Layman

"Infanticide was one of the deepest stains of the ancient civilization." W.E.H. Lecky.

The history of infanticide is gruesome. As hard as it may be to conceptualize it today, infanticide was often times throughout history a common and endorsed practice. While it still occurs today, we outlaw it. And in the West at least, society and culture condemn it. (Cultural acceptance of infanticide appear to continue to be problems in at least parts of China and India). So how did we get from there to here? From having Western societies that condoned and encouraged infanticide to having a Western society that condemns and discouraged infanticide?

The short answer is Christianity.

Pagans in the Roman Empire had a very different view about the value of human life than we do today. Infanticide was legal and encouraged in ancient Greece and Rome. Other pagan societies, such as the Carthaginians, went so far as to kill their children as religious sacrifices to their gods. According to Plutarch, the Carthaginians "offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs of young birds; meanwhile the mothers stood by without a tear or moan." Moralia 2.17. However, because Carthage had only a minimal direct impact on Western Civilization, I will focus on ancient Greece and especially ancient Rome.

In this discussion I will speak both of infanticide and abandonment as one. Some forms of infanticide involved a parent directly killing the child, usually by drowning. The infant was simply held underwater until it was dead. Relatively quick, inexpensive, and the water muffled the cries. In other cases, the family would simply take the child out beyond the city and abandon it to die from exposure to the elements. In both approaches, those that should have been protecting the helpless, were the ones who were killing them.

"Infanticide was infamously universal" in ancient Greece and Rome. Frederic Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity, at 71. As Will Durant stated, infanticide was so common in ancient Rome that "birth itself was an adventure." Caesar and Christ, at 56. Indeed, so common was infanticide in ancient Greece that Polybius (205-118 BCE) blamed the decline of ancient Greece on it. (Histories, 6). It was "decimating pagan society",Durant, at 698, and was the leading cause of the tremendous gender gap of men to women in the ancient world. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, at 97-98. Female infants were particularly vulnerable to infanticide. It was very uncommon for even wealthy, upper-class families to have more than one daughter in ancient Greece and Rome. An inscription found in Delphi illustrates this quite well. Of more than 600 second-century families, only one percent had raised two daughters. Susan Scrimshaw, "Infanticide in Human Populations: Societal and Individual Concerns," in Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, ed. Glenn Hausfater and Sarah Hardy, at 439.

In sum, there is no dispute among historians and informed laypersons: Infanticide was incredibly widespread in the ancient pagan world.

But what is most chilling is that it was openly practiced. Pagan society approved of the practice and encouraged it. "Not only was the exposure of infants a very common practice, it was justified by law and advocated by philosophers." Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, at 118. See also Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, at 56. As described by the online encyclopedia, "in Greece and ancient Rome a child was virtually its father's chattel-e.g., in Roman law, the Patria Protestas granted the father the right to dispose of his offspring as he saw fit. In Sparta, the decision was made by a public official." <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/06356.html." target="_blank">http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/06356.html.</a> The Twelve Tables of Roman Law held: "Deformed infants shall be killed" De Legibus, 3.8. Of course, deformed was broadly construed and often meant no more than the baby appeared "weakly." The Twelve Tables also explicitly permitted a father to expose any female infant. Stark, at 118.

Leading pagan leaders and philosophers also encouraged the practice. Cicero defended infanticide by referring to the Twelve Tables. Plato and Aristotle recommended infanticide as legitimate state policy. Cornelius Tacitus went so far as to condemn the Jews for their opposition to infanticide. He stated that the Jewish view that "it was a deadly sin to kill an unwanted child" was just another of the many "sinister and revolting practices" of the Jews. Histories, 5.5. Even Seneca, otherwise known for his relatively high moral standards, stated, "we drown children at birth who are weakly and abnormal." De Ira 1.15.

A chilling letter from a pagan husband to his wife captures the casual nature of this practice among the pagans:

"Know that I am still in Alexandria.... I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I received payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered (before I come home), if it is a boy keep it, if a girl, discard it." Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule, at 54. According to Stark, "this letter dates from the year 1 BCE, but these patterns persisted among pagans far into the Christian era." Stark at 97-98.

