Laura Francais-Eugene

“If you think a guardianship situation cannot be the equivalent of legally imposed slavery, ask 78-year-old Margaret Carson, an African-American woman residing in Washington, DC. She is lively, alert, in full control of her faculties. Her only vice (in the eyes of the manager of the Ashbury Dwellings senior housing complex where she lives) is that she has too many mementos in her apartment of her five children, all of whom she outlived.”

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As human beings, we live in a world of relationships. There are, of course, hundreds or even thousands of relationships we can name to describe how one person relates to another: parent-child; employer-employee; landlord-tenant.

Relationships take place within the context of a situation – in other words, how one person is situated in regard to another person, as we compare their roles, their rights, their power and obligations – legal, moral and otherwise. For example, the parent-child relationship takes place within the context of the Family or Familial relationship. Bosses and workers relate to each other in the contact of an Employment relationship. Landlords and tenants are acquainted over the matter of property usage. And as mentioned, rights and obligations and powers are assigned to each of the participants by our society’s laws and traditions.

Two other situations in which human beings “relate” to each other – one, thankfully, is largely historic and passé in terms of its place in society. The other is – perhaps unfortunately – very modern and quietly, even at times insidiously prevalent in society.

The first situation is a word we are all familiar with – “slavery”. The relationship is that of master-to-slave. The second situation is something modern mechanisms of law calls “guardianship,” and the relationship there is Guardian-to-Ward, or sometimes Trustee-to-Trustor.

I looked-up both words in Black’s Law Dictionary. That reference book describes “slavery” as a situation – a relationship between human beings – in which one person has absolute power and control over the property, the fortunes, and even the life of another person, at the Master’s discretion, for the Master’s pleasure or benefit, and with all the rights and powers in the hands of the Master to do as he pleases. More