Slave Law

"Does the law of Tharna not give it the right to speak, Dorna the Proud, Second in Tharna?" asked the Tatrix, whose voice, too, was imperious and cold, yet pleased me more than the tones of she who wore the silver mask.

"Does the law recognize beasts?" asked the woman whose name was Dorna the Proud. It was almost as if she challenged her Tatrix, and I wondered if Dorna the Proud was content to be Second in Tharna. The sarcasm in her voice had been ill concealed.
Outlaw of Gor     Book 2     Page 91


On Gor a slave, not being legally a person, does not have a name in his own right, just as, on earth, our domestic animals, not being persons before the law, do not have names.
Outlaw of Gor     Book 2     Page 197


I smiled to myself for I could always tell her, and truthfully, that having saved her life she was now mine by Gorean law, so brief had been her freedom, and that it was up to me to determine the extent and nature of her clothing, and indeed, whether or not she would be allowed clothing at all.
Priest-Kings of Gor     Book 3     Page 185


It then occurred to me, suddenly, that, following Gorean civic law, the properties and titles, assets and goods of a given individual who is reduced to slavery are automatically regarded as having been transferred to the nearest male relative or nearest relative if no adult male relative is available or to the city or to, if pertinent, a guardian. Thus, if Aphris of Turia, by some mischance, were to fall to Kamchak, and surely slavery, her considerable riches would be immediately assigned to Saphrar, merchant of Turia.
Moreover, to avoid legal complications and free the assets for investment and manipulation, the transfer is asymmetrical, in the sense that the individual, even should he somehow later recover his freedom, retains no legal claim whatsoever on the transferred assets.
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Page 103

"Is it my understanding," asked Saphrar, the golden drops over his eyes rising, "that you would upon reaching your majority - transfer your entire fortunes to a Tuchuk, merely to obtain your freedom."

"Of course!" she wept.

"How fortunate then," observed Saphrar, "that such a transaction is precluded by law."

"I don't understand," said Aphris.

Kamchak squeezed my shoulder and rubbed his nose. "Surely you are aware," said Saphrar, "that a slave cannot own property - any more than a kaiila, a tharlarion or sleen."

"I am the richest woman in Turia!" she cried.

Saphrar reclined a bit more on his cushions. His little round pinkish face shone. He pursed his lips and then smiled. He poked his head forward and said, very quickly, "You are a slave!" He then giggled.

Aphris of Turia threw back her head and screamed.

"You do not even have a name," hissed the little merchant.

It was true. Kamchak would undoubtedly continue to call her Aphris, but it would be now his name for her and not her own. A slave, not being a person in the eyes of Gorean law, cannot possess a name in his own right, any more than an animal. Indeed, in the eyes of Gorean law, unfortunately, slaves are animals, utterly and unqualifiedly at the disposition of their masters, to do with as he pleases.

"I think," roared Kamchak, "I will call her Aphris of Turia!"

"Free me, Saphrar," cried the girl piteously, "free me!"

Saphrar laughed.

"Sleen!" she screamed at him. "You stinking sleen!"

"Be careful," warned Saphrar, "how you speak to the richest man in Turia!"

Aphris wept and pulled at the retaining rings.

"You understand, of course," continued Saphrar, "that at the instant you became slave all your properties and riches, your wardrobes and jewels, your investments and assets, chattels and lands, became mine."
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Pages 132 - 133


In Gorean law a slave is an animal; before the law he has no rights; he is dependent on his master not only for his name but for his very life; he may be disposed of by the master at any time and in any way the master pleases.
Raiders of Gor     Book 6     Page 222


I closed my eyes. I knew then that I, Elinor Brinton, of Earth, would wear the degrading, locked metal collar of a Gorean slave girl, this man's, the collar of this brute who had captured me, and that I, Elinor Brinton, though once a free human female of Earth, would soon belong to him, totally, by all the rights and laws of Gor.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 263


I would be his, by collar-right, by all the laws of Gor, to do with as he pleased.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 279


The Gorean slave, in the eyes of Gorean law, is an animal, with no legal title to a name.
Hunters of Gor     Book 8     Pages 15 - 16


In the eyes of Goreans, and Gorean law, the slave is an animal. She is not a person, but an animal. She has no name, saving what her master might choose to call her. She is without caste. She is without citizenship. She is simply an object, to be bartered, or bought or sold. She is simply an article of property, completely, nothing more.
Hunters of Gor     Book 8     Pages 148 - 149


In the crowd, too, much in evidence, were brazen bond-maids; they had been brought to the thing, generally, by captains and Jarls; it is not unusual for men to bring such slaves with them, though they are not permitted near the law courts or the assemblies of deliberation;
Marauders of Gor     Book 9     Page 143


Then, in a tavern in Lydius, we had learned her slave. It was now out of the question that she, a slave, might serve Priest-Kings. The collar, by Gorean law, canceled the past.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 107


The two girls, in white garments, as I had come to understand, were dominant in the seraglio, rather in the nature of eunuchs, imposing order upon it and keeping its slaves in harmonious discipline. Their word, imperiously delivered, with the confidence of unquestioned command, doubtless backed by the whips and scimitars of male guards outside, served as law to the inmates of Tarna's seraglio; when they spoke, men obeyed; when they spoke sharply, men feared; in the seraglio, backed by the power of Tarna's guards, these two beautiful women were dominant over the men; they, particularly the taller, dark-haired one, obviously despised the silken males in her charge; openly she held them, to their misery, in contempt.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 193


