Loy­alty if a polyamorous Master/slave rela­tion­ship is com­plex and dif­fer­ent for a Mas­ter than his slave’s because of the very nature of the relationship.

Pho­tog­ra­pher Derek Bowden

Trust and a feel­ing of belong­ing are nec­es­sary to allow loy­alty to grow.  You become loyal to some­one you feel a con­nec­tion to.

It is the Master’s respon­si­bil­ity to build the feel­ing of belong in a sub­mis­sive to fos­ter her loy­alty to him, the polyamorous Master/slave rela­tion­ship and the other slave. The mas­ter assumes the bur­den of build­ing and pro­tect­ing his slaves’ loy­alty. This is not easy because every­one has con­flict­ing loy­al­ties. An exam­ple would be the loy­alty to a friend can con­flict with loy­alty to fam­ily or a principle.

“The scholar does not con­sider gold and jade to be pre­cious trea­sures, but loy­alty and good faith.” – Confucius

Under­stand­ing loy­alty In a polyamorous Mas­ter slave relationship

In Gen­eral terms loy­alty means:

1) giv­ing high pri­or­ity to the rela­tion­ship and doing what is in the best inter­est to pro­tect and deepen the rela­tion­ship there­fore insur­ing long-term suc­cess. That is true for both mas­ter and slave. How­ever the focus may be different.

2) Or a feel­ing of alle­giance or a course of action that binds you.  Loy­alty to a principle.

For pur­poses of this arti­cle the def­i­n­i­tion of a polyamorous Master/slave Rela­tion­ship means a 24/7 fam­ily unit made up of one Mas­ter and more than one slave. The Mas­ter is the chief author­ity in the rela­tion­ship. There may be an alpha slave whos task is to help teach and make sure oth­ers fol­low her Master’s rules. All aspects of the slaves’ lives are owned and sub­ject to con­trol by the Mas­ter. It’s a closed rela­tion­ship in that the slaves are not free to have sex­ual rela­tion­ships with oth­ers with­out the Master’s con­sent. Slaves are owned prop­erty.  It is first and fore­most a Master/slave relationship.

NOTE: Polygamy  means ‘many mar­riages’ and is based on hav­ing mar­riage com­mit­ments (think mor­mons). Polyamory is a term that means ‘many loves’. It does not imply mar­riage.  It can include liv­ing together, rais­ing kids and group slavery.

In a polyamorous Master/slave rela­tion­ship many types of loy­al­ity comes into play . There are inter­per­sonal, fam­ily, orga­ni­za­tional,  employer/employee and hints of mil­i­tary type loy­al­ties all woven together in the relationship.

Loy­al­ity in a polyamorous Master/slave rela­tion­ship is dif­fer­ent than a Mar­riage. Loy­alty in a mas­ter /slave rela­tion­ship has a hier­ar­chi­cal structure.

Dif­fer­ent in loy­al­ties for a Mas­ter vs slave

A master’s loy­alty in a polyamorous rela­tion­ship dif­fers from his slaves.  This is due to the dif­fer­ence in roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties in the rela­tion­ship.  Most peo­ple don’t think about it but there are many dif­fer­ent types of loy­al­ties in a rela­tion­ship. Explain­ing loy­alty in a polyamorous Master/slave fam­ily is a bit complicated.

A Master’s loy­alty: (fam­ily, slaves)    Also known as Head of House­hold loyalties.  

1) Master/slave rela­tion­ship and unity of cause bind­ing each together (the fam­ily). No one slave can be allowed to cause the upset of the whole polyamorous Master/slave rela­tion­ship. The needs of the whole can out­weigh the wants of one slave. Yes, the whole fam­ily may rally around one slave’s needs in times of trou­ble or sick­ness but gen­er­ally a Master’s loy­al­ity is geared to the big pic­ture. This is dif­fer­ent than giv­ing slave’s atten­tion or respect.

2) Loy­alty to his indi­vid­ual  slaves as his ser­vants, lovers and to some extent as if they are his employ­ees or troops. His duty is to train them to serve, obey and please him and pro­tect the fam­ily. He is assigned the task of insur­ing all slaves are well train­ing, safe and secure. He devel­ops the loy­al­ties of his slaves.  He is respon­si­ble for safety and security.

slave’s loy­alty:  (Mas­ter, fam­ily, Peers)

1) Loy­alty to her Mas­ter. The pri­mary objec­tive of a slave is to serve, obey and please her mas­ter. All other loy­al­i­ties are sec­ondary. This is an inter­per­sonal loyalty.

2) Master/slave fam­ily is the struc­tural unit that binds them together. This is fam­ily loy­alty or com­mu­nity loy­alty. Loy­alty to the whole. Loy­alty to a close fam­ily unit estab­lished and man­aged by her Mas­ter.  she must feel use­ful in this unit.

3) Peers - sis­ter slaves (this can also involve the beta slaves’ loy­alty to an Alpha slave). A loyal bond between sis­ters where each focus on serv­ing, obey­ing and pleases their mas­ter. It is bind­ing on an equil par. The loy­al­ity to a sis­ter slave is hinged on the sis­ter ‘s loy­al­ity to their Master.

Build­ing loy­al­ity is one of the chal­lenges of train­ing a slave girl.

The con­tro­ver­sial The­ory of Mil­i­tary loy­alty applied to a Master/slave relationship

Not all of the mil­i­tary model of loy­alty works in a polyamorous Master/slave rela­tion­ship because loy­alty is con­sid­ered one way.  I offer this as food for thought.  Granted, some aspects eas­ily apply but a Master/slave rela­tion­ship is not the same as mil­i­tary service.

