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Jardim Botânico Tropical de Belém, Lisboa, Portugal, 02-06-23

in slavery and social death patterson is unable to reduce slavery to a property relation because family and kin are already property relations. instead he defines it as alienation from natal family, and the inability to form new ties through participation in marriage and lineage. with incest, i find the anthropological notion of taboo, a prohibition on who you can marry or procreate with more useful, for the similar reason that arranged marriages are already a kin based property relation, but it's not coherent to call them incestuous. i think the best way to learn about the family and incest is to read about as many different kinds of family structures in different times and places as possible, and then lean into the seams until the stitching comes undone. but a couple more readings pertinent to what i've said here would be the roman family by suzanne dixon and honor and the political economy of marriage by joanne payton

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky - Set design for Tannhäuser - c.1930 - via Sotheby's

okay that is the opposite of the point i was trying to make—namely that the part of the reason you don't typically see slavery (and barely even servitude) named in reference to rgu is because this interpretation was virulently rejected. also please factor in the "just started watching" part of the original post if you're going to talk about "the whole show."

Golden-spotted Ground Dove (Metriopelia aymara) native to the high Andes. x