The kennel master, though slave, too, is Ubar, with power of life and death, in the squalor of his domain. How is it, I wondered, that such a man can survive a night, that such a man dare turn his back upon the fierce, envious sleen among whom, with whip, and laughter, he walks. His will, his word, in the kennel decrees law.
Tribesmen of Gor     Book 10     Page 255


The brand was on Gor legal, institutional status; that which it marks it makes an object; its victim has no rights, or appeal, within the law.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 60


The slave is not a person before Gorean law but a rightless animal.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 151


How grievously had the women of Earth been slandered! Did they not know I was a woman of Earth? Of course they knew! How casually, how unthinkably, they spoke in the presence of a slave! But I wondered if it were true. If it were true, in Gorean law, it could be no slander.
. . .
The women of Earth had been pronounced slave meat. I wept. If this were true, it was, in Gorean law, no slander.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Page 211


Man owns woman by nature; in a complex society, and in a world with property rights and laws, female slavery, as a legalized fact, is to be expected; it will occur in any society in which touch is kept with the truths of nature. Gorean law, of course, is complex and latitudinous on these matters. For example, many women are free, whether wisely or desirably or not, and slavery is not always permanent for a slave girl. Sometimes a girl, winning love, is freed, perhaps to bear the children of a former master. But the freedom of a former slave girl is always a somewhat tenuous thing.
Beasts of Gor     Book 12     Page 235


"Also," I said, "if you are interested in these matters, you are not simply an animal in the literal sense, in the biological sense of 'animal', but in the sense that persons, individuals with rights before the law, are distinguished from animals."
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 316


"Technically," I said, "in the eyes of Gorean law you are not an object but an animal."
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 352

"The sense in which you are not a slave, of course," he said, "is a trivial one. You have not yet been placed within the actual institution of slavery. You are not yet a legal slave, a slave under law. You have not yet, for example, been branded, nor have you been put in a collar, nor have you performed a gesture of submission."

She looked at him with horror.

"But do not fear," he said, "you will eventually find yourself in full compliance with any necessary legal pedantries. You will eventually find that you are, fully and legally, under law, a slave, totally a slave, and only a slave." He smiled at her, "You may now say, 'Yes, Master,'" he said.
Fighting Slave of Gor     Book 14     Page 39


I have not mentioned, either, slaves with professional competences, such as medicine or law, or fighting slaves, in effect gladiators, men purchased for use as bodyguards or combatants in arranged games.
Fighting Slave of Gor     Book 14     Pages 164 - 166


It is a complex, vital, bright, colorful, deeply sensuous civilization; it is a harsh, gorgeous world in which the slave girl has a special role and place; her condition is unquestioned and categorical; it is supported by history, by custom and law; there is absolutely no escape for her; she is slave.
Rogue of Gor     Book 15     Page 170

The fullest slave, of course, is she who is a natural slave, and then, beyond this, truly wears the collar, that slave who is a slave by nature and whose slavery, released, is then confirmed and fixed upon her openly, publicly, by all the sanctions of custom and law, for all the world to see.
. . .

Beyond this, of course, we knew we were, categorically and absolutely, legal slaves, lovely properties which might be bartered and sold, and who might figure in transactions which would be upheld in any court of law.
Rogue of Gor     Book 15     Page 212


In his treatment of her he is untrammeled by either conscience or law, and this she knows, and loves, and, accordingly, hastens to obey and be pleasing.
Rogue of Gor     Book 15     Page 240


But the former, the slave girl, is owned with all the power and authority of law.
Guardsman of Gor     Book 16     Page 68


"If she is guilty," I said, "whatever you wish, as she is a slave." This was in full accord with Gorean law. Indeed, anything, for whatever reason, or without a reason, may be done to a slave."
Guardsman of Gor     Book 16     Page 115


"I know it well, Master," she said. "On this world, the law even, as I am a slave, in all its force, puts me in your total power."
Guardsman of Gor     Book 16     Page 291


Some female slaves, incidentally, have a pedigreed lineage going back through several generations of slave matings, and their masters hold the papers to prove this. It is a felony in Gorean law to forge or falsify such papers.
Savages of Gor     Book 17     Page 69


"Consider the case of the female slave," I said. "She was once a primitive, brutish female, innocent of legalities but in effect, owned. She is now, commonly, a collared, imbonded beauty, properly marked as merchandise, effectively displayed and marketed, and owned in the full right of law."
Savages of Gor     Book 17     Page 194


"You are now a slave," I said to her, "even in the cities. You are a property. You could be returned to a master as such in a court of law. This is something which, is recognized even outside of the Barrens. This is much stronger, in that sense, than being the slave of Kaiila or Yellow Knives."
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Page 364


The community was now, in effect, a small freehold in the Barrens, and yet, strictly, in the letter of the law, stood to the Kaiila as a leased tenancy.
Blood Brothers of Gor     Book 18     Page 473


"Biologically, of course," she said, "we are all animals. Thus, in a sense, we might all be owned. It thus becomes a question as to which among these animals own and which are owned, which, so to speak, count as persons, or have standing, before the law, and which do not, which are, so to speak, the citizens or persons, and which are the animals."
Kajira of Gor     Book 19     Page 49


Given the sovereignty of males in nature, general among the mammals and universal among the primates, it was natural enough, I supposed, that in a civilization congenial to nature, rather than in one opposed to it, that an institution such as female slavery might exist. This might be regarded as the civilized expression of the biological relationship, a recognition of that relationship, and perhaps an enhancement, refinement and celebration of it, and, within the context of custom and law, of course, a clarification and consolidation of it.
Kajira of Gor     Book 19     Page 119


