No pregnant slaves in Laura. A slave will be freed before conception.
In the series, unlike online role play Gor where slaves outnumber free persons ten to one (an estimation – not factual,) it is mentioned that few females were indeed slaves, more like one in 40 women were slaves, and even less enslaved were men and their numbers were rarely known, even amongst themselves.
A slave generally does not bear children, unless she is an Exotic or is a breeding slave (breeding slave – one who would be impregnated, generally by a male slave for the purpose of sale; they are generally hooded and the event is witnessed by Scribes to document it.)
Any child born to a slave, is generally enslaved when they become of age. The slaves child, if born while she is still a slave, aren’t treated as a slave, but as a child and they are allowed much of what free children have, until they become of age, and then they are collared.
Slaves not bearing children stands to reason because who would continue the race?
At times, if a slave becomes pregnant, she is freed until the child is born. Goreans favor and look fondly upon children. They want them free, especially male born children. After the child is born, the slave is once again, enslaved.
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. Her thigh still bears the brand. And, should her ears be pierced, it is almost certain she will, sooner or later, be re-enslaved. It is hard for men to leave a woman who can be a good slave girl free. She will always dread that in the night men will come again for her, hooding her, carrying her to a distant city, to be again put on the block of a steaming market, that once again her throat will be encircled by a steel collar and that she will kneel at the feet of a new master.
- BEASTS OF GOR-, 12; Page 235
I thought of a small fellow I had once known in Tharna. He had been called “Ost.” It had not been an unfitting name for him. I had neither seen him nor heard of him since the revolt in the mines, that upon which the revolution in the city had been consequent. I did not know if he had survived the revolt and revolution or not. In that revolution the gynocracy in Tharna had been overthrown, devastatingly. Even to this day women in Tharna are kept almost uniformly as helpless, abject slaves, the men of Tharna having an excellent memory for history. The youth of Tharna is usually bred from women temporarily freed for purposes of their conception, then reenslaved. In Tharnan law a person conceived by a free person on a free person is considered to be a free person, even if they are later carried and borne by a slave. In many other cities this is different, the usual case being that the offspring of a slave is a slave, and belongs to the mother’s owner. The education, however, of the Tharnan youth differs on a sexual basis. The boys are raised to be men, and masters, and the girls to be women, and slaves. The boys, as a portion of the Home Stone Ceremony, take an oath of mastery, in which they swear never to surrender the dominance which is rightfully theirs by nature. It is in this ceremony, also, that they receive the two yellow cords commonly worn in the belt of a male Tharnan.
These cords, each about eighteen inches long, are suitable for the binding of a female, hand and foot. In the same ceremony the young women of Tharna are also brought into the presence of the Home Stone. They, however, are not permitted to kiss or touch it. Then, in its presence they are stripped and collared. They are then, by the young men, bound with the yellow cords, so that they will know their feel. Afterwards, they are usually conducted home by one of the young men, often he whose cords have bound them, and who may be interested in their acquisition, on his leash, usually to the home of their mother’s owner, usually their father, to whom, in virtue of such a ceremony, they now legally count as slave, who will see to their disposition, or sale. Even free women visiting Tharna from other cities must, at the gates, don temporary collars and slave tunics, and be leashed. The ruler in Tharna, paradoxically, was for several years a tatrix, Lara. To be sure, she herself apparently had some understanding of what it was to be a female slave. It seems it had once been taught to her. I had heard, incidentally, a few months ago, in Port Cos, from a Tharnan silver merchant, that Lara had abdicated. Perhaps her abdication was in the best interests of the city. I do not know. Doubtless it ended something of a political tension in the city, and I take it that Tharna now, under the governance of its councils, and its administrator, Kron, has at last achieved a commendable political consistency. As nearly as I could determine from the reports of the silver merchant Lara’s abdication was not forced, nor even the result of extreme political pressures brought on her, but a voluntary act, one apparently regarded by her as being not only in the best interests of the city but in her own best interests as well. He did not know what had become of her. I would suppose that she is now merely another Tharnan woman, another slave. It is my hope that she is happy.
- VAGABONDS OF GOR; 24; Pages 267-268
I walked behind Kamchak, on his kaiila. Harold walked beside me. Hereena and Elizabeth followed us, each, as was proper, some two paces behind.
“Why is it,” I asked Harold, “that he so spared Turia?”
“His mother was Turian,” said Harold.
I stopped.
“Did you not know?” asked Harold.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I did not know.”
“It was after her death,” said Harold, “that Kutaituchik first tasted the rolled strings of kanda.”
“I did not know,” I said.
Kamchak was now well in advance of us.
Harold looked at me. “Yes,” he said, “she had been a Turian girl–taken as slave by Kutaituchik–but he cared for her and freed her. She remained with him in the wagons until her death–the Ubara of the Tuchuks.”
- NOMADS OF GOR; 4; Page 339
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