barelynangel
Posts: 6233
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Greetings,
As i miss his words of understanding on the Boards also, i asked Master if i could post some of his past thoughts on the subject of a Man marrying his slave:
LEONIDAS:
http://www.collarchat.com/m_197544/mpage_1/key_marry/tm.htm#199171
Philosophically speaking, marrying your slave doesn't square so well with the notion of your slave being chattel. Nevermind what you might or might not vow that you don't really mean if you actually do view the woman next to you as property, there really isn't any way around the fact that marriage is a mutual undertaking of mutual obligations of some sort. When a woman becomes your wife, she ceases to be property.
Practically speaking, my experience of some years is that it doesn't work very well. There were raging debates among us years ago about the wisdom, or lack thereof, of a man marrying his slave. I've noticed over the years that many of the men from the "marry your slave" camp either aren't married to the same woman anymore, or if they are, consider them to be their "free companion" now. Why that is I couldn't say for sure. One theory that I have is that people who grew up in this century in the western hemisphere have a pretty well defined pideonhole in their brain where "wife" goes, while the slot in their brain where "slave" fits isn't so well defined. We didn't grow up watching our fathers, uncles, and other men deal with their slaves. We saw lots of examples of wives though, and so had lots of opportunities to model how to deal with one. That may be where the rub comes in long term when trying to hold the notion of "wife" and "slave" in your head at the same time. The "wife" concept is simply much better defined for most men, and very easy to fall into behaviorally. The "slave", in time, just ends up being the "wife" just because that's what we know.
http://www.collarchat.com/m_213679/mpage_1/key_marry/tm.htm#214131
quote from another poster:
But I don't get it- I see gorean doms and slaves here all over the place talking about how much they romantically and emotionally love their slave/master? They even marry them and have actual families with them and more. I see gorean people act from perspectives and motivations that are NOTHING like using slaves as chattel.
....I can tell you that, over time, many of those who were married to and had families with their slaves ultimately stopped calling them slaves, opting instead to consider them free companions.
The people identifying as Gorean on this site are a bit more varied than you would find on a "Goreans Only" kind of site. I hate to say it (again) because it is unpopular, but to understand the nature of Gorean slavery, you'll have to read the books. If you had, you would start seeing that what some people call Gorean slavery is mostly or wholly inconsistant with Gorean slavery.
In the BDSM world, you can call anything slavery, and anyone's definition is just as valid as anyone else's. Gorean slavery isn't like that. There is an objective standard against which you may measure what someone is doing and consider whether that's really Gorean slavery, or not....
quote:
I think it's fine if a man doesn't own a slave that he wishes. I think it's fine if a man does love his slave, too. I think it's fine if a man marries that slave, and has offspring with her. I don't think the measure of it's Gorean-ness means a damn; a man who chooses not to have offspring or marry a woman, because he think he will be unmanned by it or because he will fall short of any philsophy (Gorean or otherwise) demonstrates an inability to establish who he is, for himself.
Leonidas:
Then you have it bass-akwards, which isn't suprising, since you claim to be an outsider in the first place.
It's not about conforming to a dogma. At all. It's about recognizing yourself in somethng. I do not hold the views that I do because Norman said I should. I hold them because I agree with what he wrote down, most of which he did not even make up, rather, simply observed in the nature of men. This same tendency in men (like me) has been observed completely apart from the Gor books, and even named (not so flatteringly) by those who would like us to stop it (the "Madonna/Whore complex"). Norman didn't make t up. He just recognized that men in male dominated cultures do tend to think like that, and (heretically) suggested that it might not be a bad thing.
You don't have to identify with any of this if it isn't you. To suggest that men who do aren't their own men, though, is just plain cowardly. Whether you like it or not, you are, to some extent, both the beneficiary and prisoner of some culture or another. I hope for your sake it is one that genuinely suits your actual temperment.
and finally:
quote:
This is a cultural diference I don't understand. Isn't it enslavement that makes a girl a slave? How does marrying the girl change things from *her* perspective? Isn't that where ownership beliefs are built, in the girl? If you lived absolutely and abjectly under the will and authority of another person(and can't of your own volition leave) how are you not owned and not a slave? How is that different for Goreans? How does that power-base evaporate when a man marries a person he owns literally..not just in status but owns. Do you know what I mean?
It's different for Goreans for the very same reason that it was different for Xerces. Obviously, his power base (when it came to Ester) didn't change much when she went from being just another Jewish serving girl in his house to being a Queen, but her status did change. Even though she was still absolutely subject to his rule and will, she became entitled to considerations that she would not have been entitled to as a slave girl. Have you not noticed folks who argue for marrying a slave often site a wife having rights (like insurance and powers of attorney) that slaves don't get? It's the same thing. You make a slave your wife if you want her to have a status that a slave doesn't have, and you are willing to marry her in order for her to have it.
If you own a woman, and you marry her, she certainly may still serve you, as your wife, just as she did the day before she became your wife. The balance of power between you, and how you relate to one another, may not have changed a bit. Her status has just changed. She is your wife (or Free Companion if you prefer) now, of which we can have only one where we live. ...
These are all the post from Master Leonidas -- i simply put his name in the author and the word marry and i think 6 threads came up and these were the ones that discussed this issue, and asked him if i could post some of his old thoughts on the subject and he said he doesn't mind.
angel
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
R.W. Emerson
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RE: Is calling a slave a FC so you can marry just seman... - 
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