"As I may remind you, my dear," said Boots, patiently, "you are no longer of high caste nor of the scribes. Similarly, as I am sure you will recognize, at least upon reflection, you now have no standing before the law. You are now of no more interest to magistrates, in their official capacities, as opposed to their private capacities, than would be an urt or a sleen."
Players of Gor     Book 20     Page 201


"Yet, there are some I have heard of," I said, "who might deny a natural slave her bondage, even by law, no matter what might be the mental, emotional and physical damage of this."
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Page 235


In Gorean thought, and, indeed, Gorean law is explicit on this, what is owned is the whole slave. It is she who is owned, the whole woman, and uncompromisingly and totally.
Mercenaries of Gor     Book 21     Page 353


When she had been used before my kennel she had been under "gag law," as is common when the guards use a girl, forbidden speech, save for moans and whimpers.
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Page 65


I had noted, with interest, that although they were from different worlds, they, in the throes of their intimate employments, at first submitting to and enduring, then accepting, then reveling in, and, at last, kneeling and licking, mutely begging and pleading for their ravishments, in their whimpers and moans, and clutchings, denied speech, obedient under "gag law," had sounded the same.
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Page 94


I recalled hearing now, in the house, of "capture rights," respected in law. I had originally thought these rights referred to the acquisition of free women but I had later realized they must pertain, more generally, to the acquisition of properties in general, including slaves. I had not thought much about such things, in a real, or practical, sense, until now, now that I was outside of the house. I tried to recall my lessons. Theft, or capture, if you prefer, conferred rights over me. I would belong to, and must fully serve, anyone into whose effective possession I came, even if it had been by theft. The original master, of course, has the right to try to recover his property, which remains technically his for a period of one week. If I were to flee the thief, however, after he has consolidated his hold on me, for example, kept me for even a night, I could, actually in Gorean law, be counted as a runaway slave, from him, even though he did not technically own me yet, and punished accordingly. Analogies are that it is not permitted to animals to challenge the tethers on their necks, or flee the posts within which they find themselves penned, that money must retain its value, and buying power, regardless of who has it in hand, and so on. Strictures of this sort, of course, do not apply to free persons, such as free women. A free woman is entitled to try to escape a captor as best she can, and without penalty, even after her first night in his bonds, if she still chooses to do so. If she is enslaved, of course, then she is subject to, and covered by, the same customs, practices and laws as any other slave. The point of these statutes, it seems, is to keep the slave in perfect custody, at all times, and to encourage boldness on the part of males. After the slave has been in the possession of the thief, or captor, for one week she counts as being legally his. To be sure, the original master may attempt to steal her back.
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Pages 95 - 96


Even Gorean law makes it clear that it is the entire slave who is owned, not merely a part of her.
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Page 154


Her "legal freedom," we may speculate, would prove quite fleeting. It would soon be replaced, we may suppose, with a new and more appropriate status, that of being a slave legally, a status fixed on her then with all the clarity and obduracy of Gorean law, and fixed on her for all the world to see, fixed on her as plainly as the collar on her neck and the mark on her thigh.
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Page 172


Of course, I would call men "Master"! They were my masters, and not only in the order of nature, but here, too, in the order of law.
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Page 247


"Mina and Cara were caught days ago," said Tupita. "Indeed, the recovery period is over where they are concerned. Anyone who came on them could now claim them." To be sure, they remained, even now, the slaves of Ionicus, but this proprietorship was now such that, if the case arose, it must yield to a new claimancy. This point in Gorean law is apparently motivated by the consideration that a slave always have some master. In the case of a master's death the slave, like other property, passes to the heirs, or, if there are no heirs, to the state. "They have not been eaten."
Dancer of Gor     Book 22     Page 375


"I understand," I said. Certainly she was not a legal slave, or at least not yet. She was not, technically, at least at present, a slave in the eyes of the law, as an animal is an animal in the eyes of the law, a tarsk a tarsk, a vulo, so soft and pretty, a vulo.
Renegades of Gor     Book 23     Page 83


Gorean, she was not unacquainted with the severities typically inflicted upon wayward slaves, slaves foolish enough to attempt escape. Too, escape, in effect, is impossible for the Gorean slave girl. The law, the culture, and such, are not set up to permit it.
Renegades of Gor     Book 23     Page 156


"Though I am a natural slave," she said, "there was time when I was not a legal slave. I was once, in the eyes of the law, a free woman."
Renegades of Gor     Book 23     Page 441


Given this, it may be seen that, in a sense, the brand and collar, as lovely and decorative as they are, and as exciting and profoundly meaningful as they are, when they are fixed on a woman, and she wears them, and as obviously important as they are from the point of view of property law, may be viewed not so much as instituting or producing bondage as recognizing it, as serving, in a way, as tokens, or outward signs, of these marvelous inward truths, these ultimate realities. The true slave knows that her slavery, her natural slavery, is not a matter of the brand and collar, which have more to do with legalities, but of herself.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 40


The reservations about hair coloring are particularly acute in commercial situations. One would not wish to buy a girl thinking she was auburn, a rare and muchly prized hair color on Gor, for example, and then discover later that she was, say, blond. Against such fraud, needless to say, the law provides redress. Slavers will take pains in checking out new catches, or acquisitions, to ascertain the natural color of their hair, one of the items one expects to find, along with fingerprints and measurements, and such, on carefully prepared slave papers.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 186

"Some fellows do not brand their slaves," I said.

