Editing Child abandonment (section)

===Abandonment===
One of the earliest surviving examples of child abandonment in literature is that of [[Oedipus]], who is left to die as a baby in the hills by a herdsman ordered to kill the baby, but is found and grows up to unwittingly marry [[Jocasta|his biological mother]].

In a common variant on the abandonment and rediscovery of an infant, the biblical story of [[Moses]] describes how the Jewish infant is abandoned by his mother and set to float in the Nile in a reed basket, in hopes that he will be found and nurtured; as planned, [[Finding of Moses|the child is discovered]] and adopted by the queen of Egypt, thus gaining a higher social status and better education, as well as a more powerful position than his birth family could have given him. A similar story is told of other heroes who eventually learn about their true origins only as adults, when they find they are able to save their original parents or family by wielding power from their adoptive status, while making use of an education that sets them apart from their peers. The theme is also carried through in the case of many modern superheroes, most famously Superman (see Modern Media below). Mark Twain tweaks the traditional "upgrading" of the foundling's social status by having the child's twin, who is powerful by birth, experience the "downgrading " of his position in a switch planned by the two children, in "The Prince and the Pauper".

In many tales, such as ''[[Snow White]],'' the child is actually abandoned by a servant who had been given orders to put the child to death. Other tales such as [[Hansel and Gretel]] has children reluctantly abandoned in the forest by their parents since they were no longer able to feed them.

Children are often abandoned with birth tokens, which act as [[plot device]]s to ensure that the child can be identified. This theme is a main element in [[Angelo F. Coniglio]]'s historical fiction novella ''[[The Lady of the Wheel]],'' in which the title refers to a "receiver of foundlings" who were placed in a device called a "foundling wheel", in the wall of a church or hospital.<ref name=Amazon.com>{{cite web|last=Cipolla|first=Gaetano|title=The Lady of the Wheel (La Ruotaia)|url=https://www.amazon.com/Angelo-F.-Coniglio/e/B007SIMK6E|publisher=Legas}}</ref>

In Shakespeare's ''[[The Winter's Tale]],'' a recognition scene in the final act reveals by these that [[Perdita (The Winter's Tale)|Perdita]] is a king's daughter rather than a shepherdess, and so suitable for her prince lover.<ref>Northrop Frye, "Recognition in ''The Winter's Tale,"'' pp. 108–109 of ''Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology.'' {{ISBN|0-15-629730-2}}.</ref> Similarly, when the heroine of ''[[Le Fresne (lai)|Le Fresne]]'' reveals the brocade and the ring she was abandoned with, her mother and sister recognize her; this makes her a suitable bride for the man whose mistress she had been.<ref>[[Francis James Child]], ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads,'' v. 2, p. 68. Dover Publications, New York, 1965.</ref>
[[File:Princess Belle-Etoile 2 - illustration by Walter Crane - Project Gutenberg eText 18344.jpg|right|thumb|The children of Queen Blondine and of her sister, Princess Brunette, picked up by a Corsair after seven days at sea; illustration by [[Walter Crane]] to the fairy tale ''[[Princess Belle-Etoile]].'']]

From Oedipus onward, Greek and Roman tales are filled with exposed children who escaped death to be reunited with their families—usually, as in [[Longus]]' ''Daphnis and Chloe,'' more happily than in Oedipus' case. Grown children, having been taken up by strangers, were usually recognized by tokens that had been left with the exposed baby: In [[Euripides]]'s ''[[Ion (play)|Ion]],'' [[Creüsa]] is about to kill [[Ion (mythology)|Ion]], believing him to be her husband's illegitimate child, when a priestess reveals the birth-tokens that show that Ion is her own, abandoned infant.

This may reflect the widespread practice of child abandonment in their cultures. On the other hand, the motif is continued through literature where the practice is not widespread. [[William Shakespeare]] used the abandonment and discovery of Perdita in ''The Winter's Tale,'' as noted above, and [[Edmund Spenser]] reveals in the last Canto of Book 6 of ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' that the character Pastorella, raised by shepherds, is in fact of noble birth. [[Henry Fielding]], in one of the first novels recognized as such, recounted ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling]].'' In the case of [[Quasimodo]], the eponymous character in [[Victor Hugo]]'s ''[[The Hunchback of Notre-Dame]]'', the disfigured child is abandoned at the cathedral's foundling's bed, made available for the leaving of unwanted infants. Ruth Benedict, in studying the Zuni, found that the practice of child abandonment was unknown, but featured heavily in their folktales.<ref>Maria Tatar, ''The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales,'' p. 60. {{ISBN|0-691-06722-8}}.</ref>

Still, even cultures that do not practice it may reflect older customs; in medieval literature, such as ''[[Sir Degaré]]'' and ''[[Le Fresne (lai)|Le Fresne]],'' the child is abandoned immediately after birth, which may reflect pre-Christian practices, both Scandavian and Roman, that the newborn would not be raised without the father's decision to do so.<ref>Barbara A. Hanawalt, ''The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England,'' p. 172. {{ISBN|0-19-504564-5}}.</ref>