Let it be noticed, the law assumes that possibly the servant may love his wife and his children and even his _master_ so well that he chooses not to leave them. Very well; if he will consent to come before the judges and in a solemn judicial manner, testify to this love of his heart, and moreover, will consent to endure the rather uncomfortable operation of having his ear bored through with an awl, then he may remain forever――_i. e._ during life. But the discomforts of this operation were intended to bear somewhat against this unlimited servitude. The law seemed to say to every servant――“It would probably be better for you to be your own master and live in freedom, rather than in even this very comfortable servitude.”――――Every provision of this statute had a purpose. The servant must be brought before the judges to express in this public manner his choice to remain in servitude; for this method would make it impossible for the master to misrepresent the will of his servant. Moreover, it seems probable that boring the ear was no badge of honor but the opposite, and therefore would bear against the man’s choice of perpetual servitude. The law made special provision for the case of female servants. The original statute (Ex. 21: 7–11) put her case on a different footing from that of her brother. “She shall not go out as the men-servants do.” The language――“If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant”――may seem at first view to be a case of slave-sale, involving real property in human flesh and bones. A closer examination will show that it comes under the usage of _selling daughters to become wives_; for this purchase “betrothed her to her master,” or to “his son,” and the law made special provision for her rights as such; viz. that in case her master is not pleased with her, he shall let her be redeemed, “and shall have no power to sell her unto a strange nation.” If betrothed to his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter; if the son take another wife, he shall not abate from his duty as a husband toward her; and if he refuse to do all the law demands, she is free――redeemed by law, “without money.”――――These statutes of course shape themselves to the existing usages in respect to polygamy, concubinage, and easy divorce, sedulously protecting the rights of a female servant under these most unfavorable usages. It seems probable that these kind and considerate provisions failed to protect her rights as fully as the spirit of the law intended, and therefore a further modification appears at a later period; for Deut. 15: 17 declares that the six years’ emancipation law shall apply to her also as truly as to her brother;――“and unto thy maid-servant thou shalt do likewise.”