Topic for discussion - manumission

[epeeblade]

(I haven't done one of these in a while, so here goes...)

I was reading the latest bit of A Kept Boy last night when something occurred to me.

In it Jensen vehemently denies being part of any family, and denies any identity other than that of slave. He's not the only one raised from childhood to be the perfect slave.

So what would happen then if the abolitionist movement does pass a manumission clause? Now granted, it's probably not going to cause hundreds of people freeing their slaves en masse, but I can imagine wealthy owners "freeing their slaves" in their will after they pass. What happens to the slaves who can't imagine a life outside of slavery?

(And yes this would probably be AU like whoah, but it's something I'm interested in seeing explored in fic...)

Comments

[khemlab.livejournal.com]

In a way, it's the same thing in that marital rights vary state to state. But the major difference is that regulation of marriage has traditionally been a right reserved to the states, so there is (theoretically) no federal law on point with which the states who refuse to recognize same-sex marriage are clashing.

At least, that's the case as long as we continue to ignore the fact that the 14th Amendment has been interpreted to guarantee marriage as a fundamental right, but that's a whole other topic. ;)