Citation, please. Slavery - well, chattel slavery - is the legal ownership of another person. You can't own something that doesn't exist, so slavery logically

Citation, please. Slavery - well, chattel slavery - is the legal ownership of another person. You can't own something that doesn't exist, so slavery logically must therefore recognize the existence of the individual. In the antebellum US, slaves couldn't legally marry because they did not control their own legal person. Marriage is the creation of a new legal and social entity from the dissolution of the individuals entering into it. I'm male; my wife is female. In the sense that I "own" my wife, she "owns" me. In truth, it's slightly more subtle: we have decided to minimize the distinction between ourselves as individuals. Making a traditional marriage work requires enormous trust in both directions.