Slavery Question Based on Wall Street Journal Article

The article “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege” in the WJS quoted a statistic that at the height of the Civil War (1860) less than 5% of white people in the sourth owned slaves. I would like to inquire about the word owned. For example, if a mother, father and family of three have 5 slaves would only the father count as the owner?

bump

I don’t know, since I didn’t write the article.

I think that is a good question, since it brings up the difference between “owned” and “benefitted from”. Arguably, the entirely family benefitted from the slaves, although only one person technically “owned” the slaves.

PS I like your signature