        We must turn to the law to see if there is wisdom on valuing a life. A life in the modern day justice system sees life as priceless with the abolishment of slavery. Humans cannot be bought at any price, legally. Human trafficking is a modern day form of slavery, with no legal precedence. While owning another’s life is illegal, what does it mean to own someone’s death? The law has strict punishments for those who murder another life, in the form of imprisonment and fines. The murderer goes to jail to live the rest of their foreseeable life, and owes fines they are incapable of paying. The murderer for all intents and purposes, loses their own life. This is an eye-for-an-eye value approach. This doesn’t give us a value to life, but tells us what taking a life isn’t worth. Going back to the medieval era Jean Froissart had written in 1395,

This system bound the serfs to their lords through the bible, and the law. Owning a person was perhaps not what the Feudal System was based upon, but it has the likings to a sort of religious slavery. The lord of a plot of land gained power through a lineage of other lords, deemed worthy in the eyes of God to own a serfdom. The original lords had the most wealth, or were given land by other lords. The size of the plot of land dictated how many serfs served under the lord. The wealth of a lord depended upon his serfs’ productivity, and this depended upon their lord for proper guidance. This is how the law was in the medieval era. Today, we still value land and property as one of the greatest form of wealth -- with stocks becoming an investment in the Stock Market given in good faith for a profit. Law today values a person’s assets as a part of the person, so when someone is murdered, the person’s assets account for the fines to be paid in the name of the law. Perhaps, we can judge a person’s value based on law, faith and the economy, not individually, but combined?
        Alas, there is no answer I can give about how to value a person’s life. I say, a person needs to value their own life and choose what to do with their time. Time should be the value of a person’s life, with a young person having more wealth in time compared to an old person on their deathbed. If time is the answer to the value of a person’s life, what about the murderer, the serf, the slave, or the trafficked human? They know not of the freedom of a free man, they only know what their life allows them to be. A free man’s life is more valuable than one that isn’t free, but there can be no value placed on freedom. To be free is valuable, and that is what Heaven is for those who don’t have it.
        

