In several of the Gor novels, Tarl relates to the reader the idea that the only woman who is truly free is the one that is enslaved. This is a dichotomy that is supposed to make us think. Perhaps too often, though, it simply makes the average Earth male assume that all women should be collared.

My own feelings are that this statement, formulated by Goreans and parroted by Tarl Cabot, is that it is quite true. On the fictional planet Gor, women are brought up knowing that there is a 40 to 1 chance that they will be enslaved sometime during their life. They see female slaves around them all the time, are tended by them, order them around. Free Women are taught, from birth, to be pleasing to men, to tend to the needs of men. Free Women are taught the Love Dances of their city, ways of serving beverages and foods, how to talk and stand and kneel. The reality is, the average Free Woman has a good chance of ending up on a coffle at any time. You would think that this knowledge alone would be enough to entice the Free Woman to behave well.

In the novels, we see two distinct types of Free Women. There is the shrewish, dour, unhappy type of Free Women (for instance, Talena in Tarnsman of Gor). Then there is the other type of Free Woman - the Woman who has learned what steel can do, and has come out the other side still free. Women like Talena, who is enslaved with steel but never submits in her soul, and like Lara, Tatrix of Tharna, who finds herself in chains and at the mercy of a Slaver, but then in her regained freedom finds herself serving peaceably beside her sisters in bondage.

Consistently, through the novels, we see that women who have not accepted their womanhood, those who feel they are above men, or above feelings and emotions, are quickly enslaved. Those who do not have the self discipline and humility remain slaves, and are trained, and settle into their Master's collar happily. Those who DO have the necessary mental and emotional requirements are eventually freed, for various reasons, to once more become Free Women with all the things that entails.

What has changed? Why are these women consistently so different when they are released from their chains? Because they have accepted their womanhood. They have finally accepted the simple fact that, on Gor (and to a lesser extent here on Earth) men can and will have their way, that men have the power and the physical prowess to keep women however they wish. Freedom, a legal fiction for Gorean women, is dependent solely upon the men who own them.

Own them, you ask? Yes, on Gor in the novels, all women are owned. When young, adolescent Free Women (or perhaps they are Free Girls?) are at home, growing up, they are bound to serve and feed and care for their brothers, and to a lesser extent their father. When they are grown, their father sells them to the Man of his choice (although it does seem that most Gorean fathers wish the best for their daughters, and will choose well, with a mind for love as well as bride price). The Free Companioned woman now belongs to her mate. Should he die, she becomes the property of her Caste, or her family, or in some places perhaps her clan.

Never in the novels do we see women who are truly free, except at the whim of a man. The main difference is largely in how they, the women themselves, view that freedom. Do they accept their position as subservient to men? Or do they fight it, yet to be tamed into their proper position in life? The slave wears her chains openly, for all to see, physical metal entrapping her wrists, her neck, her feet. The Free Woman wears her fetters on her soul.

I would say that the Free Woman, whose chains are all but invisible, has much more self control than the woman who must have the physical restraints there. The truly Free Woman is capable of monitoring herself, limiting herself, so that the men in her life are not required to. And perhaps this is part of the elusive, unspeakable reason that men tolerate Free Women in their lives.

A kajira takes time, training, and effort. Surely in the novels Gorean men often relegated kajirae to the pens or kennels, but any of us who have ever owned slaves know that a girl left alone that way will simply waste away. A little bit of planned neglect can sometimes heighten a woman's reactions to men, but to truly neglect a woman is to commit her to ignominy, and death. So there is effort involved in the owning and keeping of slaves (much in the same way there is in owning dogs or cats, or even fish or cars).

The Free Woman, on the other hand, can care for herself. The relative freedom allotted to her, which allows her to visit friends, enrich her own mind, or even practice a Caste skill, also allows her to live on when her Companion (or brother or father) is too busy to spend time with her. On Gor, he might be fighting a war, or working... on Earth, he might be doing overtime or any number of other things. She can still maintain his home, his goods, prepare his dinner, and he isn't required to unchain her for it to be done.