"That is stupid!" she said.

"It is also contrary to the laws of most cities," I said, "and to merchant law, as well."

"Of course," she said.

Gorean, she approved heartily of the branding of slaves. Most female slaves on Gor, indeed, the vast majority, almost all, needless to say, are branded. Aside from questions of legality, compliance with the law, and such, I think it will be clear upon a moment's reflection that various practical considerations also commend slave branding to the attention of the owner, in particular, the identification of the article as property, this tending to secure it, protecting against its loss, facilitating its recovery, and so on. The main legal purpose of the brand, incidentally, is doubtless this identification of slaves. To be sure, most Goreans feel the brand also serves psychological and aesthetic purposes, for example, helping the girl to understand that she is now a slave and enhancing her beauty.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 188


"Whose am I to deal with?" she asked.
"Mine," I said.
"Yours?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "You are mine, by capture."
"That relationship then," she said, looking up at me, wonderingly, "is fearfully profound."
"Among warriors, and men of honor," I said.
"Then I am truly yours," she said, "to do with as you please."
"In this situation," I said, "in law, as well as in fact."
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 322


I had seen her months ago, helpless in chains beside her master's desk. Indeed, at that time, she had not even been a legal slave, the legalities of her condition, to her distress, given what had been done to her, and what she had become, being denied to her by her master. Now, however, she was not merely a natural slave, aware of herself, reduced, and self-confessed, begging the resolution and solace of the collar, but a legal slave, fully and perfectly imbonded in law. Once she had been the Lady Cara, of Venna. She had been overheard making disparaging remarks about a certain city.
Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 402

"Surely you understand the law, my dear," he said.

She struggled in the net, dropped from the ceiling, then held about her by guardsmen sprung from concealment at the sides of the room.

"No!" she cried. "No!"

She was then turned about, twice in the net, on the couch so that she was thoroughly entangled, doubly, in its toils.

"No!" she wept.

The guardsmen, four of them, held the net.

Her eyes were wild. Her fingers were in the knotted mesh. She was like a frightened animal.

"Please," she wept. "What do you want?"

The fellow did not then answer her, but regarded her. She was naked in the toils of the net, and now lay on her side, her legs drawn up in it, now seemingly small and very vulnerable, so bared and caught, on the deep furs of the huge couch.

"Milo!" she cried to a tall, handsome fellow to one side. "Help me!"

"But I am a slave," pointed out Milo, donning his purple tunic.

She looked at him, wildly.

"I am sure you are familiar with the law," said the first fellow, flanked by two magistrates.

"No!" she cried.

The magistrates were ex officio witnesses, who could certify the circumstances of the capture. The net was a stout one, and weighted.

"Any free woman who couches with another's slave, or readies herself to couch with another's slave, becomes herself a slave, and the slave of the slave's master. It is a clear law."

"No! No!" she wept.

"Think of it in this fashion, if you wish," he said. "You have given yourself to Milo, but Milo is mine, and can own nothing, and thus you have given yourself to me. An analogy is the coin given by a free person to a street girl, which coin, of course, does not then belong to the girl but to her master. What is given to the slave is given to the master."
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 7


Surely she must have known the law. The consorting of a free female with another man's slave renders her susceptible to the collar of the slave's master.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 42


"No!" wept Claudia. "It is one thing to be captured by a man and taken to his tent, and put to his feet and made to serve, or to be sentenced by a magistrate in due course of law to slavery for crimes which I have actually committed, and another to stand here publicly shamed, before my enemy, a woman, in her triumph, to be consigned by her to helpless bondage."
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 150


The testimony of slaves is commonly taken under torture in Gorean law courts.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 222


Several weeks ago in Ar there had been some hints of an attempt on the part of the Ubarate, as a social-control procedure, to facilitate its governance, a venture doubtless emanating from Cos, which had reason to fear an alert, healthy foe, to reduce the vitality and virility of the men of Ar, to further crush and depress them. This was to be done under the initial guise of sumptuary laws, ostensibly to limit the adornment and display of slaves, as though there could be much of that sort of thing in the defeated city. This was to be followed by legislation encouraging, and then apparently to later require, more modest garmenture for slaves. There were even suggestions of attempting to regulate the relationships obtaining between masters and slaves. There was some talk of greater "respect" for slaves, that they might be permitted to drink from the higher bowls at the public fountains, even the insanity that one might not be able to make use of them without their permission, thus turning the master into a slave's slave. Naturally the motivation of this, putting aside the standard camouflage of moralistic prose which may be conveniently invoked for any purpose whatsoever, even those most antithetical to nature, health, reason, truth and life, was no concern for slaves but rather a desire to diminish the men of Ar, to make them easier to manage and exploit. Naturally they were expected to accept their own castration, so to speak, as a cause for rejoicing, as a long-overdue improvement of their condition. How glorious things were to be, once men had succeeded in achieving their own destruction. On the other hand the first straws testing the winds of Ar, cast in the streets, in the baths, in the taverns and markets, had been blown back with such fierceness that these castrative proposals had been almost immediately withdrawn. Indeed, a small announcement had even appeared on the boards, in the name of Ubara herself, that slave girls should obey their masters and try to be pleasing to them. Revolution, I do not doubt, would have occurred in the city. The men of Ar would have died rather than give up at least the retained semblance of their manhood.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Pages 211 - 212


