I am using Jboss 4.0.4.ga and have a OneToMany like this @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER, mappedBy = "order") public Collection getLineItems() { return lineItems; } On the other side, I have this: @ManyToOne @JoinColumn(name = "order_id") public Order getOrder() { return order; } I persist an Order with one LineItem. I then clear the collection of LineItems and repersist (actually call em.merge(Object) ) the Order. Jboss doesnt appear to delete the underlying row in the LineItem table. I cant understand from the docs if the cascade = CascadeType.ALL implies that the contained objects should be deleted from the datastore when they are removed from a Collection. The docs seem to indicate this is not done for a ManyToMany bc it is not possible to know if the objects that are removed from a collection are still referenced by another entity. However, it does seem that in a OneToMany, JBOSS could know enough to delete the dependent entites from the datastore. Thanks for any help on this one. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3969258#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...