I came across this article today in the New Yorker about legal guardians and elder abuse. One thing I found interesting is that the article attributes the guardianship power of the state to a 1324 statute called De Prerogative Regis and the notion of parens patriae. Some initial questions I have are:

Is the article right that this is the origin of guardianship? What is this statute? How was it used? How did the parens patriae power develop afterwards? Was it always a source of abuse?

If anybody else has any comments, ideas, questions, or answers I would love to hear them.

-- MattConroy - 08 Oct 2017

Also maybe this should be moved to QuestionsBeingAnswered for visibility?

-- MattConroy - 08 Oct 2017