Kib’s captivity was obviously not complete imprisonment as he could father a son. Of course, that son would also have been in captivity. Corihor’s political strategy apparently kept Kib as a token king, perhaps even allowing Corihor to rule by borrowing authority from Kib. The token “king” provided authority but had no actual power to govern.
Nibley notes that this has been a common practice in ancient civilization:
Such is the practice, mentioned many times in the book [of Ether], of keeping a king prisoner throughout his entire lifetime, allowing him to beget and raise a family in captivity, even though the sons thus brought up would be almost sure to seek vengeance for their parent and power for themselves upon coming of age. Thus Kib was taken captive by his own son, begot yet other children in captivity, and died of old age, still a prisoner. To avenge Kib, his son Shule overcame the unfilial Corihor whom, however, he allowed to continue in power in the kingdom! Shule in turn was taken prisoner by Corihor’s son Noah, only to be kidnapped from his prison and restored to power by his own sons. And so on: “Seth… did dwell in captivity all his days;… Moron dwelt in captivity all the remainder of his days; and he begat Coriantor. And it came to pass that Coriantor dwelt in captivity all his days. And [he] begat Ether, and he died, having dwelt in captivity all his days.” It seems to us a perfectly ridiculous system, yet it is in accordance with the immemorial Asiatic usage. Thus when Baidu and Kaijatu disputed the throne of Asia, the advisers of the latter when he gained ascendancy declared: “It is right that he [Baidu] should be yoked under service, and that he should be kept in bondage for the whole period of his life, so that his hand can never be stretched out to kill or commit any injury.” Kaijatu failed to heed this advice, to his sorrow, for presently his brother staged a coup and put him in a tower for the rest of his days, but refused to kill him. The expression “yoked under service” reminds us that in the book of Ether kings are made to “serve many years in captivity” (Ether 8:3; 10:15, 30). Benjamin of Tudela tells how the khalif, the spiritual ruler of all western Asia, arranged for “the brothers and other members of the khalif’s family” to live lives of ease, luxury, and security: “Every one of them possesses a palace within that of the khalif, but they are all fettered by chains of iron, and a special officer is appointed over every household to prevent their rising in rebellion against the great king.” Jenghiz Khan during his earlier career was put in stocks and carried about with the court of a rival prince as a permanent prisoner—his escape was almost superhuman. His descendant Timur and his wife were also made permanent prisoners and kept in a cowshed by a rival ruler. In an emergency the shah of Persia was unable to come to the same Timur’s aid as an ally because, he explained, “his nephew Mansur had robbed him of his army and thrown him into prison”—yet he was able to write letters. When Izzudin overcame his brother Alluddin in their fight for the Seljuk empire, he locked him up in prison; but when at the end of seven years Izzudin died, his brother was immediately released and put on the throne without a dissenting voice—he had been kept behind bars all that time just as a precaution! It was the custom of Turkish kings, as was long doubted by scholars but has recently been proved, to allow their defeated rivals to sit upon their thrones by day, but lock them up in iron cages for the night! These lords of the steppes, like the Mameluke ruler who brought an upstart general to heel by having him hauled to court in a cage, were following in the footsteps of much earlier kings. Sennacherib reports of no less a rival than the king of Babylonia that “they threw him fettered into a cage and brought him before me. I tied him up in the middle gate of Nineveh, like a pig.” And of the king of Arabia, Assurbanipal says: “I put him into a kennel. With jackals (?) and dogs I tied him up and made him guard the gate of Nineveh.” Moving back to the earliest records of all, we find a large class of legends all over the ancient world telling how a victorious god in the beginning bound and imprisoned his rebellious relatives—not killing them, since they partook of his own divine nature; the earliest myths of Zeus and Osiris at once come to mind. You will notice that the imprisoned kings in Ether are all jailed by their relatives.