It might be that a sluggish
bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post.
The Pyncheons, if all stories were true, haughtily as they bore themselves in the noonday streets of their native town, were no better than
bond-servants to these plebeian Maules, on entering the topsy-turvy commonwealth of sleep.
This is Christ who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
Deborah Madsen maintains that the description of the Governor's bond-servant in The Scarlet Letter
"'A for Abolition': Hawthorne's Bond-Servant and the Shadow of Slavery." Journal of American Studies 25.2 (1991): 255-59.
(96)It follows that "[t]he woman cannot be forced into marriage but must give and submit herself to her husband with her free consent." (97) Moreover, "[t]he woman is a companion, not a bond-servant of the husband," and "[e]ach spouse has equal right to require the other to observe the natural, obligatory laws of conjugal union," (98) such as conjugal fidelity, mutual aid, etc.
Although he acknowledges the existence of "the relationship between bond-servant and master," he makes it clear that he does not justify "the kind of servitude that is harsh and repugnant to human dignity." RIGHTS IN THE FAMILY, supra note 22, [paragraph] 978, at 5.
At the risk of being pilloried myself, may I suggest we stop looking to the corporate business world as our example and start looking to Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant and, being made in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
In the same talk on Servant Leadership, I referred to the ancient hymn in the Letter of Paul to the Philippians on the kenosis of Christ (Philippians 2: 5-7): "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men."
Ellis distinguished between "
bond-servants" and "white slaves," the former having come to the colonies voluntarily but "whose condition was little better than of the convict-slaves," while the latter were largely political prisoners and prisoners of war shipped to the colonies where they were auctioned off for various terms of years "sometimes for life as slaves."
I also fail to see where in the texts published by Eidem (his Text 911 is in Iraq 47 [1985]: 98) it says that these refugees are to be sent "as captive workers" or "as
bond-servants" (p.