> If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
> If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her,
> you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death--the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
> But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die.
> Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor,
> for the man found the girl out in the country, and though the betrothed girl screamed, there was no one to rescue her.
> If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered,
> he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
It is a very harsh punishment, I do not agree with it, but intended to punish adultery not to punish women specifically. That is why the provision for country vs. town. A reasonable reading is if a woman is raped/resists she should not be punished, if she is committing adultery she should. Probably happened because of a problem with women would be caught and say they were raped. But religion bad amirite fellow men of culture tips fedora
This is one of the things that only makes sense if you go to a mindset where women are chattel. A raped woman is "damaged goods", the man has damaged the property of her father. He now can't get a dowry because other men will not marry her. This also means the women may end up cast out, homeless, starving, destitute so not good for her either. The fucked up part is women being chattel though, which was just that time, this seems well intentioned aside from that.
I think the intent is not only making the father right by giving him 50 shekels, but also making sure the women isn't disadvantaged. Since she is "damaged goods" as you put it she would have problems finding a husband, making her life rather difficult. But conveniently there's somebody right there who we can make responsible of taking care of her for the rest of his life.
From today's point of view the solution sucks, but people back then had a very different view of marriage (and life as a single men or women). Marriage could be about love, but it was often just a transaction that establishes how people cohabitate and share roles in a household.
Ye that one sucks. Talk about perverse incentives ...
I was wondering if married rape victims would be executed, or if it is implicit that they get the same blameless treatment as engaged rape vicitims. It is not clear from the context if you read litteraly.
