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In the beginning Tharna had been much as other cities of Gor, in which women were too little regarded and enjoyed too few rights. In those days it had been a portion of the Rites of Submission, as practiced in Tharna, to strip and bind the captive with yellow cords and place her on a scarlet rug, the yellow of the cord being symbolic of talenders, a flower often associated with feminine love and beauty, the scarlet of the rug being symbolic of blood, and perhaps of passion. He who had captured the girl would place his sword to her breast and utter the ritual phrases of enslavement. They were the last words she would hear as a free woman. Weep, Free Maiden. Remember your pride and weep. Remember your laughter and weep. Remember you were my enemy and weep. Now you are my helpless captive. Remember you stood against me. Now you lie at my feet. I have bound you with yellow cords. I have placed you on the scarlet rug. Thus by the laws of Tharna do I claim you. Remember you were free. Know now you are my slave. Weep, Slave Girl. At this point the captor would untie the girl's ankles and complete the rite. When she rose from the rug to follow him, she was, in his eyes and hers, a slave. Over a period of time this cruel practice fell into disuse and the women of Tharna came to be more reasonably and humanely regarded. Indeed, through their love and tenderness, they taught their captors that they, too, were worthy of respect and affection. And, of course, as the captors came gradually to care for their slaves, the desire to subjugate them became less, for few men long desire to subjugate a creature for whom they genuinely care, unless perhaps it be they fear to lose her should she be free. Yet as the status of these women became more ennobled and less clearly defined the subtle tensions of dominance and submission, instinctual throughout the animal world, tended to assert themselves. ---Outlaw of Gor, Ch 22 The second Era Gynocracy The balance of mutual regard is always delicate and, statistically, it is improbable that it can long be maintained throughout an entire population. Accordingly, gradually exploiting, perhaps unconsciously, the opportunities afforded by the training of children and the affections of their men, the women of Tharna improved their position considerably over the generations, also adding to their social power the economic largesse of various funds and inheritances. Eventually, largely via the conditioning of the young and the control of education, those superiorities which the female naturally possesses came to be enlarged on at the expense of those possessed by the male. And just as in our own world it is possible to condition entire populations to believe what is, from the standpoint of another population, incomprehensible and absurd, so in Tharna both the men and the women came eventually to believe the myths or the distortions advantageous to female dominance. Thus it was, gradually and unnoticed, that the gynocracy of Tharna came to be established, and honored with the full weight of tradition and custom, those invisible bonds heavier than chains because they are not understood to exist. In a city such as Tharna the men, taught to regard themselves as beasts, as inferior beings, seldom develop the full respect for themselves essential to true manhood. But even more strangely, the women of Tharna do not seem content under the gynocracy. Although they despise men and congratulate themselves on their more lofty status it seems to me that they, too, fail to respect themselves. Hating their men, they hate themselves. ---Outlaw of Gor, Ch 22 That is, the Tharna most know. The Tharna most have seen The incomplete story of a City who had lost her way Musings of Tarl Cabot Prediction? I have wondered sometimes if a man, to be a man, must not master a woman and if a woman to be a woman must not know herself mastered. I have wondered how long nature's laws, if laws they are, can be subverted in Tharna. I have sensed how a man in Tharna longs to take the mask from a woman, and I have suspected how much a woman longs for her mask to be taken. Should there ever be a revolution in the ways of Tharna I would pity her women-at least at first-for they would be the object of the pent-up frustrations of generations. If the pendulum should swing in Tharna, it would swing far. Perhaps even to the scarlet rug and yellow cords. ---Outlaw of Gor, Ch 22 In Outlaw of Gor, we witness the revolt of the men of Tharna... the predicted sway of the pendulum. The Revolt The Twenty-Third Day of En'Kara in the Fourth Year of the Reign of Lara, Tatrix of Tharna, the Year 10,117 from the Founding of Ar. A letter from Tarl Cabot was inscribed in the City of Tharna archives. In it, he spoke of the rebirth of Tharna and how the City was, as he left it to journey to the Sardar. Tharna is now a different city than it has ever been within the memory of living man. Her ruler-the gracious and beautiful Lara-is surely one of the wisest and most just of rulers on this barbaric world, and hers has been the torturous task of reuniting a city disrupted by civil strife, of making peace among factions and dealing fairly with all. If she were not loved as she is by the men of Tharna her task would have been impossible. As she ascended once more the throne no proscription notices were posted but a general amnesty was granted to all, both those who had espoused her cause and those who had fought for Dorna the Proud. From this amnesty only the silver masks of Tharna were excepted. Blood was high in the streets of Tharna after the revolt and angry men, both rebels and defenders, joined in the brutal hunt for silver masks. These poor creatures were hunted from cylinder to cylinder, from room to room. When found they were dragged forth into the street, unmasked, cruelly bound together and driven to the palace at the point of weapons, their masks hanging about their necks. Many silver masks were discovered hiding in obscure chambers in the palace itself and the dungeons below the palace were soon filled with chains of fair, lamenting prisoners. Soon the animal cages beneath the arena of the Amusements of Tharna had to be