The representative of the Merchants, to whom I reported my business, and to whom I paid for wharfage, asked no questions. He did not even demand the proof of registration of the Tesephone in Tabor. The Merchants, who control Lydius, under merchant law, for it is a free port, like Helmutsport, and Schendi and Bazi, are more interested in having their port heavily trafficked than strictly policed.
--- Hunters of Gor, p 43
Essentially, merchant law is guided by the codes of the caste and serves as a consumer protection system as well as a means to maintain the credibility of the members of the caste of merchants. By policing their own, merchants manage to establish and preserve the trust of the customer population.
One would not wish to buy a girl thinking she was auburn, a rare and muchly prized hair color on Gor, for example, and then discover later that she was, say, blond. Against such fraud, needless to say, the law provides redress. Slavers will take pains in checking out new catches, or acquisitions, to ascertain the natural color of their hair, one of the items one expects to find, along with fingerprints and measurements, and such, on carefully prepared slave papers.
--- Vagabonds of Gor, Ch 19
Merchant law also allows for a form of neutral ground in times of conflict, offering goods and services under even opportunity system and without having to be on one or the other side of a conflict.
Various cities, through their own Merchant Castes, lease land for these stockades and, for their fees, keep their garrisons, usually men of their own cities, supplied. The stockades are governed under Merchant Law, legislated and revised, and upheld, at the Sardar Fairs.
--- Captive of Gor, p 219
He himself resided, I understood, in Telnus, the capital of Cos, where his company had its headquarters. His work chains, however, were politically neutral, understood under merchant law as hirable instruments. They might, accordingly, and sometimes did, work for both sides in given conflicts.
---Dancer of Gor, p 322
Merchant law provides the rules by which certification and pedigrees will be produced, the registering of breeds and lineage information for cattle, domestic animals as well as slaves. The breeding of slaves is subject to a number of conditions as is the manner in which the children of slaves are treated and/or handled. In most cities a child born to a slave is also slave even if the child was conceinved by a free man. Free men wishing to have free chidren born of their slave girls, are said to temporarily free them for the time of childbirth. There are exceptions of course as with most rules, the city of Tharna for example, in post-revolt era, modified its laws so that slave girls may give birth to free persons so long as they were free at the time of conception. This of course makes the temporary freedom much shorter.
The youth of Tharna is usually bred from women temporarily freed for purposes of their conception, then reenslaved. In Tharnan law a person conceived by a free person on a free person is considered to be a free person, even if they are later carried and borne by a slave. In many other cities this is different, the usual case being that the offspring of a slave is a slave, and belongs to the mother's owner.
---Vagabonds of Gor, Ch 26
For the most part, though, slaves are bred in order to produce more slaves, to perpetuate a certain trait, or quality, much the same as other cattle.
Slavers are considered a sub-caste of the merchants although there is mention that the slavers themselves rather consider themselves to be an independant caste. The fact is though, that the rules and laws which pertain to the trade of human property are clearly stated as part of merchant law. It is interesting to note that although most cities have their own enslavement laws, merchant law seems to have established a number of criteria that would be met before a slave is legally a slave by this law.
It is my understanding, following merchant law, and Tahari custom,” I said, “that I am not a slave, for though I am a prisoner, I have been neither branded nor collared, nor have I performed a gesture of submission.
---Tribesmen of Gor, p 196
“You understand further, of course,” said he, “that under Gorean merchant law, which is the only law commonly acknowledged binding between cities, that you stand under separate permissions of enslavement. First, were you of Ar, it would be my right, could I be successful, to make of you a slave, for we share no Home Stone. Secondly, though you speak of yourself as the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers, you are, in actuality, Miss Elicia Nevins of the planet Earth. You are an Earth girl and thus stand within a general permission of enslavement, fair beauty quarry to any Gorean male whatsoever.
---Slave Girl of Gor, p 394
