Children

 

The Greatest Love

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be

But do you believe that children are wards, not property?

In a group, e.g. a state,  there are full members and there are wards of the group. A ward is not yet a full member of the group but is in the care of the group until they become a full member. A group also needs a sovereign, a leader. The United States of America was an experiment in that every member of the group has a say in choosing that leader and making sure that the sovereign’s power to make laws, administer laws, and rule on laws, were by separate groups of individuals. This distinguishes it from a hereditary monarchy where the sovereign passes though a hereditary line to a single individual. It is also is distinguished from an electoral monarchy ( e.g. the early Holy Roman Empire) where rather than inheritance,  the sovereign is an elected individual. The sovereign can also be chosen by dominance (i.e. authoritarianism). While the sovereign is typically an individual, the sovereign can be a group, (e.g. the Communist Party of China). A sovereign serves two roles: 1) the ruler of the group; and 2) the personification of the group. It is possible to separate these roles, for example a constitutional monarchy where the group rules, but the personification is inherited.

It possible for both the ruling sovereign and the personification sovereign to be elected as separate individuals (e.g. France). If the ruler is a subgroup of the larger group, the leader of the subgroup typically also serves the personification role  ( e.g. Xi of China). While it is theoretically possible for both the personification and ruling sovereign to be chosen by dominance, practically an authoritarian, dictator, will try to exercise dominance and become the personification sovereign, either directly, or by the personification being a puppet of the ruler.

In the United States of America, according to our constitution, representation is based on members AND wards of the state (which at one point included women, children, and slaves). Children can become full members based on their age ( e.g. age to work, age of marriage, age of voting, age to buy alcohol, etc.). Slaves, who would otherwise have met the age test, became members of the group when slavery was abolished. Women achieved the right to vote, and arguably became full members, but there was still the matter of whether a wife surrendered her group rights, became a ward of her husband upon marriage. (This confusion was attempted to be corrected by the Equal Rights Amendment). Individuals, who are not physically, or mentally, capable of membership in the group, may be long‑term wards of the group.

However a ward is NEVER property. Being a ward means that it is a status which can change. Property can not change its status. Property belongs to an individual. Property can be sold, gifted, transferred, or after the owner has died, can be disposed of according to a will. Upon death, debts are discharged and only the assets, positive property, can be “inherited.”  The heirs are NOT responsible for, do not, can not, inherit, the debts of the deceased. Children and wives can not be sold when the husband is alive, nor can they be disposed of as property in a will. Once upon a time, slaves could be disposed of as property, but as mentioned before, slavery in the USA  was abolished by the 14^th Amendment. Thus legally children and women, including wives, can not be property.

Children are wards of their parents. Parents are wardens of their children. The group has conceded that its interest as a warden of the children is inferior to the parent’s role as a warden. However the group has not, can not, acknowledge a position that children are property of their parents. If the parents refuse certain actions to their children, who are only the parent's wards until they reach adulthood, then the parents have abandoned their role as warden of their children and the group can, and should, exercise its role as warden. Children can be proud, or ashamed, of their ancestors, but they are not ever responsible for the actions, positive or negative, of their ancestors. Parents can be wardens of their own children. However they are not the wardens of the children of other parents.

This does not mean that adults can not have a special relationship with those who were once their wardens. However legally they are not, and never were, property of their wardens. The group lives on because those children have become adults, are the future. An individual adult has a finite life span, but a group does not have a definite life span.