Before I say anything, let me assure the reader, I know the word "landlord" is not going to go away anytime soon. People will use it in everyday conversation because it's what they've become accustomed to using. The official use of words in government regulations, however, can - and often is - changed by decree, if the old usage is considered, somehow, retrograde. Language evolves with usage and the meanings attached to words can shift with time. The need for semantic upgrade in official documents is evident when one compares old versions of laws, specific to particular considerations, with the current form that has evolved over the years from those original forms. Sometimes, the reason a law is upgraded is because the old language is not congruent with the way we speak about the subject involved in modern parlance. In yet other cases, new aspects of constitutionality are brought to light by bright minds, requiring an upgrade in the way law concerning that subject is interpreted. A more subtle form of outdatedness in legal semantics occurs when law fails to keep pace with evolution in social constructs or social norms. This writing addresses itself to the question of whether the word, "landlord", suitably reflects our society's ongoing movement toward inclusiveness and the need to reconcile the strong and the weak under one flag, in accordance with the aspirations laid out in our national constitution.
Though we don't often use them - at least, as yet - there are a number of synonyms for "landlord" that we should start getting used to using in any documents that carry legal authority - city regulations, rental contracts, court judgments, et. al. Consider the following: "lessor", "housing provider", "property owner", even "rentor" (an archaic, but useful, word with neutral power connotations).
The origins of the word "landlord" go back to times preceding Europe's industrial revolution, when tenant farmers, routinely referred to as peasants, were all too often subjected to extremely onerous extractions of the product of their toil, for the right to continue living on lands owned by wealthy families. The person holding title to the land they lived and worked would demand to be addressed by their often illiterate tenants as either, "M'Lord" or "M'Lady", so that the requisite differential in status might be abundantly clear, right from the outset. Failure to do so would be an expression of unforgivable effrontery. A very typical pictorial representation of a peasant petitioning consideration from a lord is that of a man clutching his cap anxiously with both hands in front of him, hunched over in a posture of supplication, as if his very life, and that of his family, depended on it as, indeed, it very often did.
Once the Industrial Revolution began to fuel the almost insatiable need for a vast array of products during the most active years of European empire growth across the globe, peasants were no longer chained to the land they grew up on. Anyone of any useful age who could be employed in any entity, private or public, engaged in this unprecedented expansion of sovereignty over foreign lands. No country could hope to be part of this rush to empire without being willing to field a large enough navy and army to spearhead and protect new fronts of expansion. This required men, equipment, materials and equipment, the provision for which drew heavily on populations previously locked in land deals with those that lorded it over them. Males of a previously inescapable lowly status now had a plethora of different options they could pursue, not just at home, but across the world.
Though their housing realities no longer approximated the primitive conditions from which most had extracted themselves, those they now rented from in cities were still called "landlords", since it was customary and no other word arose as a reasonable alternative. Indeed, deferring to custom, the word insinuated itself into law, even though those it referred to bore little resemblance to the original lords of the land such former peasants had left behind. Even those who were fortunate enough to rise to much higher relative status, still referred to those they paid rent to as their landlords.
Very conveniently for those who owned and rented out premises, the word "landlord" crossed the Atlantic with nary a dent in its hull. Not even the War of Independence lent reason enough for lexicographers to float an alternative more in line with the egalitarian aspirations of the Founders. I say "conveniently" because higher extractions of rent are possible when subtle inferences, inherent in the structure of the rental relationship, induce the tenant to feel inferior to the one who owns the property being rented out. It is the rarest of tenants who in no way fears the person who holds the power to obliterate his/her tenuous grip on security (which, for most tenants, hardly qualifies as security). For the so-called free market to work the way it's supposed to, buyer and seller have to be on a level psychological playing field with one another. Price point resistance on the part of the buyer needs to match the profit incentive projected by the seller.
That felicitous condition would be noticeably advanced if the word "landlord" were to be replaced by a less inherently intimidating synonym, wherever possible, in whatever writing governs affairs in the business of renting - legislation, contracts, court documents, judgments, et al. In time, the new usage would start to be reflected in the press and in general speech. I don't, for one moment, think that a change such as this would do much good on its own; it needs to be part of a much wider set of measures applied to the situation to make rent pricing more like Walmart pricing.
In the meantime, here we are today, with rents being charged that completely deflate the hopes and dreams of young adults. As for seniors who are forced by circumstance to rent and facing increasing difficulty finding adequately-paying work in the job market, the results of being priced out of one's home can be very grim - homelessness, depression, illness and an untimely death are common stories. When accused of extortion, property owners are quick to claim justification, on the basis that they are just doing business the American way, breaking no laws in the process. Maybe so, but should we just let the matter rest there and offer nothing, in response? Clearly, I, for one, don't think so. In fact, I think it grossly irresponsible to limply capitulate to the current situation.
I'd like to be able to "read the tea leaves", as they say, but the number of bets I've made that have come true suggests I'm not very good at that. So when I say that I sense a change in the air, with respect to the public attitude toward rent prices and rent conditions, better take it with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, when I was growing up in South Africa, I would insist to my conservatively-minded parents that the days of "apartheid" were numbered, to which assertion they would respond with unvarnished derision, calling it Pollyanna thinking. Those who keep up with African affairs know how that turned out. So here's hoping that what happened to the psychological differentials in South Africa - specifically, their wholesale implosion - might occur in the rental market in the USA, in the not-too-distant future.
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