Roman law gave the father absolute control over his children, whom he could sell or condemn to death with impunity. This concept of absolute right carried over into English law, where it prevailed until the fourteenth century without appreciable change. In the Middle Ages childhood was not seen as the unique phase of life we now consider it to be. It was customary to send children as young as seven into service or apprenticeship, where learning was secondary to the labor a child performed for his or her master. The child and the servant appear to have been indistinguishable in terms of how
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