Wow! I am now only more confused than I was before. This issue stems from a previous post that I made about my OneToMany relationships only saving one child. As I determined it was because my IDE (NetBeans) was created Override methods for equals() and hashCode().... So I asked this question. Based on ALRubingers response I went ahead and removed these methods from my POJOs and have experienced no adverse side affects in my application. I have read http://www.hibernate.org/109.html Which clarified very little for me besides that if I do override these methods I should use a "Business Key". This idea for some entities tweaks my head a little bit, as I see no "Business Key" for a Entity such as a Order Line. Can someone give me a example of a relationship like Order -> OrderLine in which equals() and hashCode() are overried properly. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4105278#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...