Many results in relational database theory on the structure of dependencies, query languages, and databases in general have now been established. However, neither (a) the reliance of these results on various assumptions, nor (b) the desirability or reasonableness of these assumptions themselves have been closely examined. These assumptions are nontrivial: examples include the universal relation assumption and the lossless join assumption.The purpose of the present paper is to clarify many of the existing assumptions, and point out weaknesses. This is desirable both to harden the statements of previous results, and to evaluate recent suggestions that certain assumptions (such as the acyclic JD assumption) may be useful for modeling "real world" databases. Specifically, studies are made of assumptions made for (1) universal relations, (2) functional dependency inference, and (3) decomposition theory. We show that:• Some assumptions (such as uniqueness of relationships among attributes) can be more powerful than they appear;• common treatment of FDs is sometimes inappropriate, and for example FD inferences such as {A → B, B → C} v= A → C can be incorrect;• the 'decomposition' approach to design may be hard to justify in real terms; and• Acyclic JDs may have drawbacks in eliminating ambiguity in queries and in modeling real enterprises.It is hoped that this exposition will help clarify some confusing issues in this field, and will lead to a better understanding of which assumptions are reasonable and useful in modeling the "real world".