"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...

A significant bit of the Old Testament (I forget which books) was
about
competition between tribes, and one standard way to grow one's tribe
was
to conquer a neighboring tribe and steal their women, killing or
enslaving the men. Slaves fetch a good price.

And killing or enslaving any overly resistant women. This is probably
the evolutionary basis for the Stockholm Syndrome.

Wow, I haven't heard that connection before, but the principle could be
much
the same. That's a very interesting link that you've drawn, Joe.

Thanks. I would hazard that Deut 21:10 (or :11) is the distillation of
millennia of experience with the management of captive women, covering
ages before the invention of writing. Or perhaps even language.

As I think about it, there have been words written about slaves in the
ancient world concerning how they often came to be the greatest defenders of
their owners' families, identifying with those families as if they were
their own. I suppose the same applies to a fully subjugated woman and that
the ancients were quite familiar with the methods.

I also recall that in the less-PC time when I was in college, the Stockholm
Syndrome was also known as the "Sambo Syndrome," as it applied to "Uncle
Tom" African-Americans. And another term used for the same thing was
"Identification with the aggressor." All of which ties in.


Probably not efficacious, but I wonder if that would be part of an
"abortion
debate" in 1500 BC. It more likely would have been all about religion or
philosophy, I would think.

I would think that if there had been much of a debate in 1500 BC, we
would have at least fragments of the polemics, probably in the Old
Testament.

It appears you've given this some thought and that you're more familiar with
the texts. What's your take on the attitude toward abortion in ancient
times?

--
Ed Huntress