When you read the texts about children in the Gospel according to Matthew, you have to take into account the socio-cultural context of the 1st-century Mediterranean world in which the New Testament originated (cf. Carter 1994:98–108; Grobbelaar 2008:287–298; Lincoln 1990:398–402). It was a world where the Hellenistic and Judaic social and cultural contexts met each other. Actually, ‘throughout history … Jewish culture always existed alongside other cultures. … absorbing and transforming ideas they learned from their neighbors …’ (Baumgarten
2011:16). In such a context, childhood was complex, and it is not possible to create a monolithic view of childhood in the 1st-century Mediterranean world. For understanding the background of Matthew’s picture of Jesus and children, some generalisations are necessary (cf.
Murphy 2013:loc. 1516–1517) and indeed possible. Despite the differences between the cultures in the 1st-century Mediterranean world, Botha (1999:316) is of the opinion that, in daily practices, the Jewish family did not differ much in structure, ideals and dynamics from the families of the other Mediterranean cultures. Balla (2003:109) also comes to the same conclusion that, in spite of some differences,
‘much of the views concerning the child-parent relationship was shared by Jews and non-Jews in the centuries around the time of the New Testament’.
In the Mediterranean world of the 1st century, children were not important. People often disregarded and even abused them. In this regard, Strange (2000) states:
When Matthew recounted the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, he drew his story to a close with the comment: ‘Some five thousand men shared in this meal, not counting the woman and children’ (Mt. 14:21). ‘Not counting the children’ was a good summary of a widespread attitude. (p. 38)
This world was also an androcentric world: They always regarded men as superior to women. The family structure was essentially patriarchal.
All authority in the family resided in the father as patriarch. He had absolute legal authority over his wife, children, slaves and property, and he was the only one who could take decisions about any conflict or disputes in his family (Boecker 1980:29). He was responsible for taking decisions about slaves, marriage and divorce, the discipline of children, household tasks and matters related to inheritance (cf. Perdue 1997:174;
Wright 1992:764).
According to different laws, the status of children was ‘that of property belonging to the father’ (Wright 1990:222). In this regard, Phillips (2002) declares:
How the head of the household dealt with members of his household who were not free adult males was in general his private affair, and in contrast to wrongs inflicted on members of other households, was unlikely to cause any public disorder in the community. Consequently, his domestic actions were of no concern for the courts. (p. 112)
In a certain sense, children were ‘owned’ and in a sense not ‘people’, and therefore, fathers could do with them as they saw fit. This kind of authority included the power to decide about the life or death of a child.
A father could wait until after the birth of a child to decide whether he would accept or reject the child. If the father decided not to accept the child as his, he could dispose of such a child on the ash heaps outside the town or city gates (Malina, Joubert & Van der Watt 1995:7). It is possible that, although very primitive, disposing of children was practice as a means of controlling the population growth (cf. Van Aarde 2004:134). Although the same type of laws did not apply to the father’s authority in the Judaic world, the father was still the unchallenged head of the family to whom the children had to be absolutely obedient (Malina et al. 1995:7). According to Murphy (2013:loc. 1579–1580)
‘[i]nfanticide, the deliberate killing of infants and young children, or its attempt is attested in Jewish sources’. He (Murphy 2013:loc. 1630–1632;
cf. Boswell 1988:138–152; Cooper 1996:35–44) adds that the Jewish descriptions were not as explicit as those in the Greco-Roman sources, but the practice of infanticide was definitely present amongst the Jews even before they were exposed to Hellenism and in spite of the fact that it was legally prohibited. Murphy (2013:loc. 2195–2210) also stresses that it is necessary to distinguish between abandonment and infanticide.
Many cases of abandonment did not become infanticide (Murphy 2013:loc. 1630–1632).
Up to 90% of the population were peasants. Most people struggled financially, and during the 1st century, more than 70% of the population lived below the breadline (Malina et al. 1995:12). In such a situation, children were a valuable source of labour and income. Child labour was a generally accepted norm. From as early as the age of five, boys had to gather the harvest, and girls had to begin baking bread (Botha 2000:67).
When sowing and gathering the harvest, everyone had to work, and there was no time for formal education.
Education was a process of moulding. ‘Children had to be ruled, disciplined; they had to be ‘‘made’’ like a rough piece of wood that is turned into a smooth and finished object by energy and force’ (Botha 2000:68). The father played the primary role in the education of children. Especially in the Jewish world, he was responsible for instructing his children in the law of God (Balla 2003:82). Corporal punishment was often part of the teaching process (Balla 2003:83–84).
Children, in a sense, had to be tamed and, therefore, were kept in a constant state of fear.
It was also a world with poor hygienic conditions. ‘Various types of sickness stemming from malnutrition and poverty made childhood in the ancient world very precarious’ (Chouinard 1997:341). The death toll was generally very high amongst children. ‘Infant mortality rates sometimes reached 30%. Another 30% of live births were dead by age 6, and 60% were gone by age sixteen’ (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003:336).
The years of being a child was very short. Most of the girls were married by the age of 13, and most boys were married by the age of 15 or 16 (Botha 2000:75–76).
Life was generally very harsh on children. Children were property that belonged to the parents, in the words of Malina and Rohrbaugh (2003):
[A] minor, a child was on a par with a slave, and only after reaching maturity was he/she a free person who could inherit the family estate. The orphan was the stereotype of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. The term
‘child/children’ could also be used as a serious insult (cf. Mt 11:16–17; Lk 7:32).
(p. 336)
They viewed childhood as an incomplete state of being that was a mere prelude for adulthood. Children’s value laid primarily in ‘their future contributions as adults’ (Carroll 2001:122) or as Maas (2000:457) states it, ‘in the promise of maturity (as heir, producer of wealth, defender of the nation, or bearer of more children) rather than in the concrete reality of the present’. Wilkins (2004) express the same view, saying:
[C]hildren were valued primarily for the benefit that they brought to the family by enhancing the workforce, adding to the defensive power, and guaranteeing the future glory of the house. But they had no rights or significance apart from their future value to the family and were powerless in society. (p. 612)
The goal of parenthood was to control the behaviour of the child and to mould the child to become an honourable adult.
Carter (1994) identifies four similarities in how children were viewed and treated in Jewish and in Greco-Roman homes. He formulated these four similarities as follow:
To be a child is to be dependent on one’s parents.
As a lifelong duty, a child submits to and obeys its parents within the hierarchical household. Children are to care for and serve their elderly parents.
Children are marginal beings who are seen as a threat to the civic order. The child must be taught its place so as to maintain that structure. The essential problem with being a child is that one is not an adult citizen.
A child is in transition to its valued future role as an adult citizen. The child exists for the future in that it is the duty of citizens to give birth to future citizens end ensure the survival of the state. Proper training is necessary for children to learn their future roles. Training functions to guard the state from the potentially destructive influence that untrained adults would exert on the social order.
(pp. 100–101)