pressed into service, and then the arena itself. Other Silver Masks had taken refuge in the mountains beyond the walls and these were hunted like sleen by converging rings of irate peasants, who drove them into the center of their hunting circles, whence, unmasked and bound, they were herded to the city to meet their fate. Most of the silver masks however, when it was understood their battle had been lost and the laws of Tharna were irrevocably shattered, came of their own free will into the streets and submitted themselves in the traditional fashion of the captive Gorean female, kneeling, lowering the head, and lifting and raising the arms, wrists crossed for binding. The pendulum in Tharna had swung. I myself had stood at the foot of the steps to the golden throne when Lara had commanded that the giant mask of gold which hung behind it be pried by spears from the wall and cast to the floor at our feet. No more would that cold serene visage survey the throne room of Tharna. The men of Tharna watched almost in disbelief as the great mask loosened, bolt by bolt, from the wall, leaned forward and at last, dragged down by its own weight, broke loose and plunged clattering down the steps of the throne, breaking into a hundred pieces. "Let it be melted," Lara had said, "and cast into the golden tarn disks of Tharna and let these be distributed to those who have suffered in our day of troubles." "And add to the golden tarn disks," she had exclaimed, "tarn disks of silver to be formed from the masks of our women, for henceforth in Tharna no woman may wear a mask of either gold or silver, not even though she be Tatrix of Tharna herself!" And as she had spoken, according to the customs of Tharna, her words had become the law and from that day forth no woman of Tharna might wear a mask. In the streets of Tharna shortly after the end of the revolt the caste colors of Gor began to appear openly in the garments of the citizens. The marvelous glazing substances of the Caste of Builders, long prohibited as frivolous and expensive, began to appear on the walls of the cylinders, even on the walls of the city itself. Graveled streets are now being paved with blocks of colored stone set in patterns to delight the eye. The wood of the great gate has been polished and its brass burnished. New paint blazes upon the bridges. The sound of caravan bells is no longer strange in Tharna and strings of traders have found their way to her gates, to exploit this most surprising of all markets. It is perhaps a small thing to see on the belt of an artisan a silver buckle of the style worn in mountainous Thentis or to note the delicacy of dried eels from Port Kar in the marketplace, but these things, small though they are, speak to me of a new Tharna. In the streets I hear the shouting, the song and clamor that is typically Gorean. The marketplace is no longer simply some acres of tile on which business must be dourly conducted. It is a place where friends meet, arrange dinners, exchange invitations, discuss politics, the weather, strategy, philosophy and the management of slave girls. One change that I find of interest, though I cannot heartily approve, is that the rails have been removed from the high bridges of Tharna. I had thought this pointless, and perhaps dangerous, but Kron had said simply, "Let those who fear to walk the high bridges not walk the high bridges." One might also mention that the men of Tharna have formed the custom of wearing in the belt of their tunic two yellow cords, each about eighteen inches in length. By this sign alone men of other cities can now recognize a man of Tharna. On the twentieth day following peace in Tharna the fate of the silver masks was determined. They were herded, roped throat to throat, unveiled, wrists bound behind their backs, in long lines to the arena of the Amusements of Tharna. There they would hear the judgment of Lara, their Tatrix. They knelt before her-once proud silver masks, now terrified and helpless captives-on the same sparkling sand that had so often been stained with the blood of the men of Tharna. Lara had thought long on these matters and had discussed them with many, including myself. In the end her decision was her own. I do not know that my own decision would have been so harsh, but I admit that Lara knew her city and its silver masks better than I. I recognized that it was not possible to restore the old order of Tharna, nor was it desirable. Too I recognized that there was no longer any adequate provision-given the destruction of Tharna's institutions-for the indefinite shelter of large numbers of free women within her walls. The family, for example, had not existed in Tharna for generations, having been replaced by the division of the sexes and the segregated public nurseries. And too it must be remembered that the men of Tharna who had tasted her women in the revolt now demanded them as their right. Each silver mask would have six months in which she would be free to live within the city and be fed at the common tables, much as before the revolt. But within that six months she is expected to find a man of Tharna to whom she will propose herself as a Free Companion. If he does not accept her as a Free Companion-and few men of Tharna will be in a mood to extend the privileges of Free Companionship to a silver mask-he may then, without further ado, simply collar her as his slave, or if he wishes he may reject her completely. If she is rejected she may propose herself similarly to yet another of the men of Tharna, and perhaps yet another and another. In effect, considering the temper of the men of Tharna, Lara's judgment gives the silver masks the opportunity, for a time, to choose a master, or after that time to be themselves chosen as a slave girl. Thus each silver mask will in time belong to a beast, though at first she is given some opportunity to determine whose yellow cords she will feel, on whose rug the ceremony of submission will take place. Perhaps Lara understood, as I did not, that women such as silver masks must be taught love, and can learn it only from a master. It was not her intention to condemn her sisters of Tharna into interminable and miserable bondage but to force them to take