Exodus 21:3-4

If he came in by himself, &c.— That is, single, he shall so depart; if married, his wife also was to depart in freedom with him. Leviticus 25:41. The case was to be different if he married while in servitude; when, if his master gave him a wife, a slave like himself, and not of the Hebrew race,—the wife, and such children as he might have by her, were to continue the master's property, and the man alone was to be free. See Leviticus 25:44. But if, as was very likely to happen, the connection of wife and children, joined to a regard for his master, should induce the man to continue in slavery, Exodus 21:5 then the ceremony mentioned in the next verse was to take place.