To Make The Hardship Greater, If A Relative Or
Friend Comes Forward To Pay The Debt, The Creditor Has The
Right to
refuse payment, and to keep his slave, whose only hope of bettering
himself is in getting his owner
To accept payment for him from a third
party, so that he may become the slave of the person who has ransomed
him.
But there are worse evils still, for in cases where a married man
contracts a debt, his wife and existing children, those who may
hereafter be born, and their descendants, pass into slavery; and all,
male and female, are compelled as slaves to work for their master, who
in very many cases compels the women and girls to live a life of
degradation for his benefit, and even the wives of a creditor are well
satisfied to receive the earnings of these poor creatures. If a debt be
contracted by an unmarried man or woman, and he or she marry
afterwards, the person so taken in marriage and all the offspring
become slave debtors. The worst features of the system are seen where a
Rajah is the creditor, for he is the last man to be willing to receive
payment of a debt and free the debtor, for the number of his followers,
even if they are but women and girls, increases his consequence, and
debtors when once taken into a Rajah's household are looked upon as
being as much a part of his property as his cattle or elephants.
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