EXPOSED CHILDREN. – These are children of an unknown father or of a mother who does not consent to being named, entrusted to the care of the community (State and province) in a foundling hospital.
In the Greek world there were two terms: « ἔκθεσις », which indicated the exposure of a child in a public place so that it might be taken in by others, also called ἐντιμισμός = impentolamento, from the pot-shaped receptacle in which it was ordinarily carried out; and « ἀπόθεσις », which was the actual abandonment of the child, without concern for its life.
The Romans, on the other hand, used the word exponere to signify the act of abandonment, without regard to the intention of the person who exposed the child. Today the term is reserved, as has been said, for children entrusted to special institutions called foundling hospitals. Exposure is therefore something different from the pure and simple abandonment of children. The phenomenon of exposing offspring is a painful reality that accompanies the fortunes of humanity itself and historically is confused with abandonment. Certain figures in Greek mythology begin their appearance by being represented as e. who escaped death, and the legend itself of the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus, two e., shows us that exposure was accepted from the very beginning of Roman society.
In practice and in Roman law, this fell within what was the pater familias’ right of life and death. At Rome there was also a place particularly designated for exposing “children,” the Forum Olitorium, where the columna lactaria stood; often, however, newborns were exposed on the banks of the Tiber and at the doors of temples. The e. was generally called alumna, at least if she survived.
The legal condition of the “nurselings,” although similar to that of slaves, was in itself intermediate between it and the condition of the free. Simple derelictio was never regarded as loss of ownership, so that the foundling legally remained free: in practice, he became the property of whoever took him in. A mitigation of the scourge of exposure came about through imperial public charity. But it was above all the Fathers of the Church and the councils who fought the practice of exposure as unnatural, beginning with the earliest apologists (S. Giustino, I, Apol., 27: PG 6, 370; Atenagora, Leg. pro Christ., 33: ibid. 6, 970). The councils established sanctions against those guilty of exposing children and issued practical provisions in favor of the e. (cf. Conc. di Vaison, cann. 9-10, a. 442, Conc. II di Arles, can. 51, a. 452: Mansi, VI, 455, 884). At the same time, the Church began the work of rescuing the e.
“We,” says s. Agostino, “through our virgins take in those children whom their parents cruelly exposed” (Epist. 98: CSEL, XXXIV, p. 527).
The influence of Christian thought made itself felt in legislation. Constantine, violating the Roman principle of patria potestas, established by the constitution of Apr. 331 that whoever had taken in and maintained an e. could keep the child in the condition of a son or daughter. Through subsequent measures under Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, one arrives at Justinian, who granted the e. perfect freedom, freeing them also from the servile condition into which they might have been born (Cod. Iust., IV, 24; VIII, 51 [law of 520]; Nov. 153 [a. 541]). This constitution regulated the legal position of the e. until the appearance of the modern codes.
Later, in order to provide for the salvation of the e., foundling hospitals (v.) were founded by ecclesiastics. At first, infants who had actually been abandoned were admitted there; later, with the introduction of the revolving hatch, children whom their mothers did not wish to raise were accepted with a guarantee of secrecy. This organization was intended solely to ensure the child’s salvation, protecting it from prenatal and postnatal dangers on the part of its parents. Owing to particular historical circumstances, the e. were regarded as legitimate.
The entire work on behalf of the e. was carried out by religious institutions under the impulse of the Church. It was only during the 17th–19th centuries that the national States also appropriated the foundling hospitals, considering them Church property. New reforms were immediately begun, leading to the abolition of the revolving hatch in foundling hospitals, without, however, changing the problem of the e.
At present, the e. are illegitimate children deposited in the foundling hospital and, by legal fiction, considered the children of unknown parents; children found in a state of actual abandonment are assimilated to them.
Civil laws fall into two groups with regard to the e.: one group of legal systems does not admit them (Germany, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, England, the U.S.A., Japan...), but every mother must acknowledge her own child; the other group admits them (Italy, France, Spain, Holland...), leaving the mother free to acknowledge or not to acknowledge her child.
The practice of the Church, which created the foundling hospitals, currently tends to eliminate the category of e. by persuading the mother to acknowledge her illegitimate offspring, giving the child a name and maintenance, while naturally always safeguarding the rights of family integrity. The constitution of the Italian Republic (art. 30) also seems to proceed along these lines. The exposure of offspring in the modern sense, without speaking of absolute abandonment, is in itself always unlawful, unless reasons of a higher order, such as the integrity of the family or of society, justify II. V. INFANZIA ABBANDONATA.
BIBLI: O. Andreucci, Della ruota e dei torni negli espizi degli e., Firenze 1868; L. Lallemand, Histoire des enfants abandonnés et délaissés, Parigi 1885; G. Tropeano, I figli illegittimi, Napoli 1933; A. Angelini-Rota, I figli adulterini e incestuosi nel diritto comparato, Roma 1930. Vittorio Maconi