"Do you forget the proposed laws of respect!" she said.
"They were never enacted," I said.
"They should have been!" she said.
There was an angry mutter in the crowd.
"My master," she said, "is a kind, liberated, noble, enlightened master! He accepts such laws, or laws much like them, as much as if they had been proclaimed by the councils and promulgated by the Ubara herself!"
"The actual words of the Ubara," I said, "or at least as reported on the boards, where to the effect that slave girls should be obedient and try to please their masters."
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 218

"You must let me go, you must order my release, you must take me from these brutes, you must scold them, speak to them of laws and such, or something, anything!" she cried. "Defend me, us! I demand it! Release me! You must! I beg it! The men of Ar have been defeated! No longer are they men! No longer are they mighty and masters! They are now nothing, they are all weaklings! You are of Cos! You must keep them that way! It is important to you to keep them that way! Arrest them if they dare think again of pride and manhood, tangle them in rulings, trip them with laws, lie to them, confuse them, put them in prison, do not let them understand themselves, or become themselves, if necessary, put them to the sword! Burn Ar! Destroy it! Salt its ashes! Do you not understand how dangerous might prove to be manhood in Ar? You must not permit it! And you can use women like us to help you in your schemes, protecting us, and using us to diminish men! Let us be your allies in the conquest and subjugation of Ar! Surely you understand me? You are of Cos! You are of Cos!"

"But I am not of Cos," I said.

"Aiii!" cried several of the men about.

"You have drunk from a high bowl," I said, "and more than once you have spoken untruthfully, for example, in denying that you sensed slave feelings in yourself."

"Forgive me, Masters!" she cried.

"Too," I said, "you have demeaned the men of Ar."

"Forgive me, Masters!" she wept. "You are men! You are men! A slave begs forgiveness!" Her concern was certainly not out of place. The demeaning of men, whereas it is permitted to, and not unknown among, free women, is not permitted to female slaves. Such, on their part, can be a capital offense.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Pages 226 - 227

"I was taken pursuant to the couching laws," she said.

"I see," I said. Any free woman who voluntarily couches with another's slave, or readies herself to do so, becomes the slave of the slave's master. By such an act, the couching with, or readying herself to couch with, a slave, as though she might be a girl of the slave's master, thrown to the slave, she shows herself as no more than a slave, and in this act, in law, becomes a slave. Who then should own her, this new slave? Why, of course, he to whom the law consigns her, the master of the slave with whom she has couched, or was preparing to couch.

"With what slave," asked I, "did you couch?"

"I was only preparing to couch!" she said.

"But that is sufficient," I said.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Pages 303 - 304


"You seem to me a highly intelligent woman," I said.
"Master?" she asked.
"Surely you were aware of the couching laws?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 308

"You have lied to free men," I said.

She regarded me in terror.

"You told us that you had been brought in as a consequence of the levies, whereas it was in consequence of the couching laws."
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 323


One did not have the right, for example, to kill or maim the slave of another, any more than any other domestic animal which might belong to someone else. In this sense the slave is accorded some protection from free persons who do not own her in virtue of certain general considerations of property law. The power of the master over the slave, on the other hand, is absolute. He can do whatever he wishes with her. She belongs to him, completely.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 330


Much of the weightiness of this was lost on the new slave, of course, for she had very little notion of the prices of women. As she had come into the keeping of Appanius in virtue of the couching laws, she had had only one sale, that to me for a few copper tarsks.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 338

"The principle here, I gather," said Marcus, "is that the Ubara is above the law."

"The law in question is a serious one," said Tolnar. "It was promulgated by Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars."

"Surely," said Venlisius to the netted woman, "you do not put yourself on a level with the great Marlenus."

"It does not matter who is greater," she said. "I am Ubara!"

"The Ubara is above the law?" asked Marcus, who had an interest in such things.

"In a sense, yes," said Tolnar, "the sense in which she can change the law by decree."

"But she is subject to the law unless she chooses to change it?" asked Marcus.

"Precisely," said Tolnar. "And that is the point here."

"Whatever law it is," cried the netted woman, "I change it! I herewith change it!"

"How can you change it?" asked Tolnar.

"I am Ubara!" she said.

"You were Ubara," he said.

She cried out in misery, in frustration, in the net.

"Interesting," said Marcus.

"Release me!" demanded the woman.

"Do you think we are fond of she who was once Talena," asked Tolnar, "of she who betrayed Ar, and collaborated with her enemies?"

"Release me, if you value your lives!" she cried. "Seremides will wish me free! So, too, will Myron! So, too, will Lurius of Jad!"

"But we have taken an oath to uphold the laws of Ar," said Tolnar.

"Free me!" she said.

"You would have us compromise our honor?" asked Tolnar.

"I order you to do so," she said.

Tolnar smiled.

"Why do you smile?" she asked.

"How can a slave order a free person to do anything?" he asked.

"A slave!" she cried. "How dare you!"

"You are taken into bondage," said Tolnar, "under the couching laws of Marlenus of Ar. Any free woman who couches with, or prepares to couch with, a male slave, becomes herself a slave, and the property of the male slave's master."

"I, property!" she cried.

"Yes," said Tolnar.

Absurd!" she said.

