13.09.2026
Two women give birth at the same time. One baby dies and one survives. The women fight over the remaining baby, saying each of them is the mother. King Solomon’s solution? That we cut the baby in half and give each half to each mother. The real mother will not allow this to happen while the false mother will. This is the supposed wisdom and legal acumen of Solomon.
The monstrosity of Judaeo-Christian legal culture is displayed in this story. First, the law pits itself against the false mother. The false mother stands as deceit, usurpation, as women and their lying tongues. A King’s law stands against the mother. The Father’s law against The Mother. Remember, with his law, the Father rules over the women in this case. The law is an expression of his power over them. This case does not concern him. He has no personal interest in this case. Yet it is his word that counts. The law is an expression of patriarchal power and its ordering of the social universe and the world of women.
What about the fact that the King’s law favours the real mother? But even her, the King’s law hurts. Because the King says that he will cut her baby in half. In fact, the King inflicts the imaginary symbolic violence of the law on the baby. The law is violence: duress. It is not for any reason that Freud associates the King and his Law with castration. The law is violence, imaginary violence. Symbolic violence. A violence that is directed against the body that is subject to the King and his jurisdiction.
Again, we note that the imaginary violence of the law directed against the subjugated body is also a lie. It is a fiction. The law is a lie. Yet the madness persists. The lie or the fiction is instrumental in delivering justice. There is a meta level to this. The story of King Solomon’s judgement itself is probably a fiction that is espousing what the law and justice mean too. It is lie upon lie in this legal culture to build up this legal culture and its notions of the law, justice and legal acumen for the Father. Not only does the Father lie, but he expects The Mother to lie. She has to lie that the baby is not hers so she can save its life. The lies breed lies.
Yet in this legal culture, Solomon is wise. Because he is The Father. Because he rules over women and The Mother with his decisions. Because this law creates one Mother as the bad mother, as false woman with its misogyny. Because he breeds lies. And this lie? It is called justice. This is the legal culture that the West has inherited.
