title: What is the "owning side" in an ORM mapping?
body: <p>What exactly does the <strong><em>owning side</em></strong> mean? What is an explanation with some mapping examples (<strong><em>one to many, one to one, many to one</em></strong>)?</p>
  
  <p>The following text is an excerpt from the description of <strong><em>@OneToOne</em></strong> in Java EE 6 documentation. You can see the concept <strong><em>owning side</em></strong> in it.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Defines a single-valued association to
    another entity that has one-to-one
    multiplicity. It is not normally
    necessary to specify the associated
    target entity explicitly since it can
    usually be inferred from the type of
    the object being referenced. If the
    relationship is bidirectional, <strong><em>the
    non-owning side</em></strong> must use the mappedBy
    element of the OneToOne annotation to
    specify the relationship field or
    property of the owning side.</p>
  </blockquote>