In addition to the struggle to eat and survive, peasant serfs faced several other difficulties. In many ways, serfdom resembled North American slavery except that serfs belonged to the same race and religion as those who ruled over them and were bound to serfdom by their society's lack of social mobility rather than by some perceived inferiority inherent in serfs. Serfs also lacked the ability to buy their own freedoms for a fixed sum as slaves in some countries in South America could, which made their situations inescapable except in the rare instances where an owner agreed to release a serf from his duties, which occasionally occurred when a household master died. Serfs could also escape their plights if they survived twenty-five years of service in the armed forces. But in general, laws tied serfs to their masters for life and caused them to suffer under an owner's rule. The most harrowing part of the experience was the lack of rights given to a serf, whether he was a peasant, entrepreneur, or member of the serf intelligentsia. His state was one of constant vulnerability; a bad season farming his land could bring famine and its related difficulties to his family, and he was always at the mercy of a master who could switch from benevolent to vicious at any moment. One's stability was constantly threatened: a serf's family could be removed from their land, sold away, or raped by their owner. The serf could be conscripted for the army, sent to Siberia, punished viciously without cause or proof of guilt, beaten, or even killed.Madariaga, Isabel de. Catherine the Great: A Short History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. 157.
