Yet, if I said my wife belonged to me I think I would get a few rebukes.

Why not just have a conversation in good faith?

Instead of assuming the person you're chatting with is talking about slavery, and then when they clarify they're not talking about slavery, and you saying that it could be about slavery, you could just as easily say, "oh I misunderstood you". Sometimes humans have misunderstandings. Languages are messy. Just let it go.

	▲	Dilettante_ 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They didn't misunderstand, they challenged the phrasing. Some people believe that words have power and language matters(or at least are entertaining the idea).
	▲	pipes 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I haven't made any assumptions at all, reread what I said, then reread the replies. First one is a personal attack about being libertarian (an assumption), second one starts off as an attack too. I expressed a preference, in a light hearted way, hence the "hrm...". I come here for good faith debate and I'm genuinely grateful for it (I've said as much in other comments).

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burkaman 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Right, because that's a completely different sentence with a completely different meaning.