Rules of slavery in this world

Slaves are the property of their masters or mistresses, but are still human beings. Masters and mistresses can punish slaves for the slaves’ misbehavior or the masters’ pleasure, but cannot permanently harm or scar a . The courts can order punitive brandings of slaves, which carry over into their post- lives, but this is very rare.

By the time of this story, slavery among men and work slavery for woman have died out with the realization that it is cheaper to pay a wage than take care of a , hire overseers, prevent escape, etc. Sex slavery is still practiced though, because it is prestigious to own a beautiful woman, and because slaves will perform sex acts that free prostitutes might balk at.

A woman becomes to slavery when she is eighteen, and remains until she is 35. All women, at age 13, have a tattoo placed on their left ass cheek (obviously, men chose the location) with a code that indicates their city of registration, their year of birth, and their unique registration number. Women are not allowed to wear clothing that covers up this “girl number,” making the fashions of even free women interesting to men!

Because owners don’t want to bear the expense of raising the children of their slaves, women with children are not to slavery, and slaves don’t have their contraception neutralized. However, the society realizes that the most beautiful women will be the most at risk of slavery, and doesn’t want these beauty genes taken out of the gene pool, so girls are automatically freed at the end of the 35th year from their birth year (included, remember, in their “girl tattoo”) and cannot be enslaved again. That leaves a woman with ten years to have a family (medical science has advanced to the point where a woman still has no issues giving birth up to age 45 or so). Many married women are former slaves, and it carries no stigma.

Almost the only way a woman can suffer permanent harm as a is if they lie, steal, or harm someone. They can then be sentenced by a court to being branded as a liar, thief, or violent person. Branded women will find it much harder to marry well, but branding is extremely uncommon for that very reason: slaves are well-behaved because of these consequences! Attempted escape as a is treated as theft (the is stealing her body, which is not her property) so slaves very seldom attempt escape.

Women can become slaves under a fairly restricted set of circumstances:

1. They agree to become a (automatically assumed if they collar themselves), even if their agreement is ; or
2. They are convicted of a crime and sentenced to slavery.

owners do not fully own their slaves until they get them registered (referred to as “obtaining papers”). papers are obtained at the branch of the Slaver’s Guild located in each city. The cost of such papers was small, but the guild was rich by virtue of the volume of slaves being registered. “Truthseers” can detect lies and are on call for the Slavers Guild is a denies becoming a voluntarily. If she is found to be lying about this, punishments are severe.

The Guild (in an effort to make slaving a bit more expensive and thus keep the market stable) would not give papers for females registered in the city where the guildhall was located, even if the slavery was genuinely voluntary. Women sentenced to slavery were given papers and auctioned off no matter what city originally registered them.

Slaves cannot be taken from the city without papers, which are checked at the gates before any is allowed to enter or leave. If a slaver is bringing a with no papers into a city, they will receive an import certificate for that , which then can be used to obtain a certificate. Naturally, these import certificates were the most-forged documents in the world, and hence the most scrutinized by the guild.

So, slavery in this world is bad, but not as bad as chattel slavery was, and it automatically ends with enough time left for a woman to enjoy a satisfying life. Voluntary slavery is uncommon but not unknown. Once a woman leaves her city, she had better have an escort or she risks getting a collar, as we will see in these stories. If captured, she will be eventually “convinced” to voluntarily accept a collar.