"Not at all," he said. "It is, I assure you, all quite legal."
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Pages 455 - 456


At this point Tolnar and Venlisius reentered the room and, in a few moments, were in the process of filling out the papers. These included an extremely complete description of the woman, exact even to details such as the structure of her ear lobes. Tolnar then, with a graduated tape, reaching in and about the net, and moving the woman, as necessary, took a large number of measurements, these being recorded by Venlisius. Additional measurements were taken with other instruments, such as a calipers. With these were recorded such data as the width and length of fingers and toes, the width of her heels, the lovely tiny distance between her nostrils, and so on. The result of this examination, of course, was to produce a network of data which, to a statistical certainty, far beyond the requirements of law, would be unique to a given female. Then, one hand at a time, pulled a bit from the net, then reinserted in it, her fingerprints were taken. Following this, her toeprints were taken.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Pages 457 - 458


I looked down at the new slave, whom I had decided to call 'Talena', which slave name was also entered on her papers, in the first endorsement, as her first slave name pertinent to these papers, and by means of which she could always be referred to in courts of law as, say, the slave who on such and such a date was known by the name 'Talena.' This did not preclude her name being changed, of course, now or later, by myself, or others. Slaves, as other animals, may be named, or renamed, as the masters please. Indeed, if the master wishes, they need not be named at all.
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 469


"Your slavery is complete," I said, "by all the laws of Ar, and Gor. Your papers, and certified copies thereof, will be filed and stored in a hundred places."
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 475

"Perhaps, someday, Tolnar, or Venlisius, might be interested in trying you out, to see if you were satisfactory."

She looked at me.

"If you were not," I said, "they would doubtless have you severely punished, or slain."

"I do not understand them," she said. "To uphold the law they have jeopardized their careers, they have entered into exile!"

"There are such men," I said.

"I do not understand them," she said.

"That," I said, "is because you do not understand honor."
Magicians of Gor     Book 25     Page 478


Too, this is, I conjecture, in my current reality, not altogether unfitting; indeed, it is altogether appropriate, for you see that is what I now am, categorically, explicitly, an object, and not merely in the eyes of the law, but such irremediably, incontrovertibly, in the very reality of this world.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 2

The oddity, or anomaly, has to do in its way with law.

The state, or a source of law, it seems, can decide whether one has a certain status or not, say, whether one is a citizen or not a citizen, licensed or not licensed, an outlaw or not an outlaw, and such. It can simply make these things come about, it seems, by pronouncing them, and then they are simply true, and that, then, is what the person is. It has nothing to do, absolutely nothing to do, with the person's awareness or consent, and yet it is true of the person, categorically and absolutely, in all the majesty of the law. It makes the person something, whether the person understands it, or knows it, or not.

The person might be made something or other, you see, and be totally unaware of it. Yet that is what that person, then, would be. It is clear to her now that she must have been watched, and considered, and assessed, perhaps for months, utterly unbeknownst to her. She had no idea. She suspected nothing, absolutely nothing. But her status, her condition, had changed. It seems that decisions were made, and papers signed, and certified, all doubtless with impeccable legality. And then, by law, she, totally unaware, became something she had not been before, or not in explicit legality. And she continued to go about her business, knowing nothing of this, ignorantly, naively, all unsuspecting. But she had become something different from what she had been before. She was no longer the same, but was now different, very different. Her status, her condition, had undergone a remarkable transformation, one of which she was totally unaware. She did not know what, in the laws of another world, one capable of enforcing its decrees and sanctions, one within whose jurisdiction she lay, she had become. That she finds interesting, curious, frightening, in its way, an oddity, and anomalous. She did not know what she had become. She wonders if some of you, too, perhaps even one reading this manuscript, if there should be such, may have become already, too, even now, unbeknownst to yourself, what she had then become. Perhaps you are as ignorant of it as was she. But this reality was later made clear to her, by incontrovertible laws, and deeds, which did not so much confirm the hypothetical strictures of a perhaps hitherto rather speculative law, one extending to a distant world, as replace or supersede them, in an incontrovertible manner, with immediate, undeniable, unmistakable realities, realities not only independently legal, and fully sufficient in their own right, but realities acknowledged, recognized and celebrated, realities understood, and enforced, with all the power, unquestioned commitment and venerated tradition of an entire world, that on which she had found herself.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Pages 5 - 6


But here on Gor, she thought, slavery is explicit, acknowledged, sanctified in tradition and law, and here men are the masters, at least of women such as she.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 82


So emotional relationships, of any sort, are inessential to, and immaterial to, the institution in question. What concern had the law, in all its power and majesty, with such matters? Whether he loved her or he did not, whether she loved him or she did not, did not matter. Their institutional standing was clear. They stood related as master and slave. He owned her, and she was owned. He could do with her as he wished. And so, too, of course, could any master into whose possession she might come, whose property she might find herself.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 88


But then she heard the word, explicitly, and realized that slave was what she was, that that was now her absolute and incontrovertible identity, and that this identity, mercilessly imposed upon her, had behind it the full force of law.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 98


Although Ellen had never been outside the house she understood that there was no escape for the Gorean slave girl, even outside. There was the brand, the collar, the garmenture. More importantly, there was no place to go, no place to hide, no place to run. The legal rights of the masters were everywhere acknowledged, respected and enforced. At their back was the full power of custom, tradition and law. The most that a girl might hope for would be a change of masters.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 137


But here, on this world, thought Ellen, unlike such a woman, I am a slave not only by nature, and appropriately, but under explicit, recognized law. I can be legally bought and sold, and given away, and such. Here I am simple, categorical, uncontested property not merely in the secrecy of a chamber, hidden away from an ignorant, uncaring, complacent, insensitive world, but in the full daylight of the cultures of a planet. Here, on this world, my brand, my collar, my mode of being, are everywhere accepted, acknowledged, recognized and understood. On this world I am, in the full sense of the law, explicitly and perfectly, slave.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 174


In any event, the institution of female slavery is part of the very fabric of Gorean society. It is both historical and contemporary; it is honored in custom and tradition; it is honored in practice; it is pervasive, societally and culturally; it is familiar, recognized and unquestioned; it is ingredient in the law and enforced with all the sanctions of the law.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 407

"Let us consider the matter," said Portus Canio. "She was taken from me by confiscation in Ar," he said.

