The Second Shepherd's Play And The Little Clay Cart Analysis

In The Second Shepherd 's Play, and Shudraka 's The Little Clay Cart two different attitudes toward children emerge. Both are based strongly in religious custom, emphasize the importance of a child 's potential, and demonstrate how both societies greatly depend on the success of their children. However, Hinduism and medieval Christianity differ greatly in many aspects, such as a child 's role in the family and community, the education of their children, and how their child 's gender will impact the outcome of their lives. The cultural and religious differences may be glaring, but its important to note how both plays deal with children receiving gifts and how what they receive have a direct relationship with how much potential, or worth, that …show more content…
For the poor, children are both an extreme burden and a necessity for survival of the family. As Allan L. Patenaude writes in History of the Treatment of and Attitudes Toward Children, “proper child rearing was deemed essential for survival” (Patenaude, 5). Proper child rearing entailed raising children “in a multigenerational, extended family setting in which extreme sex-role differentiation was being enculturated and subsequently maintained within patriarchal power structures” (Patenaude, 5). Children were kept close to home and belonged under the ownership of their parents, specifically the patriarch of the family, in order for the elder family members to ensure their needs could be met when they become too old to provide for themselves. Children are reared with a future role-reversal of care giving in mind. For poor families with many children, suffering comes before prosperity as “children were generally regarded as infants until the age of 7 years” (Patenaude, 5). Parents are charged with the task of seeing that their children survive infancy. Mak gives a burdened outlook on children, saying he has“A house full of young tharms!/ The devil knock out their harns!/ Woe is him has many barns,/ and thereto little bread” (The Wakefield Master, 557). Having many children would be prosperous to his household if only keeping them fed in the meantime wasn 't such strenuous work. Yet Mak is deceptive with his intentions. He maintains that his aim is only to provide for his children to gain the trust of the shepherds, and to prove the proper, acceptable amount of devotion to his children. Devotion for one 's children would be a very universal concept for them to understand, according to Patenaude “even in societies that were permitted physical means to control children, it was found that parents were often reported to love