Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse through the Ages and Today PDF
Preview Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse through the Ages and Today
Slaughter of the Innocents Child Abuse through the Ages and Today Slaughter of the Innocents Child Abuse through the Ages and Today J. Sander Breiner, M.D. Springer Science+ Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Breiner, Sander J. Slaughter of the innocents: child abuse through the ages and today / Sander J. Breiner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-306-43459-4 ISBN 978-1-4899-6058-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-6058-0 1. Child abuse-History-Cross-cultural studies. 2. Social history-To 500. I. Title. HV6626.5.B74 1990 89-29451 362.7'6'09-dc20 CIP ©1990 Sander J. Breiner Originally published by Plenum Press in 1990 Softrover reprint of the batdcover 1s t edition 1990 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher TO MY GRANDCHILDREN Preface This book has been dedicated to my grandchildren, and, in truth, to all the grandchildren in the world, including those yet to be born. What is contained herein had to be written. It is only by our understanding of what has taken place in the past and in the present day that we may be able to better protect and nur ture all these children. These better-nurtured children, when they mature, are more likely to produce a healthier world for all my grandchildren. Benjamin Disraeli, the famous Victorian British Prime Min ister, said, "What we learn from history, is that we don't learn from history." This must be proved untrue if we wish to ad vance to a less hurtful phase of civilization. While the literature related to each of the five civilizations we will examine is already vast, this book makes an unusual contribution in at least three ways. First, it considers all five civilizations in a single volume, facilitating comparisons. Sec ond, it focuses specifically on the seldom-discussed practices of infanticide and child abuse, drawing together references that have been scattered in scores of studies. Finally, in my interpretation of the historical evidence and the vast secondary literature, I have been able to draw on my training and nearly 30 years of practice as a psychiatrist. Thus the historical approach is augmented by knowledge from con- vii viii Preface temporary psychiatric theory and practice. Given the rudimen tary state of psychohistorical interpretation of the ancient world, I believe this approach may offer significant new insights into the practices of our ancestors. The following pages will, it is hoped, be interesting, contain information new to you, and providentially help you to see how we all can make important changes in the world of our grand children. Acknowledgments I didn't start to write a book. It all began with an interest in China. With my studies of that culture and trips to mainland China (1979) and to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan (1974), along with my years of interest in and study of children (their development and problems), I presented psychological studies of these topics to my colleagues. Each presentation and publication elicited informed and in terested response which added to my knowledge. Therefore, thanks are due to many organizations and individuals: among them are the Children's Center of Michigan, especially Dr. Paula Jorne; the Michigan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology; the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society; the Anna Freud Center (Lon don, England); the Oakland County Mental Health Clinic staff; the Detroit Psychiatric Clinic; the Michigan Psychoanalytic So ciety; and the Psychohistory Forum. Dr. Humberto Nagera helped on the original primary paper on China. However, it was my friend, Dr. George Pollock, who, after hearing the paper, and knowing of my additional material, insisted that I should put it into a book, "with just a little bit of extra work." After four years and much more work than antici pated, I produced this volume. With all of the information gath ered, I needed an informed, analytically sophisticated editorial ix x Acknowledgments opinion. Natalie Altman, who had helped me on an earlier pa per, studied my first draft manuscript and apprised me of the enormous amount of reorganization and rewriting 1 would have to do. This forced me to rethink what 1 wanted to accomplish. Did 1 want to publish another scientific study (I already had over 60 publications), or did 1 want to reach a larger audience, be yond the psychiatric pale? The answer became obvious to me, as you can tell from my comments in the Preface. Many models come to mind, among them Barbara Tuchman and Oscar Lewis. 1 would also like to acknowledge a friend who has been a leader, sometimes a con troversial one, in the field of psychohistory of childhood, Lloyd deMause. He helped me in the early research phases and was supportive throughout. This brings me to the difficult project of how to go about putting scientific material into a more widely meaningful and readable form and getting it published. For this 1 would like to thank Geoffrey Fox, who sent me in the right direction to Plen um Publishing Corporation. Now began the reworking, rewording, restructuring, re everything. Plenum (actually Senior Editor Linda Regan and her assistant, Naomi Brier) loved the material, but choked a little on the volume of gruesome detail and redundancy. 1 cannot thank them enough for their editorial help and support. But how was 1 going to handle the volume and complexity of changes needed? Fortunately 1 had the help of two more spe cial people in the juggling, spelling, and grammar: Jeff Gaydos (an excellent writer in his own right), and Beatrice Breiner (my wife and best critic), who did a Herculean job at the computer. Together, the three of us wrote, rewrote, edited, organized, reorganized, and revised. Certain organizations have been particularly helpful: The Bloomfield Hills Group of the Greater Detroit Chapter of Hadas sah heard a short version of one chapter and gave me a warm and supportive response. Acknowledgments xi The British Museum, Department of Egyptology and Dr. M. Bierbrier were informative and helpful. He kindly gave freely of his valuable time. Equally generous was Dr. E. Feucht of the Agyptologisches Institut, University of Heidelberg, who not only gave of her time, but sent me a prepublication section of her book that applied to my area of study. These are two of the world's outstanding Egyptologists. Another expert outside my own field gave me extensive help in exploring and understanding the vast Hebrew literature. With out that contribution this project could not have been completed. I refer to the Library of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Curator David Gilner has my profound thanks. But I am leaving out some essential players in this compli cated process. Linda Breiner Milstein, my daughter, and a child and infant therapist, made life difficult until I agreed to write the book, then helped by reading and critically evaluating the first draft. Dr. Sam Milstein, son-in-law and medical researcher/con sultant, set aside time from his busy schedule to help me make contacts for some of the research. Myles, my son and an M.A. in Chinese history and language, now an attorney, helped me in innumerable ways to understand the Chinese and their history here in the U. S. and when we were together in China. My son Robert and daughter (in-law) Debra have provided help and support that only comes from a close-knit family. Their children, Andrew and Daniel, and Linda and Sam's Noah and Zena, taught me more than all the texts. Despite all the help I have just acknowledged, it is only fair and just that I take full responsibility for any errors or any diffi culty in comprehensibility. Most of all I want to thank my patients, who have taught me the most. Without their trust I would have little appreciation of childhood and of the child within each of us.
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