this strange first step on the road she herself had traveled, one of the unusual roads that may lead to love. When I had questioned her, Lara had said to me that only when true love is learned is the Free Companionship possible, and that some women can learn love only in chains. I wondered at her words.There is little more to tell. Kron remains in Tharna, where he stands high in the Council of the Tatrix Lara. ---Outlaw of Gor, Ch 26 ~The END~ ? NOT QUITE! We bring you Tharna, beyond the mask and how it was always meant to be. WEBMAZE Tharna will be the Tharna of victors Do read carefully From the time Tarl Cabot leaves Tharna in the care of still reigning Lara, the City is mentioned over the books and we have a sense of the progression of things and matters concerning the place women in that City. We leave Tharna at the end of Outlaw in a state of reconstruction, not only of a City, but of its people, more specifically, its men. Initially it is explained that the Silver Masked Women were to seek companions or fall to slavery; a fate which certainly seems the more likely to occur given the feelings of Tharnan men toward them. And as the years go by, we hear whispers of Tharna ... and how from 'mostly' slaves to 'almost all slaves, to the abdication of the Tatrix and the changing of laws and the education of youth to allow the slavery of all Tharnan women no interlude or chance to be forgotten. In Slave Girl of Gor "She is ruled by Lara, a Tatrix. This seems paradoxical, for in Tharna, of the hundreds of known Gorean cities, the position of women is surely among the lowest. The sign of a man of Tharna is two yellow cords carried at the belt, suitable for the binding of the hands and feet of a female. At one time apparently women were dominant in Tharna but this situation, in a revolution of the males, was overturned. Few women in Tharna, even now, years later, are permitted out of the collar." In Beasts of Gor "There are few free women in Tharna. One of the most harsh and cruel slaveries on Gor, it is said, is that of the slave girls of Tharna." "'Are most Gorean women slaves?' she asked. 'No', I said. 'Indeed, statistically, in those parts of Gor with which I am familiar, very few. Commonly only one woman in, say, forty or fifty is a slave. This varies somewhat of course, from city to city. The major exception to these ratios is the city of Tharna, in which almost every woman is a slave.' I looked at her. 'There are special historical reasons for that', I said." In Dancer of Gor "Interestingly there are supposedly almost no free woman in Tharna. Further, it is said that the slavery of a woman in Tharna seldom brings slaves into the city or, indeed, sell them out of the city. It is their own women, it seems, whom they keep in bondage, and a bondage of a very severe sort. Even when a slave begs to be sold out of the city, this is usually denied her. One might almost think that the slavery of the women in Tharna was not an ordinary slavery but in some sense rather different. It is almost as though it had been imposed upon them as a punishment; it is almost as if they had been sentenced to it. Surprisingly, however, and scarcely to be expected in such a stern policy, the city itself is ruled by a Tatrix. Her name, it is said, is Lara." And so it would seem, that by the time we hear of Lara's abdication, she may well have been the only free woman left in Tharna. In that revolution the gynocracy in Tharna had been overthrown, devastatingly. Even to this day women in Tharna are kept almost uniformly as helpless, abject slaves, the men of Tharna having an excellent memory for history. 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 earned 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. The education, however, of the Tharnan youth differs on a sexual basis. The boys are raised to be men, and masters, and the girls to be women, and slaves. The boys, as a portion of the Home Stone Ceremony, take an oath of mastery, in which they swear never to surrender the dominance which is rightfully theirs by nature. It is in this ceremony, also, that they receive the two yellow cords commonly worn in the belt of a male Tharnan. These cords, each about eighteen inches long, are suitable for the binding of a female, hand and foot. In the same ceremony the young women of Tharna are also brought into the presence of the Home Stone. They, however, are not permitted to kiss or touch it. Then, in its presence they are stripped and collared. They are then, by the young men, bound with the yellow cords, so that they will know their feel. Afterwards, they are usually conducted home by one of the young men, often he whose cords have bound them, and who may be interested in their acquisition, on his leash, usually to the home of their mother's owner, usually their father, to whom, in virtue of such a ceremony, they now legally count as slave, who will see to their disposition, or sale. Even free women visiting Tharna from other cities must, at the gates, don temporary collars and slave tunics, and be leashed. The ruler in Tharna, paradoxically, was for several years a tatrix, Lara. To be sure, she herself apparently had some understanding of what it was to be a female slave. It seems it had once been taught to her. I had heard, incidentally, a few months ago, in Port Cos, from a Tharnan silver merchant, that Lara had abdicated. Perhaps her abdication was in the best interests of the city. I do not know. Doubtless it ended something of a political tension in the city, and I take it that Tharna now, under the governance of its councils, and its administrator, Kron, has at last achieved a commendable political consistency. As nearly as I could determine from the reports of the silver merchant Lara's abdication was not forced, nor even the result of extreme political pressures brought on her, but a voluntary act, one apparently regarded by her as being not only in the best interests of the city but in her own best interests as well. He did not know what had become of her. I would suppose that she is now merely another. Tharnan woman, another slave. It is my hope that she is happy. ---Vagabonds of Gor, Ch 26

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