I don't think that "I'm a freeman! I will choose my own fate!" it could be a tipical Middle-Age-man's sentence. Every man has to follow rules and limitations imposed by the society in which lives but, if you have the power on an influence on other people, you can avoid these limitations. In the most part of the modern societies the power in direclty proportional to the money you have so, if you have money you are a free man.
Who is a free man?