Don't you see the slippery slope you're traveling down?
Where is the line in the sand drawn? Why are you defending a society in which it is perfectly normal for people, completely out of desperation and lack of any economic resources, to debase themselves and sell themselves (or be sold) to someone else, their master? Even if they had their basic provided for, would you consent to such an arrangement if you were in charge of today's society? No freedom to make a life for themselves, to have personal dignity, to make their own mark on the world? They could be beaten regularly as long as it didn't kill them, but that's okay because they're more like a "butler" than a "slave"? Their lives are bound to a master simply because they did not have economic or social advantages that others had. So this is okay with you?
And please spare me the "it was okay for them" horse shyt. Every atrocity in human history was "okay" for the perpetrators of it. Moral relativism is for college freshmen who think it's the "tolerant" thing to say.