Abstract

This paper presents a typology of property rights that people have claimed, exercised, or theoretically could hold in other human beings. It explores the full spectrum of these rights—ranging from overt ownership, as in slavery, to partial or symbolic forms of control such as guardianship, intellectual control, labor obligations, and reproductive or contractual claims. By analyzing these through legal, economic, philosophical, and theological frameworks, the paper seeks to clarify the underlying structures that have allowed human beings to be treated as property in different degrees and forms, while also tracing the evolution of prohibitions against such ownership.

1. Introduction: The Problem of Property in Persons

Historically, the concept of “property in persons” sits at the intersection of ownership, sovereignty, and moral legitimacy. While modern law rejects chattel slavery, many forms of partial control, dependency, and alienable rights over others persist—through employment contracts, parental authority, guardianship, marriage law, and the commercial use of likeness, reputation, and data. This typology seeks to organize all known forms of such property relations and reveal their moral, legal, and theological underpinnings.

2. The Theoretical Foundations of Property in Persons

2.1 Classical Definitions of Property

In Roman and Anglo common law, dominium or ownership denotes absolute control over a thing. The difficulty arises when “things” are persons—entities with will, reason, and moral agency.

2.2 Theories of Self-Ownership and Alienability

Lockean theory posits self-ownership, yet also allows the alienation of one’s labor. This leads to derivative forms of ownership by others, as the laborer’s productive capacity is contractually transferred.

2.3 Moral and Theological Boundaries

Biblical and natural law traditions assert divine ownership of humanity, setting limits on what kinds of control one person may exercise over another. These doctrines remain central to abolitionist and human rights thought.

3. Absolute Property in Persons

3.1 Chattel Slavery

The most complete form of property right in another person involves total alienation of freedom and legal personhood. Historical examples include:

Ancient Near Eastern debt slavery Roman servus status Atlantic chattel slavery systems Wartime enslavement and penal servitude

3.2 Hereditary and Commercial Dimensions

In these systems, humans were transferable, inheritable, and subject to market valuation. Such property was defended as both economic capital and social order.

4. Limited and Conditional Property Rights

4.1 Serfdom and Feudal Tenure

A serf was “owned” insofar as his labor and residence were bound to land or lord. Ownership was jurisdictional rather than absolute: the person retained limited personal rights but was compelled to perform labor duties.

4.2 Indentured Servitude and Apprenticeship

Contract-based servitude allowed temporary transfer of labor rights and, often, limited bodily control. While formally consensual, it often blurred into coercion.

4.3 Penal and Military Service

States claim temporary property-like rights in convicts or soldiers: the right to compel service, restrict liberty, and subject bodies to discipline.

5. Familial and Custodial Property Rights

5.1 Paternal and Parental Authority

Parents possess limited property-like rights in their children—such as control over labor, residence, and marriage decisions—until majority. This is justified as stewardship rather than ownership.

5.2 Guardianship and Trusteeship

Guardians, conservators, or fiduciaries hold legal control over the affairs and sometimes the bodies of minors or incapacitated adults, creating a partial property structure in another’s decision-making capacity.

5.3 Marital Property Rights

Historically, marriage transferred rights over the spouse’s body, labor, and legal identity (e.g., coverture). Modern family law dismantled most of these but retains residual elements (spousal support, medical decision rights).

6. Economic and Contractual Property in Persons

6.1 Employment and Wage Labor

Labor contracts commodify time, attention, and bodily exertion. The employer’s rights are derivative—control over labor but not the person. Nonetheless, managerial power produces de facto property-like authority.

6.2 Intellectual and Performative Rights

Artists, athletes, and creators alienate control of their image, voice, or persona through contracts. The right to one’s likeness, biometric data, and identity forms a new arena of “digital personhood property.”

6.3 Debt, Collateral, and Suretyship

Historically, debt default could result in personal bondage. Modern analogues include wage garnishment, compulsory labor for restitution, or the economic leverage of debt dependency.

7. Reproductive and Genetic Property Rights

7.1 Surrogacy and Parental Rights

Contracts for gestation or sperm/egg donation involve partial claims over reproductive labor and biological material, raising questions about ownership of progeny and bodily functions.

7.2 Genetic Information and Cloning

Genomic data as property blurs the line between personal identity and transferable information. Legal systems increasingly grapple with the ownership of genetic “selves.”

8. Symbolic and Reputational Property Rights

8.1 Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL)

In the age of digital media, ownership over one’s digital likeness has become a valuable and transferable asset. The inversion—ownership by others of one’s likeness—raises ethical concerns akin to slavery of persona.

8.2 Data and Algorithmic Control

Corporations hold de facto property in users’ behaviors and preferences. Such control over identity and representation constitutes a modern, algorithmic form of property in persons.

9. State Sovereignty and Collective Property in Persons

9.1 Citizenship and Taxation

The state exercises property-like claims through conscription, taxation, and compulsory education. These assert that citizens owe productive capacity to the sovereign.

9.2 Biopolitics and Population Management

From census data to vaccination mandates, states manage citizens as population assets, blurring the distinction between stewardship and ownership.

10. Typology Summary

Type

Domain of Control

Example

Degree of Alienation

Absolute Property

Body and will

Chattel slavery

Total

Jurisdictional Property

Labor and residence

Serfdom

High

Contractual Property

Labor/time

Employment, indenture

Medium

Familial Property

Guardianship, minors

Parental rights

Medium

Reproductive Property

Body and progeny

Surrogacy

Medium

Reputational Property

Identity and likeness

NIL contracts

Partial

Informational Property

Data and behavior

AI profiling

Partial

Sovereign Property

Service and loyalty

Conscription, taxation

Partial

11. The Moral and Legal Trajectory

The modern human rights movement seeks to abolish property in persons, yet new forms emerge through contractual and technological mediation. The typology shows that control of others persists wherever consent is commodified or constrained.

12. Theological Considerations

From a biblicist perspective, only God possesses rightful ownership of persons. All other claims are derivative stewardship under divine law. The biblical regulation of slavery, adoption, and redemption serves as a corrective: property in persons is tolerable only within covenantal limits that preserve dignity and moral agency.

13. Conclusion

Property in persons, though legally abolished in its absolute forms, endures in fragmented, contractual, and algorithmic modes. Recognizing and classifying these helps lawmakers, ethicists, and theologians discern when stewardship becomes exploitation—and where human dignity must reassert its primacy over market or sovereign control.