Accordingly, ancient pagan Roman and Greek societies accepted and promoted infanticide through their philosophy, religon, and laws.

Into this pagan world stepped Christianity. Starting in Jerusalem, and with an undisputed Jewish influence, Christianity quickly spread throughout the Roman Empire. But rather than being restricted to a racial group, Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire's diverse ethnicities, including the Greeks and Romans. Beginning in about 30-33 CE, Christianity reached some level of primacy when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the Fourth Century. By 350 CE, Rodney Stark estimates that 56.5 percent of the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity.

From its earliest creeds, Christians "absolutely prohibited" infanticide as "murder." Stark, at 124. To Christians, the infant had value. Whereas pagans placed no value on infant life, Christians treated them as human beings. They viewed infanticide as the murder of a human being, not a convenient tool to rid society of excess females and perceived weaklings. The baby, whether male, female, perfect, or imperfect, was created in the image of God and therefore had value.

Early Christian documents reveal that there was a clash of cultures as Christianity converted previously pagan Romans and Greeks. Whereas Judaism prohibited infanticide by Jews, Christianity was converting pagans and instructing them that infanticide was immoral and murder. The Didache (90 -110 CE), an instruction manual for Christian converts, commanded "You shall not commit infanticide." Another early Christian document, the Epistle of Barnabas (130 CE), also explicitly condemned infanticide and prohibited its practices as necessary parts of the "way of light." Moreover, by the end of the second century, "Christians were not only proclaiming their rejection of abortion and infanticide, but had begun direct attacks on pagans, and especially pagan religions for sustaining such crimes." Stark, at 125. Robing L. Fox also notes this activity: "Christians opposed much in the accepted practice of the pagan world. They vigorously attacked infanticide and the exposure of children." Pagans and Christians, at 350.

Callistus, the Bishop of Rome--a onetime slave-- in 222 CE strongly voiced his condemnation of infanticide to the pagan public. Justin Martyr's First Apology (250 CE) stated, "We have been taught that it is wicked to expose even newly-born children." Also in the second century, Athengoras, a Christian leader, wrote in his Plea to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, that "[we do not expose] an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child murder." Another Christian writer, Minucius Felix, wrote to Emperor Claudius, "And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and to the birds; at another that you crush when strangled with a miserable kind of death. . . . And these things assuredly come down from your gods. For Saturn did not expose his children but devoured them."

However, despite Christian appeals to the pagans to stop infanticidie, so long as Christianity remained a disfavored--and sometimes persecuted--religion, their appeals to the pagan government to act against infanticide were ineffectual in changing government policy.

Even so, Christians worked against infanticide by prohibiting its members from practicing it, voicing their moral view on infanticide to the pagan world, and by providing for the relief of the poor and actually taking in and supporting babies which had been left to die by exposure by their pagan parents. As Robin Lane Fox explains in his classic, Pagans and Christians, "to the poor, the widows and orphans, Christians gave alms and support, like the synagogue communities, their forerunners. This 'brotherly love' has been minimized as a reason for turning to the Church, as if only those who were members could know of it. In fact, it was widely recognized." Id. at 324. According to Durant, "in many instances Christians rescued exposed infant, baptized them, and brought them up with the aid of community funds." Caesar and Christ, at 598. Through these efforts, Christians worked to diminish some of the causes of infanticide.

Yet so long as Christianity was an illegal religion, persecuted by the same culture that murdered their own babies, it had little chance of enacting policies that discouraged--or even banned--infanticide. Finally, however, with the Edict of Milan--which legalized the practice of Christianity--Christian leaders began to exert their influence on the Roman emperors regarding infanticide. Immediately after his conversion, Constantine--the first Christian Emperor--enacted two measures targeting the problem of infanticide: 1) Constantine provided funds out of the imperial treasury for parents over-burdened with children; and 2) Constantine gave all the rights of property of exposed infants to those who saved and supported them. But more generally, Constantine broadened the scope of imperial charity and provided assistance for the poor and needy. "He also acknowledged the new ideal of charity. Previous emperors had encouraged schemes to support small numbers of children in less favored families, the future recruits for their armies. Constantine gave funds to the churches to support the poor, the widow and orphans." And according to Robin L. Fox, the church used those funds for charity. "Swollen by the Emperor's gifts, it helped the old, the infirm, and the destitute." Pagans and Christians, at 668.

