I know the Bible has specific laws against incest, and against “coveting thy neighbor’s wife”, but is there any specific law that would protect an unmarried, unrelated woman from being raped? The only law I’m aware of is that if a man gets a woman pregnant, he must marry her. Please provide chapter & verse sites if possible.
Deuteronomy 22:23-29
It depends on if it happens in the city or in the coutryside, and whether the woman is betrothed or not.
So what you’re saying is, raping a non-betrothed woman results in a fate worse than death.
And are there any verses, that neutrally or even favourably describe wartime rape?
At least for her.
That’s what I was going to say. Because why wouldn’t any woman want to be forced to marry her rapist with no possibility of ever escaping him? :rolleyes:
Although some might call it stretch of meaning, “Thou shalt not steal” covers it. Taking a woman’s person against her wishes for whatever reason is a form of theft, IMO.
Which is a reasonable reaction in the USA in 2008, but totally unreasonable for Palestine in the bronze age.
Remember these laws were intended for a society with no police force, no social security and a massive surplus of women. The result was that without children you were very likely to starve in old age, without marriage a woman was very unlikely tobe able to raise a child, and a woman who wasn’t a virgin was very unlikely to find a husband.
So what was the alternative to a woman marrying her rapist? There was no police force or even basic administrative system to force the rapist to pay child suport. In a society where most children died before adulthood people wouldn’t accept the idea of taxation funded handouts to raise someone else’s child when there own were starving to death. You could I suppose force a random man to marry the woman, but that is hardly any more fair.
So as easy as it is to roll our eyes at the apparently horrible solution, it was probably the most sensible and kindest available at the time. Anyway this reply and your commentary really belongs in GD I suppose.
Blake, but what about men using this kind of rape to marry socially upwards? Find the village chiefs daughter, stalk her untill you catch her alone (maybe she’s getting water from the well with her sisters and she’s falling a little behind) rape her, present yourself to the chief, and -hey presto- you’re the bosses new son-in-law with all the added status!
Maybe that was on a lot of guys minds and maybe that was the reason why all the “valuable” girls were locked away untill they were married off at 14 years old.
Some related news; the practice of marrying girls off to their rapists apparently is still practiced, even although outlawed, in Bangladesh.
That’s covered, too. See the account of the rape of Dina, Genesis 34:1-6 (New American Standard Bible translation):
This is something to file away for discussion the next time you get finger-wagged by a Bible literalist, who claims our laws are based on the word of God. When he says the rules in the Bible still stand, regardless of the passage of centuries, remind him that:
A betrothed virgin raped in the city must be stoned to death along with the rapist.
A non-betrothed virgin who is raped must marry the rapist after he pays her father 50 shekels.
It says so in the Bible, right there in Deuteronomy 22. The literalist knows that every word of the Bible is true, having been inspired directly by God. The book of Timothy says so, and it must be true, because (see previous sentence.)
Wartime rape, in the sense of marriage by force, is described netrually or favorably in Deuteronomy 21:10-14 (New American Standard Bible translation, again):
Many scholars present these verses in a positive light, because the woman becomes a wife rather than a slave, and because she is given time to mourn the loss of her family rather than being raped immediately. I take a less positive view of the “wife” aspect - she has no say in the matter, and I don’t see any mention of the marriage contract (ketubah), which would normally specify a settlement in case of divorce. So, I’m not sure how much much of an improvement over slavery this “marriage” represents.
But note what happens afterwards:
The sons basically create a trap - they say “sure you can marry our sister, but you and all of your people have to get circumcised first”.
Which they do.
Then, at the marriage, the rapist and his people let the sons in, thinking they are now all friends:
Instead, while the ‘groom’ and his folk are rolling around in agony from the adult circumsicion, they are all murdered by the sons:
In turn, they rape and enslave all of these people’s women:
Jacob is hardly happy about it, and bitterly reproaches the sons for their treachery and brutality:
The sons are unrepentant:
Dunno what sort of “lesson” you are supposed to get out of this sorry tale of rape, murder and deceit, but it certainly is not that raping people is “okay” as a form of marriage.
On the contrary, it seems here that everyone is doing wrong - except the sister, who has no choice. Jacob simply wishes to keep the peace, and so is willing to trade in his daughter to do it; his sons on the other hand are outraged, and decide on murder and revenge instead. Jacob is outraged by this, but more it seems because of the threat caused by the bad reputation than because murder and revenge are bad in and of themselves. On the one hand Jacob comes across as a coward willing to sell his daughter to her rapist for safety (and his sons as standing up for their raped sister); on the other, as a far-sighted leader willing to create peace out of anarchy (and his sons as a pack of brutal, treacherous killers). Who is in the “right” is never in fact made clear, if any are …
Thoughtful analysis, Malthus. Thanks.
Thanks! 
The thing about the OT is, it isn’t always obvious what exactly the stories are supposed to mean. Or even who the “good guys” are.
That’s a story that Pterry retells in the second Science of Discworld book, which deals with the importance of storytelling on human development. He cites it as a clash between “barbarian” honour and “civilised” pragmatism.
As to the “wartime rape” passage, you might do well to compare it with “Your men are all dead or have fled, and I will do what I like with you” attitude that’s probably been a lot more prevalent throughout human history - allowing a whole month’s mourning time and forbidding the captive to be ill-treated or sold is enlightened compared to recent history, never mind four thousand years ago.
Although it would seem to suggest that raping people as revenge is okay.
At the risk of further straying into GD territory . . . Saying we have to view the Bible in the context of when it was written makes perfect sense if you see it as a document written (or at the very least, modified) by its human authors. If you see it as the infallible word of God, well, then not so much. You can try to defend having a woman marry a rapist as an unfortunate necessity, but how on earth would you defend the bit about stoning a rape victim to death because she was too scared to cry for help? (See the first sentence quoted by Can Handle The Truth, above.)
Really? That assumes that the Sons of Jacob are the “good guys” and what they are doing is morally right - which in turn implies that Jacob is wrong. Remember, he calls their acts “odious”. Who is the good guys here - Jacob or his sons? Or neither? Or are they both partly right and partly wrong - Jacob right tio want peace but wrong to allow the rape of his daughter, and the sons right to not allow the rape of their sister - but wrong in indulging in rape and murder in revenge?
My point is this - the OT is often a lot more complex than some people here give it credit for. Determining what is “right” and “wrong” as it emerges from these stories isn’t easy.
That is probably the best spin you could put on it, and it is a valid guess on what the hell the bible is trying to say. Another valid guess would be that the only reason the woman was forced into marriage was because she has been defiled and therefore lost her value to any future husbands and the rapist was the best she was gonna get now. shrug
And Lot, a “just” and “righteous” man in the eyes of god, gives up his two young, poor daughters to a mob of angry men and tells them in no uncertain terms to do as they will. Take from that happy little story what you will. Later on the same two daughters on the lam with their old man Lot get him drunk and double team him, each becoming pregnant–but I guess that’s neither here nor there in this discussion.