Some the­o­ries of Mil­i­tary unit loy­alty claim that loy­alty is a one way street within the ser­vice. The troops are trained to be loyal to the Com­man­der with­out ques­tion  but the Com­man­der is not required to be loyal to the troops. Troops are to obey his orders and fol­low him to death. A com­man­der uses the troops to fur­ther his wants and needs or a loy­alty to his Coun­try.  When dis­cussing the strict sub­ject of loy­alty a com­man­der does not have his troops per­sonal needs at heart.

The com­man­ders only loy­alty to his troops is to use them to the best of his abil­ity to sat­isfy his plans or cause. In other words the com­man­der is to not need­lessly get them killed while meet­ing his objec­tive and maybe glo­ri­fy­ing him­self. But he may know­ingly sac­er­fice some of them in an effort to ful­fill that mis­sion. Exam­ple: Sac­ri­fic­ing troops by leav­ing some behind to slow down an advanc­ing  enemy Army as the rest of his Army retreats.  The total com­mand and its goal is more impor­tant than the indi­vid­ual needs of troops.  The commander’s loy­alty is to the whole and the goal.

He, as mil­i­tary com­man­der,  can lie to troops as long as the pur­pose is to ful­fill his goal and need not com­mu­ni­cate his plans to them.  He can demand loy­alty with no inten­tion of giv­ing it.  They are only to obey.  He can pun­ish troops for dis­loy­alty with­out them even know­ing his mis­sion goals.   Loy­alty is strictly a one way street.

I am in no way pre­tend­ing that a Master’s loy­alty is the same as a com­man­ders’ loy­alty to his nation while lead­ing troops into bat­tle. I am only say­ing that the Mas­ter is the Com­man­der of the fam­ily and there some sim­i­lar­i­ties and well and dif­fer­ences.   A Mas­ter may con­sider his fam­ily goals and  his per­sonal wants over indi­vid­ual slave wants.  He trains slave to serve him.   How­ever I don’t think it is a good idea to lie to slaves about your intent.

Other views of loyalties

Fred Reich­held, busi­ness author, says in his book, The Loy­alty Effect, that loy­alty is the will­ing­ness to make an invest­ment or per­sonal sac­ri­fice to strengthen a rela­tion­ship. Loy­alty can be faith­ful­ness, devo­tion, trust, and adherence.

I dis­agree slightly and think that faith­ful­ness, devo­tion and trust develop loy­alty but I get his point.    I think trust must exist before loy­alty is very strong.

Car­olyn Myss in her book, Anatomy of the Spirit, says loy­alty is part of the evo­lu­tion­ar­ily “tribal power sys­tem” and can have more influ­ence than love. It’s an evolved instinct and mem­bers rely upon it even more in a cri­sis. She uses the exam­ple of a per­son feel­ing loy­alty to fam­ily in gen­eral even if they don’t love all the mem­bers, and feel loy­alty toward oth­ers with the same eth­nic­ity with­out know­ing them.

Myss’ idea of loy­alty being a part of tribal power may well be true but the Mas­ter must develop and main­tain the sys­tem before the instinct can flor­ish. It will only hap­pen because of his under­stand and influ­ence. A Mas­ter must first build a strong tribe that is accept­ing of each slave.   She must have a feel­ing of belong­ing to the tribe and devo­tion to it and the tribal mem­bers.   This type of loy­alty is learned in that you learn to love the tribe.  The bet­ter you know and inter­act with the tribe the more loyal you become.  The tribal con­cept seems to have merit.   In addi­tion the tribe has a strong lead­er­ship struc­ture that allows a mas­ter to use his nat­ural head of house­hold loyalties.

Require­ments for Loyalty

Effec­tive loy­alty can’t be coerced or demanded. It must be heart­felt by the giver. The loy­alty must be obtain­able and not beyond rea­son.  It must be prac­ti­cal and use­ful.   Loy­alty must be a whole­hearted com­mit­ment.  It involves a cause or per­son to believe in.   It needs some­thing beyond self to believe in and respect.

A Mas­ter must take care of him­self so he can care for his slaves. He must also be hon­est with him­self and make deci­sions based on good val­ues and knowl­edge.    If he is being less than hon­est with him­self sooner or later his slaves will find out it will destroy trust.   If trust falls loy­alty will follow.

Be clear in your val­ues, learn to trust loyal slaves, chal­lenge them, care for their well­be­ing, value their slav­ery and ser­vice.   Above all  com­mu­ni­cate, com­mu­ni­cate, com­mu­ni­cate.   Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and hon­esty makes it dif­fer­ent from mil­i­tary loy­alty even if you do have to make deci­sions that are unpop­u­lar at times.

Again —  Always remem­ber that loy­alty depends on trust. Don’t demand loy­alty but earn it. Fear based loy­alty does not last.

A master’s role as head of house­hold and respect

Respect is dif­fer­ent from loy­alty.  A mas­ter, as head of house­hold,  may respect each and every slave for her obe­di­ence,  ser­vice and devotion.

But a Master’s head of house­hold lead­er­ship loy­alty can be at times a lit­tle like the mil­i­tary. This hap­pens when a Mas­ter issues com­mands based on the good of all instead of indi­vid­u­als.  Whereas: Trust and respect trav­els in both direc­tions up and down the chain of command.

Loy­alty and dis­ci­pline are like mag­netic forces hold­ing the house­hold together allow­ing all par­ties to work for a com­mon cause.  

(More on dis­ci­pline and the poly house­hold at a later date)