An unborn child that has not been expressly excepted is emancipated together with its mother, but the reverse is not true.

If a man says to someone who could plausibly be his father, “You are my father,” or says to someone who could plausibly be his son, “You are my son,” that person is set free; if such kinship is impossible, the utterance effects emancipation only with the accompanying intention.

Section

Manumission may also result from an act. Thus, whoever mutilates his slave—severing the nose, the ear, or the like, or1 tearing or burning one of his limbs—or compels him to commit an indecent act, or has intercourse with a girl too young to be approached and thereby ruptures her, the slave is emancipated in every one of these cases.

No emancipation results from a mere scratch, a beating, or an insult.

Manumission likewise follows ownership: whoever comes to own a blood relative who is unmarriageable to him is obliged to set that person free, even if the relative is still a fetus in the womb. If he acquires only a share of such a relative, that share is freed immediately; the remainder is freed by extension (sarāya) if he is solvent, and he must reimburse his partner’s share.

The same ruling applies to anyone who frees his own share of a jointly owned slave. If two solvent partners each claim that the other has manumitted his share, the slave becomes free because each has admitted his liberty; each must then swear an oath to the other, and the right of allegiance (walāʾ) goes to the public treasury, unless one of them admits that he himself performed the manumission—in which case the walāʾ belongs to him and he must compensate his partner.