Navigating the Womb: Surrogacy, Slavery, Fertility—and Biblical Discourses

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn our fast changing world, issues of reproductive capital, surrogacy, and fertility relate to global discourses of rich and poor, medical technology, gender, transnational health, bodily integrity, and parenthood. I want to use insights, dilemmas, and ethical questions from this very complex situation to engage with the recent debate on slavery, sexuality, and gender in early Christian discourse.Did Christian slave owners have sex with their slaves? I will add some new questions to this discussion: If male slave owners had sex with their female slaves, how would these mothers and children be treated, categorized, and conceptualized in early Christianity? When the household codes in Ephesians and Colossians talk about obedience and honour between children and parents, would these slaves be included? In this intersecting reproductive hierarchy, male slaves, who could be biological fathers but were not granted fatherhood, had an ambiguous role. If the male owners had sex with the ‘partners’ of male slaves, the fatherhood would be contested, leaving slave fatherhood even more vulnerable than slave motherhood. Did the reproductive capital of female slaves also destabilize the fixed hierarchy between male and female slaves?