Although the church, with the assistance of the government, was working to address many of the causes of infanticide, it continued to pressure Rome for a ban on infanticide. Bishop Basil of Caesarea argued persistently and persuasively for such a ban. Finally, he convinced Emperor Valentinian (364-375 CE)--a Christian--outlawed the practice of infanticide in the Roman Empire.

In sum, ancient and pagan Greek and Rome had practiced and encouraged infanticide for hundreds and hundreds of years. Christianity, begining in the First Century, followed the Jewish lead in absolutely prohibiting infanticide. However, unlike Judaism, Christian opposition to infanticide--like Christianity itself--spread throughout the Roman Empire and fundamentally altered those societies, eliminating and their promotion and encouragement of infanticide from Western Civilization. They did this by providing charity to the poor and needy, resucing abandoned babies, and finally by altering the laws which promoted infanticide. Ultimately, Christinaity was succesful in banning infanticide. In short, one unique and valuable contribution of Christianity to (at least) Western Civilization was--and is--its opposition to infanticide.

Vorkosigan

Good post, Layman. After many tries, you seem to have found an actual positive achievement of Christianity.

It's a shame, though, that the Christians worked so hard to outlaw killing infants, and then worked so hard to kill and enslave adults.

You might be interested in this thesis.

<a href="http://www.tulane.edu/~august/thescjm.htm" target="_blank">http://www.tulane.edu/~august/thescjm.htm</a>
In this thesis, I shall look at the hitherto negelected Christian concerns with terminating "the power of life and death ("vitae et necis potestas) against the Christian morality. Several previous scholars have noted in passing that the prohibition of exposure and infanticide was consistent with the Christian empire's increasing restriction on the exercise of patria potestas. At the same time, Christian writers condemned exposure and infanticide as a way of restricting illicit sex[. But as yet no one has elucidated how the Christian writers tended to emphasize the accountability of the mother (as well as the father) in this matter, thereby placing much more responsibility on the mother than had been accorded to her under classical Roman law. This accountability of the mother applied both to the well-being of the infant and also to the procreative act itself. Hence, such notable church fathers as St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Ambrose stressed the mother's responsibility for her children, and each severely criticized mothers who chose to abandon their young. St. Augustine even went so far as to propose that a wife send her husband to a prostitute if he wished to engage in non-procreative acts, thereby suggesting that some of the responsibility for moral, procreative sex lay with the mother. What these changes in patristic literature marked, then, was not only a changing attitudes toward sexuality, but also a new position on women at odds with that in classical Roman law. This thesis will trace the development of this attitude toward mothers and sexuality in the early Christian writers, and explain how this change in attitude influenced social legislation of Late Antiquity,. The changes of the laws restricting the rights of a father over the lives of his children, in turn, were part of the wider story of how Roman legal precepts were accommodated to the ethical and moral concerns of a Christian society.

Sex ratio evidence indicates some form of female infanticide may have been quietly practiced in some parts of Christian Medieval and Renaissance Europe, especially as dowries rose. Evidence is indicative rather than conclusive. Scroll down to the middle of the page, where there is some discussion of the problem.
<a href="http://www.humanevolution.net/a/femaleinfanticide.html" target="_blank">http://www.humanevolution.net/a/femaleinfanticide.html</a>

"Evidence for preferential removal of females is strong enough to have convinced several demographers, and comes from all periods down to the eighteenth century. Medieval British data analyzed by Russell show normal adult sex ratios until the mid-thirteenth century, rising during the fourteenth to a high of 133:100, when the Great Plague epidemic equalized them again, thereafter rising again during the fifteenth centry. These figures refer to landholding members of the population; one sample of sefs maintained a ratio of 170:100 even during the plague years (Russell 1948: 167-168). Such figures refer to adult or to total populations, however, and consequently do not allow the eseparation of preferential female infanticide from other relevant variables, especially differential migration, hypergyny, and differential mortality. The great masculinity of serf ratios, which occurs in several samples, is most likely the result of a high proportion of bachelor males in this lowest-status group, as much as or more than the product of female infanticide."