"Yes?" said Selius Arconious, warily.

"Now I surely acknowledge that the confiscation was within the letter of the law, given the current sorry state of Ar and the ordinances of the occupation; and I acknowledge further that she has been out of my hands for more than the number of days which, in Merchant Law, legitimate her seizure and claiming by another, and I recognize, further, of course, that she has passed through one or more hands in this time, as his or their slave, and that she was honestly purchased in open auction, in good faith, from her actual and completely legitimate owner, the state of Cos."

"You see then," said Selius Arconious, "that you no longer have any claim to her."

"Of course not," said Portus Canio. "That is clear. On the other hand, we do share a Home Stone."

"Very well," said Selius Arconious. "She is yours. I give her to you."
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 520


They are slaves. Too, society accepts them, and has a place for them and their nature, and reinforces their condition with all the irrefragable power of custom and law.
Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 619


He was, as we learned, of what on Gor amongst humans is referred to as the scarlet caste. This is a high caste, doubtless because it is armed. Individuals of this caste are of great value to their cities, their employers, their princes, so to speak. Indeed, they are indispensable in their way; have they not, however unintentionally, secured the foundation of law;
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 17


Block measurements, taken presale, are commonly, and in some cities this is required by law, included in a female's sales information.
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 22


"Yes," said Cabot. "Indeed, a master might be reluctant to allow you on the streets so clad, but then, if you were a slave, he would have no choice. It would be a matter of law."
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 428


"In a civilization the slave is a particular sort of thing, and understood to be that, and nothing beyond that, nothing further, or other. It is what she is. It is she. She has a recognized nature, condition, status, and identity, which she is incapable of altering or qualifying in any way whatsoever. She is an accepted article of commerce, or form of animal, valued for the labors she can perform and the manifold pleasures, intimate and otherwise, which she must provide. Her appearance in society is no accident. She is no mere accretion or happenstance in society. She is a part of it, an important part of it, and fully ingredient within it. That must be understood. She is implicated in a venerable institution, that of bondage. It is an ancient institution, historically founded, socially proven, honored, and unquestioned. And it is a matter not simply of time and tradition, you must understand, but of mores, customs, practices, an ethos, and abundant and tested law."
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Pages 509 - 510

"She fell afoul of a law, one of her own father's laws, that she who couches with, or readies herself to couch with, a slave, becomes the slave of the slave's master, the couching slave in this case, whom I had purchased in order to compromise and entrap the Ubara, was a famed and handsome actor. Afterwards, as had been my intent, I freed him, but this, in accord with the law and my plan, left her my slave. The matter was duly witnessed and processed, but then I permitted her to be recovered, and returned to the throne of the city. So now she who sits upon that throne, supposedly a Ubara, is only a slave, who must with uneasiness await her reclaiming."
. . .

"But is she not a great and noble woman?"

"Doubtless she seems so to the world," said Cabot, "but now, under her father's own laws, she is only another slave."
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 684


"It is feared you may yet be upon the kaissa board of Priest-Kings."
"No!" said Cabot.
"What if it be their will?" said Grendel.
"I repudiate their will!" said Cabot.
"It might be dangerous to do so," said Grendel. "Are they not world masters, the gods of Gor?"
"If their laws are respected," said Cabot, "they dabble little in the doings of human beings."
Kur of Gor     Book 28     Page 716


The master may have many slaves, but the slave may, by law, have but one master, even if it be the state, or some corporate entity.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 278


The relationship of female slave and male master, though one established, sanctioned, and enforced by law, is founded obviously on one common in nature, that of, so to speak, the conquered, possessed female and the conquering, possessing male. Indeed, legal bondage is an institutionalization of, and an enhancement of, a natural relationship, the male who, in a very real sense, owns, and the female who, in a very real sense, is owned, as much as a bow or spear.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 386


"The matter became public knowledge shortly after the rising of the people, the return of Marlenus," he said. "Two magistrates furnished the details, Tolnar, of the second Octavii, and Venlisius, by adoption, a scion of the Toratti. The former Ubara had been embonded in accord with the couching law of Marlenus of Ar, any free woman who couches with, or prepares to couch with, a male slave, becomes herself a slave, and the property of the male slave's master. She was preparing to couch with Milo, a slave, and actor, when apprehended, and, it seems, you were at that time, by some stratagem or subterfuge, the master of the slave, Milo, and so became the master of the former free woman, Talena of Ar. The whole thing was very cleverly done, it seems. Considering the nature of the case, papers were carefully prepared, and measurements and prints taken, that there be no mistake about the legality of the proceeding, nor any possible problem later in the exact identification of the slave.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Pages 450 - 451


What is of most importance to the law is not so much that a particular individual owns a slave as that she is owned by someone, that she is absolutely and perfectly owned. It is the same with a kaiila, a verr, a tarsk, and such.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 452


