wife beating is widespread in modern western democracies - how common do you think it was in more barbarous times? Who's a wife going to go to and what's she going to say when the majority have no problem with her husband beating her up just to "keep her in line"?There are precious few circumstances where any human has the right to use the phrase "In all cultures at all times". As an historian I bridle at its use. There are way too many dead cultures that we know nothing about to make this statement.Without a steady source of anything the use of it dies out - without a steady source of sunlight conventional agriculture dies out. Your statement about slavery dying out without slaves just begs the question. In historical terms though, slave holding cultures tend to actually go looking for sources of fresh slaves to renew their economy just as modern society is looking for new sources of oil to maintain our petroleum based economy.Slavery did not ever die out in the Roman empire - the empire had slaves when it began and when it fell, slavery still existed. 10% of the slave population is not a massive number. Also, you haven't offered any information about how many of the escapes actually resulted in persistent freedom (not re-captured etc). In most slave cultures at least ten percent would have been worked to death any way. Also, in a large proportion of slave cultures, branding and other forms of marking were common, as were laws which required that slaves dress differently, live in only certain areas and only do certain activities.See my above point for the liklihood of a slave being anonymous in a big city ( Rome, for example). There have been periods of "liberal" slave owning, where slaves could work to attain their freedom. But these should not be taken as the norm. Nor should it be assumed that once slaves enjoyed the right to buy their freedom, that that right was never taken away again.</blockquote>

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