Another analysis of Infanticide in Britian is here:
<a href="http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba2/ba2feat.html" target="_blank">http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba2/ba2feat.html</a>

It is pretty clear that the infanticide remained a standard practice in Christian communities down to the 19th century, when contraceptives and abortificients became widely available and laws were more tightly enforced.

if you plug "infanticide" and "sex ratios" and some geographic term into google, lots of interesting stuff will fall out.

Michael

Jamie_L

Not an educated response in any sense, but:

Would infanticide have remained common and acceptable without Chrisitianity?

Asked another way: were Christian teachings the sole contributor to changing views about infanticide, did other cultural changes influence the situation as well?

Don't know the answer myself, but the question seems important to the OP.

Edited to add:
Is parts of the world that were not dominated by Christianity at this time (China, India, the Americas, etc.), was infanticide common and acceptible? If it changed, when and why did it change?

Jamie

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Jamie_L ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Well, all the sources I have found indicate that indeed this was a Christian advance. Making it illegal probably saved many lives.

I think the masters thesis abstract above is more interesting, for it shows that the fundamental changes went beyond making infanticide illegal, but involved transmutation of the relationships between men, women and children. That is the real acheivement, not a mere legal act.

Michael

God Fearing Atheist

My question is: what exactly is wrong with infanticide, as such?

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: God Fearing Atheist ]</p>

Jamie_L

GFA:

I would think infanticide is a sub-category of murder. The question in response would be, what is wrong with murder? If something is wrong with murder, does that extend to infanticide? Why or why not? Maybe this is off topic.

Jamie

Layman

My research indicates to me that Christianity was the driving force for the shift in attitude regarding infanticide. I haven't found any other cultural/social/economic shift that were involved.

My focus was on Christianity's actual impact on Western Culture, so I'm not as familiar with the other areas. But at least for China and India, infanticide still appears to be a big problem:

Evidence in India and China

Despite the clear theistic prohibitions against child-murder by the three major Western religions, female infanticide has been for centuries a prominent and socially acceptable event in two related areas of the world: India and China. Even today, the extent of the problem is measured in frightening proportions: "at least 60 million females in Asia are missing and feared dead, victims of nothing more than their sex.

Worldwide, research suggests, the number of missing females may top 100 million. The data is truly astounding, Estimates indicate that 30.5 million females are "missing" from China, 22.8 million in India, 3.1 million in Pakistan, 1.6 million in Bangladesh, 1.7 million in West Asia, 600,000 in Egypt, and 200,000 in Nepal.

<a href="http://www.infanticide.org/history.htm" target="_blank">http://www.infanticide.org/history.htm</a>

Layman

I admit that an underlying premise of my post was that infanticide is an immoral act. I don't really want to get into a debate with promoters of infanticide about its morality, but perhaps others will. Obviously, if you believe there is nothing wrong with infanticide "as such," then you won't find Christianity's opposition to it to be a good thing. Indeed, you may find vice where others find virtue.

Layman

Not sure what you mean. I don't remember all that many "tries" on this issue. I have mentioned Christian contributions in the past, but I don't recall being proven wrong about any of them. Most skeptics just refuse to believe any of it unless its nailed down air-tight with such research as I have presented here. Point-in-fact, one of my previous "tries" actually did give kudos to Christains for the "criminalization of infanticide."

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000210&p=" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000210&p=</a>


Perhaps I'm not remembering some of my other "tries." It has been a while since I've been particularly active here. Which "tries" failed? Or what contributions did I erroneously credit to Christianity? Perhaps your response will lead to a new thread. I'd rather not convert this threat into a general melee.

Vorkosigan

Of course. I put it badly. My fault.

In any case, this was a good post. I think the real achievement here was not so much the ban on infanticide, but the long-term change in social views of infanticide.

In China the Communist Party has tried without success to eliminate infanticide, because it has been unable to make the changes in social attitudes toward infanticide. In India the situation is tragic.

Michael