I had seen to it that she was enslaved, in her own city, making use of a couching law of Marlenus himself, Ubar of Ubars.
Swordsmen of Gor     Book 29     Page 482


I realized that I was now, in the eyes of the law, no longer the Lady Flavia but an animal that might be named as the free might please.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 80


The face of the slave, by law, must be naked.
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 480


"But have no fear," I said. "In my view, and in that of most, and certainly in the eyes of the law, your status is clear."
"Master?"
"You are an animal, a beast."
Mariners of Gor     Book 30     Page 481


It was now confirmed upon me, that I, the former Allison Ashton-Baker, was a slave, and not only by law, however absolute that legal shackle might be but by right, by nature!
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 110


She was a mere barbarian, a scion of a primitive culture, and I was a civilized woman of Earth, of the upper classes, young, beautiful, educated, intelligent sensitive, well-bred, refined, now somehow inexplicably entrapped in a barbarian world, a world where I was denied the protection of the law, a world where my Earth rights were not only ignored, but did not exist. On this world I was a property. Thus, here, the law, in all its power and rigor, in all its weight and majesty, would be used not for me but against me, for example, to hunt me down and return me to a master.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 125


Men were still the masters, but now not subtly, almost invisibly, as on Earth, but now openly, visibly, in the full force of law.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 153


I wanted to be his, his property, a helpless object, goods, possessed by him, in all the fullness of law, in all the fullness of culture, in all the fullness of nature.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 200


Were such as I not fittingly owned by such as they, as the females of so many species of my former world were, in effect, owned by their males? To my chagrin such things were now, on Gor, indisputably obvious to me. I was unable to deny them, as much as I might wish to do so. And such relationships on Gor were institutionalized, fixed in law!
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 301


The kajira, of course, knows that it is all of her that is owned. That is clear in law.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 319


"Surely you are aware of how men see women," he said.
I was silent. I was afraid. But, too, I was thrilled. We are sought, hunted, captured, and owned, possessed by masters, who will deal with us as they please. They make us theirs, in reality, and law.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 329

"Have you no interest in my body?" I asked he in whose charge I was.

"Of course your body is of some interest," said he in whose charge I was. "For example, your ankles shackle well. Of greater interest is the whole of you, which I think it might be interesting to own."

"Master," I said, uncertainly.

"To own the whole of you," he said, "as a slave is owned."

"So completely?" I said.

"Of course," he said.

"That goes far beyond law," I said.

"No," he said. "It is in law as well, that the whole slave is owned."
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 357

"What are you going to do with me?" she wept.

"Return you to your master, of course," said Astrinax.

"No, no!" she begged.

She tried to spring up but stumbled, shackled, and was then again on her knees before Astrinax.

"It is the law," said Astrinax.

"Please, no!" she wept.

"We could keep her and sell her," said Trachinos.

"Yes, yes!" she begged.

"No," said Astrinax. "She is to be returned to her master. That is the law."
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 439


I did know that testimony from a slave, at least in a court of law, is commonly taken under torture. As noted before, the theory is that the slave may be expected to tell the truth only under duress. In fact, of course the slave is likely to say, and quite soon, whatever the judge wishes to hear.
Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 512


It is sometimes said that the free woman dresses to please herself, whereas the slave is dressed to please her master, and this is true, but, I think, overly simple. For example, if the free woman were to dress as a slave, she might soon be collared, and if the master were to dress his slave as a free woman, he would be jeopardizing her life. Custom and tradition, and sometimes law, are involved in these matters. The free woman may dress to please herself, but too, it seems she is well advised to please herself by conforming, and strictly, to a variety of canons, canons of taste, custom, convention, and sometimes of law.
Smugglers of Gor     Book 32     Pages 96 - 97


I then, a bit later, opened my mouth, widely, and a handful of slave gruel, or moist mush, was thrust in my mouth. One swallows it a tiny bit at a time, that one not choke. It is bland, and largely tasteless, but filling, for what one gets of it, and apparently nutritious. It was a far cry from the provenders I had been taught to prepare in the house, ranging from roasted, seasoned bosk and tarsk and fresh plate breads, with honeys and butters, to frosted pastries and decadent, creamed sauces which, in some cities, were outlawed by sumptuary laws.
Smugglers of Gor     Book 32     Page 111


It is said that there is no escape for the Gorean slave girl. She is marked, collared, and distinctively garbed. There is no refuge for her, no safe haven, nowhere for her to run. Her nature, condition, and status are unquestioned in custom and institutionalized in law. Society accepts her with the same unquestioned equanimity that it accepts other domestic animals. She is a familiar, recognized, sanctioned, accepted, welcomed, desired, even treasured, component in the culture.
Smugglers of Gor     Book 32     Page 439


To be sure, a slave is seldom subjected to any grievous torture, as it might lower her value. An exception is when her testimony is to be taken in a court of law. Then any slave, male or female will be placed on the rack, the theory being that this will guarantee a veracious testimony, even from the lips of a slave. What it commonly guarantees is that the slave, howling in misery or screaming through tears, will tell the judge whatever he wishes to hear.
Smugglers of Gor     Book 32     Page 442


Even on Earth I had sensed myself a slave. And here there was no ambiguity about the matter. Here it was so not only in the aching, longing reality of the heart, desiring to belong to and serve a master, but in the full, implacable reality of fact, truth, and law. I was rightless goods, merchandise a slight, collared, curvaceous beast subject to purchase and sale, and knew myself such!
Smugglers of Gor     Book 32     Page 450