But far more deplorable than the caste system was the institution of slavery. There were only three statuses conceivable to the Gorean mind outside the caste system: slave, outlaw, and Priest-King. A man who refused to practise his livelihood or strove to alter status without the consent of the Council of High Castes was, by definition, an outlaw and subject to impalement. The girl I had originally seen had been a slave, and what I had taken to be the jewelery at her throat had been a badge of servitude. Another such badge was a brand concealed by her clothing. The latter marked her as a slave, and the former identified her master. One might change one's collar, but not one's brand. I had not seen the girl since the first day. I wondered what had become of her, but did not inquire. One of the first lessons I was taight on Gor was that concern for a slave was out of place. I decided to wait. I did learn, casually from a Scribe, not Torm, that slaves were not permitted to impart instruction to a free man, since it would place him in their debt, and nothing was owed to a slave. If it was in my power, I resolved to do what I could to abolish what seemed to me a degrading condition. I once talked to my father about the matter, and he merely said that there were many things on Gor worse than the lot of slavery, particularly that of a Tower Slave. Tarnsman of Gor; p. 45-46 "Even the gentlest and kindest of masters has absolute power over the slave. She is no less owned by him than she would be by the cruelest brute on Gor." Renegades of Gor; p. 359 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; p. 353 "Slavery institutionalizes, in an organized, social, civilized context, the natural biological relationship between men and women. It also, of course, as one would expect, by means of various devices, legal and otherwise, clarifies it and renders it more efficient. Renegades of Gor; p. 29 The master/slave relationship is the institutionalization of dominance and submission. It is, under the enhancements of civilization, the institutionalization of the primitive biological relationship of the human male and female, he the master, she the slave. How lonely is the man who has not yet found his slave; how forlorn is the woman who has not yet found her master." Rogue of Gor; p. 240 Ultimately civilization depends upon power, moral and physical, upon, so to speak, the will of the masters and the reality of the whip and the sword. It might be added, incidentally, that Phoebe, herself a slave, in moral consistency, fully accepted this same principle, at least intellectually, in her own case. She accepted, in short, as morally indisputable, the rightfulness of herself being punished if she should fail to be pleasing. Magicians of Gor; p. 124 Man owns a 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; p. 235