Are Children Property?

To the Editor of Liberty

I have followed the discussion relating to the condition of children under equal freedom, and I am surprised at the different views adopted. The strangest of all, I must admit, is the one assumed by yourself,—that children are property to the same degree as a sack of potatoes. Your challenge to your readers to disprove this is absurd; it is like asking any one to disprove the existence of a god or of several gods.

Today vacant land is property in the eyes of the great majority; they might ask you to prove that it is not property, and all you could answer is that it ought not to be. But it is, nevertheless. The question can be asked: Is scenery or sunlight property, or, again, are wild beasts property? They are if the would-be proprietor can convince society that they are, and if he is able to capture them.

The question as to whether children are property or not is simply: Shall we consider them property or not? A similar question was once solved regarding the negro. The nation recognized the black man as property, and he was. Later they agreed that he was not, and he was not.

A slave-owner could legally sell any child born of his black slaves, but not the child of a white woman, even though he were its father. The black child was property; the other was not, since the father could not dispose of it as he pleased. I suppose you would have allowed the slave-owner to keep the little ones when the adults were declared free; he bought them from their former owners, and, being property, could have no rights. The parents could not claim them any more than their clothes; else, under the same claim, they could demand the whole plantation. It was through their efforts that the plantation that existed, and perhaps was created.

Rather than unnecessarily antagonize public opinion in trying to create the idea of recognizing children as property, why not follow the line of least resistance? The man who demands equal freedom demands it at once for the whole human family, regardless of age, color, or sex. When we, as Anarchists, grant each other the right to live, to be free from physical injuries inflicted by invaders (whether our parents or not), why can we not also grant it to children, leaving it to all concerned to look after those rights to the best of their ability? If an able-bodied man in good comfortable conditions should neglect to see to his protection and be physically assailed, some one might out of sympathy defend him, although there is no other reason why he should; but he would be most evidently exercising his equal freedom in doing so. I do not think any one would punish him for defending the victim out of pure sympathy (unless it were you, as you have no leaning towards that quality); and, if those rights were given to children, men and women would always be found who would protect them gratis. Should they go too far in this, a jury of their peers can decide it, as would be the case were the victim an adult.

This is far from saying that the State or society has more right than the father, but it simply means that neither has the right to inflict physical pain on any human beings.

If no one is found willing to protect a victimized child, it will have to take its medicine. But there will always be people kind-hearted enough to defend those unable to do so themselves, owing to physical disability and inability to pay for protection, and children belong in this class.

If a child wishes to leave its parents at any age, let it go; and, if someone is willing to take it up, he may do so and prevent its father from forcibly taking possession of it. A child is under no obligation to receive blows from its parents, any more than is an adult; and, if parents wish to keep their child, they will not abuse it.

By recognizing a child’s rights to life and physical safety we have the means of preventing the torturing and killing of an infant. I have no doubt that kind people would subscribe money for the protection and care of such children, as they do now for invalids.

But the greatest objection I find to making children property is this. A father, belonging to a protective association, in cold blood or in a fury attempts to murder his child; another man comes upon the scene, and, carried away by his feelings, kills the aggressor in defending the child. Now, to be consistent, you must convict this man of murder in the first degree, because he had no right whatever to prevent that man from destroying his property. It will take many years of your human flesh property propaganda to find a jury capable of rendering such a verdict, if ever one is found.

No, children are not property like a sack of potatoes; no one ever heard of a man risking his life in a raging torrent, or in fire, to save a sack of those vegetables, even were they his own. But we often see strangers endanger their existence for human beings of all ages.

I would like to ask you one question. Would you object, under equal freedom, to the organization of a society to protect, free of charge, the persons and property of those not able to, or even not willing to? And, if you find no fault with such a society, why should it not also protect children? Are you able to decide at what age or condition they are entitled to the protection and are no longer property? Should a child be an idiot or a cripple, unable to take care of itself, it must forever remain property. Moreover, if you base your title to the property on the peculiar method of its creation, I cannot see how the title is ever lost. What I own once is always mine, unless I sell it. My property cannot outgrow its condition; else, it is no longer complete property.

I think I have shown, not that children are not property, but that it is not necessary or wise to consider them as such, and that it is impossible to bring the human family to ever look upon them as they would upon a sack of potatoes.

A. S. Matter

Cincinnati, Oh., September 2, 1895.