Embittered, Impaired, Macerated: Indentured Servitude
Malcolm Gaskill, 6 October 2022
Servants’ privileges, which could be and were defended at law, didn’t develop from a concept of individual ‘human rights’, but from a belief that patriarchy worked best when it was considerate and consensual. Anything else was domestic tyranny, and mistreatment by a master or mistress signified a larger failing of governance. Hierarchical, yet governed by mutual obligation, households should be exemplars of political order. If a servant (or a wife) needed beating, something was wrong with the patriarch wielding the stick.