Commentary There’s a biblical story that tells about King Solomon being asked to adjudicate between two women both claiming to be the true mother of a child. Solomon declared that since there was no way to resolve the dispute, he would have the baby split in two, and each woman could then receive half. While one of the two women sullenly agreed to this solution, the real mother begged that the child’s life be spared and that she be given to the other woman. In this way, Solomon knew the identity of the real mother. She was the one who could not, given a mother’s emotional attachment to her child, bear to see her child carved in two. Solomon punished the false claimant and gave the child to its actual mother. The story, intended to illustrate the wisdom of Solomon, introduced the idea of “splitting the baby” into the English …