What was that? Yes, ladies, if you're reading this you read correctly: maintain his home, his goods, prepare his dinner. Not every household has a slave to do these tasks, and when there is no slave to do it, WE, the Free Women, are the ones these tasks fall to. Even when a slave IS doing the chores, the Free Woman is there to supervise and watch over, to make certain things are done well, and on time.

Perhaps Shakespeare said it best, out of the mouth of Katherine in Taming of the Shrew:

"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt."

Katherine is, I think, the greatest of truly Free Women... yet from her own mouth we hear the words spoken, that we, as women, owe obedience, love, such a payment for our freedom. In the opinion of this writer, Taming of the Shrew is one of the best Gorean plays ever written, and if no one has taken it to Gor yet, I'll make a fortune doing it myself!

All of this, in a rather circuituous way, brings me to the point that Free Women are women. On Earth, we lose our womanhood as we struggle for supremacy in business, in finance, even in our homes. But on Gor, that is not possible. Man is supreme, and we are free (ahh... there's that word again -- FREE) to be the females we are. I believe Marcus of Ar once said that the kajira owes her servitute to all men, while the Free Woman owes it only to her Companion. In re-thinking that, I would almost say it is opposite. The kajira, while certainly being at the beck and call of any man, owes her submission truly to only the one who has collared her. It is he that dictates the boundaries in her life, and he is the one that tells her what she can and cannot do. If other men don't like it, they can always talk to her Master, right? The Free Woman, on the other hand, has a vested interest in keeping all men as happy as she can -- in order to keep the collar from being placed around her throat. Her Companion might put up with a lot out of love for her, but the average man on the street certainly won't!

Freedom in slavery. Slavery in freedom. Norman expounds on the virtues and vices of womanhood quite frequently in the novels. As I have said before, however, we need to keep in mind that we are reading not the daily logs of the Gorean irc rooms, but the mythology or hero stories of Gor. We aren't reading about "the normal people" when we pick up a Gorean novel. We're reading about the exceptions, or about the archetypes.

Considering the most favoured Free Women in the novels are the ones that have, at some time, worn slave steel around their throat, I think we can consider this an archetype. Tarl tells us that the freeing of slaves doesn't happen very often, and surely we don't see it happening in every novel we come across. However, what we DO see are men enslaving women they want and love, with the purpose of teaching them that they are women. Each of the enslaved beauties that is eventually freed from her bondage has changed, both in attitude and thought pattern. She loses her egostical pride, and replaces it with the humble pride of knowing her place in the world.

A modern day example: in the show All in the Family, we see Archie Bunker dominating his wife in almost every episode. Edith is the perfect example of the Gorean Free Woman in action, though perhaps we would dress her better on Gor than Archie does in the sitcom. She cooks his meals, cares for his children, loves him even when he is being unreasonable and grouchy. That is both her honour and her duty. And she generally does it with a smile. What we also see is that, in this humility and servitude, Edith gets what she wants. She doesn't rail and yell and insist and demand when she wants a new dress. She quietly works her way into Archie's mind until he understands. It may be considered manipulation, to some extent, but this is the kind of manipulation men generally don't mind. It's pleasant, in a way, because it shows them we care for them, that we're attentive to their needs as well as our own.

Perhaps the proper definition of the "truly" Free Woman is the woman who has found the man who can master her (as a violinist masters his instrument), and has been mastered, and has learned to come out the other side of that mastering. Freedom, it would seem, really has little to do with the collar around a woman's neck, or the laws that enforce or deny her liberty. Freedom instead has everything to do with the understanding that, as a woman, I am subject to the will of the man I love, and that his will is to have me free.

It doesn't matter if a brand graces my thigh, or a collar surrounds my neck, or even if I wear plain or elaborate Robes and veils. All that matters is that his will supercedes my own, and that I respect that, and that I love him for it. I know my place: at his side, my hand in his. Should he want me elsewhere, he has the power to place me at his whim.

--- // Lady Undine