The reasoning was neither scientific nor medically valid.
A man's height and leg proportions do not establish that he will father more sons.
Nevertheless, such ideas could appeal to people whose economic interests encouraged them to regard reproduction as a means of expanding their labor force.
Male children were often valued for the physical work they might later be forced to perform, although enslaved women and girls were also exploited through agricultural, domestic, and other forms of labor.
Within this system, the ability of enslaved people to have children could be treated not as an intimate aspect of family life but as an opportunity to increase an owner's wealth.
The idea that any person's reproductive capacity could be managed for financial gain represents one of slavery's most invasive forms of exploitation.
It transformed the body into a resource.
It transformed parenthood into an instrument of ownership.
And it transformed children into potential additions to an inventory.
