Translations:Status of a wife provided to a freed slave/1/en

First, we must understand these slavery/servanthood laws against a background motivation: that the voluntary slavery/servanthood system of Biblical law functioned as a kind of welfare system to protect and support those who had difficulty providing independently for themselves. Except (perhaps) in the case of laws that forced servanthood upon property criminals who were paying back their debt, all other servitude laws had the goal of eventually freeing everyone who was in servitude (if they were capable of providing for themselves -- obviously some people were not capable of sustaining themselves because of some disability or other). Part of the reason for the manumission gift (Deut. 15:12-15) was to give the newly freed man some starting capital in order to do this.