A Will of their own? Children’s Agency and Child Labour in Byzantium

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2017
Author
Rotman, Youval
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Abstract
This paper examines the relation between three concepts: a child’s will, children’s agency and child labour. Addressing the current debate about children’s agency, this paper shows how these concepts were developed in Byzantine society in order to advance a religious agenda that encouraged the child
to run away from home in favour of a new life in a monastery. Children were attributed with a will of their own and acted upon it before they reached the age of puberty. This perspective took the child out of the private sphere by attributing agency to it. The paper addresses the current debate about children’s agency revealing the conceptualization of this term as motivated by an economic agenda in which the need to profit from the child’s labour plays an important role.
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http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/60551
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21001/itma.2017.11.05
Is part of
Imago temporis: medium Aevum, 2017, núm. 11, p. 135-157
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cc-by-nc-nd, (c) Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2017
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as cc-by-nc-nd, (c) Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2017