Gorean Law is mentioned in several books,
though it is never quoted specifically, and it is not clear if it is a matter
of a written code or of custom. Thought it seems to be referred to in courts. The only descriptions of Gorean Law, per se,
are as follows: “It [a collar] 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 plainly as the collar on her neck and the mark on her thigh.” Dancer of Gor, 172.
Here Gorean Law is described as obdurate and clear and any reading in
the canon will attest to its obduracy and how clear it is to the Gorean. To us trying to interpret the canon, it is
less clear. Elsewhere it is written, “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. Beasts of Gor, 235. Here
Gorean Law is called “latitudinous,” the opposite of obdurate and on the most important
point in Gor, the ownership of women by men.
Well, there goes the pundits who say
What follows are all the quotes I could find regarding Gorean Law categorized by topics covered: Allegiance to the Home Stone, Caste of Slavers, Earth Women, Free Companionship, Slave Ownership, Slaves, Slave's Word.
In Gorean law allegiances to a Home Stone, and not
physical structures and locations, tend to define communities.
Blood
Brothers of Gor, 474.
Many Slavers think of themselves as
an independent caste. Gorean law, however; does not so regard them. The average
Gorean thinks of them simply as Slavers, but, if questioned, would unhesitantly rank them with the Merchants.
Assasins of Gor, 208.
"Yes," he said, "take a woman, any woman,
not just these Earth girls, who are slave meat, but any woman, even one who is
Gorean, and free, and of high caste, even one who is an iceberg, lock a collar
on her, which she cannot remove; teach her she is a slave; and she will turn to
fire."
Melina laughed. I reddened, bound at the post. 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 I But I wondered if it were true. If it were true,
in Gorean law, it could be no slander.
"Lock
a collar on her," said the man, putting his hands about my neck, as though
they were a collar. I tensed, my throat collared in his hands. I knew he could
crush my throat easily with his Gorean strength, did he choose. I felt very
helpless. He removed his hands from my neck and put them in my hair. He
tightened his hands, and pulled my head back. "Teach her she is a
slave," he said. I cried out as he tightened his hands further in my hair,
and pulled my head back further. He caused me only enough pain to let me know
what he could do to me if he chose. Involuntarily I shuddered, acknowledging
him as male and master. He removed his hands from my hair. I tensed at the
post. I felt his hands at my flanks. "And," he said, chuckling,
"she will turn to fire." He touched me, and I cried out, tears in my
eyes, biting at the wood with my teeth.
"Hot enough to be a paga
slut," said Melina.
"Yes," he agreed.
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, 211.
"That is true," I admitted. By Gorean law the
companionship, to be binding, must, together, be annually renewed, pledged
afresh with the wines of love.
Captive
of Gor, 367.
I looked at the board, angrily. It was true that the Companionship, not renewed, had been dissolved in the eyes of Gorean law. It was further true that, had it not been so, the Companionship would have been terminated abruptly when one or the other of the pledged companions fell slave. I recalled, angrily, with a burning shame, the
delta of the Vosk, when I, though of the warriors,
once, on my knees, begged the ignominy of slavery to the freedom of honorable
death. Yes, I, Bosk of Port Kar, had once been slave.
Hunters
of Gor, 9.
“I had been your companion even after the year of
companionship had gone, and it had not been renewed."
At that point, in Gorean law, the companionship had been
dissolved. The companionship had not been renewed by the twentieth hour, the
Gorean Midnight, of its anniversary
Marauders
of Gor, 11.
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. 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. Slavery also, of course, encompasses the ownership of male slaves, for which there is less precedent in nature. Where males are concerned the institution is primarily economic. The labor of male slaves is useful and cheap. It is applied in such places as the quarries, the roads, the great farms, in certain types of cargo galleys, on the wharves, at the walls of cities and in the forests. Male slaves are usually debtors or criminals; sometimes they are captives, taken in actions against enemy cities or facilities; sometimes they have merely accrued the displeasure of powerful men or families; some slavers, working in gangs, specialize in the capture of free men for work projects; they obtain a fee per head on a contractual basis.
Beasts
of Gor, 235 - 36.
The slave, for example, does not ask if the master now wants the body of Gloria but, rather, does he want Gloria. 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, 353.
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 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, it to keep the slave in perfect custody, at all times, and
to encourage boldness on the part of males. After the slave had been in the
possession of the their, or captor, for one week she
counts as being legally his. To be sure, the original maser may attempt to
steal her back. A popular sport with young men is trying "chain
luck." This refers to the capture of women, either free
or bond, viewed as a sport. In war, of course, women of this world,
slave and free, like silver and gold, rank high as booty.
Dancer
of Gor, 95 – 96.
Even Gorean law
makes it clear that it is the entire slave which is owned, not merely a part of
her.
Dancer of Gor, 154.
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 plainly as the collar on her neck and the mark
on her thigh.
Dancer of Gor, 172.
"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
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, 69.
To my surprise she was a native of Ar. She had lived alone with her father, who had gambled
heavily on the races. He had died and to satisfy his debts, no others coming
forth to resolve them, the daughter, as Gorean law commonly prescribes, became
state property; she was then, following the law, put up for sale at public
auction; the proceeds of her sale were used, again following the mandate of the
law, to liquidate as equitably as possible the unsatisfied claims of creditors.
Assassins
of Gor, 164.
The Gorean slave, in the eyes of
Gorean law, is an animal, with no legal title to a name.
Hunters of Gor, 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, 148-9.
It was now out of the question that
she, a slave, might serve Priest-Kings. The collar, by Gorean law, cancelled
the past. When Sarpedon had locked his collar on her
throat her past as a free woman had vanished, her current history as a slave
had begun.
Tribesman
of Gor, 107.
As a slave she would indeed be
politically valueless. She could be exchanged, or bought and sold, for whatever
masters might wish. The slave is not a person before Gorean law but a rightless animal.
Slave Girl of Gor,
151.
She regarded me, frightened.
“In that sense, my dear,” I said,
“I am not an animal, and you are an animal. Yes, my dear, you are legally an
animal. In the eyes of Gorean law you are an animal. You have no name in your
own right. You may be collared and leashed. You may be bought and sold,
whipped, treated as the master pleases, disposed of as he sees fit. You have no
rights whatsoever. Legally you have no more status than a tarsk
or vulo. Legally, literally, you are an animal.”
Explorers
of Gor, 316.
“Technically,” I said, “in the eyes of Gorean law you are not an
object but an animal.”
Explorers
of Gor, 352.
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, 185.
"What do you think should be
her punishment?" asked Callimachus of me.
"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."
Guardsmen
of Gor, 115.
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 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, 222.
The testimony of slaves is commonly taken under torture in
Gorean law courts.
Magicians
of Gor, 222.
If any find additional quotes or have any comments, e-mail me
