Dînadan:
"And as I set a father above all, I decree that my Third Commandment shall be ‘A Father Owns all his Children and Wives and all their Possessions.’ And I decree this to hold unto death and only holy writ may break the bonds.
For a child must obey their father in all things, and thus must offer up any and all possessions when ordered to by their father. And thus those goods belong to the father and are held by the child in trust. And in a father’s absence, I decree his eldest male heir shall stand in his stead and arbitrate on his behalf.
And when a father dies, his authority passes to his eldest living son. If he has no living sons, then it shall pass on to his eldest living male heir. And if he have none of these, onto his nearest male kin as decreed by the Order of the Clans. And he who inherits shall now be the father.
And as my consorts are shackled to me so to shall the bond betwixt father and daughter be broken and a new one forged between her and her husband. And he shall own her unto death whereupon she shall be rebound to her father.
And as these bonds hold between father and child so too shall they hold between me and you, for I am your Father, and you my Children, and thus are my property for as it has been written, my Third Commandment is ‘A Father Owns all his Children and Wives and all their Possessions.’
- inscription found on the third of the one hundred and forty-four bronze tablets in the Temple of Hashut atop Mingol Zharr-Naggrund. From this commandment arises the practise of indentured servitude and a more flexible approach to family than in western dwarf society. As a Dawi is considered the property of his father, it is commonly accepted that a father may sell his sons to another as he would a slave, whereupon the new father may elect to adopt the son or elect to sign a contract with the old father for a fixed term. However while this is commonly regarded as acceptable, it is still relatively rare as everything a Dawi owns, including his sons belong to his father, and thus he may not sell without his father’s consent. As a result, these sales are usually restricted between those with a ‘father’ in common. Another common application is a father who wishes to remove a son from the line of succession; for example, if a father has three sons and the middle son is out of favour, it is common for him to sell the third son to the first, thereby making him the first son’s son.