IF SOLOMON HAD BEEN AN AMERICAN FAMILY COURT JUDGE
(with apologies to I Kings 3:16-28)
by Stephen Baskerville

And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.

Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

Then the king answered and said to the first, As thou hast spoken, even so shall it be. Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: though she be not the mother thereof, yet hath she established a routine which I durst not disrupt. Then spake he again and said, Henceforth shalt thou keep thyself from off the presence of thy child except it be every second Sabbath and Wednesday dinner, and thou shalt pay unto the other fifty shekels of silver each month as child support, because thou hast brought forth this child into the world, and now thou dost abandon it.

And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged. And the people saw how it profiteth to steal a child, and lo, it came to pass from that time forth that there was much snatching of children in the land.

And thereafter the docket of Solomon waxed exceeding great, and constrained was he to appoint judges to rule over the land; lawyers also appointed he them. And the people brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and horses, and mules, and oxen, and sheep, and garments, and houses, and laid them before the feet of the lawyers for the recovery of their children. And the riches of Solomon and of the judges and lawyers grew exceedingly much, even as the sand that is on the sea shore . . .

[Stephen Baskerville is a professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, DC]

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