Rules for Raping Virgins – Law makes order from chaos

Sometimes you aren’t required to blame the victim

In the case of rape, the bible requires that both the rapist and victim die by stoning if the victim is married. You know, to keep the ickyness of rape from contaminating the community.

That seems fine, but what about unmarried women? As far as I can tell, it’s ok to rape an unmarried non-virgin: probably because the chick in that situation doesn’t have any marriage potential or monetary value. The complications arise when raping a virgin. If a man is caught in the act of raping a virgin, he is then required to pay the girl’s father 50 shekels of silver and marry the girl. I’m not sure if this is a punishment or a reward. It could be, “You raped Sarah the daughter of Seth, so now you have to pay off Seth and you’re stuck with Sarah forever.” Or it could be a good way to pick out a new wife without having to get her father’s permission: “I don’t like you Seth. You are a stupid piece of crap and I would never have allowed you to marry my daughter, but since you raped her now I have no choice. Here is your new bride.”

Now you may say, “What if the virgin is already betrothed to someone? If you made her marry the rapist that wouldn’t be fair to the guy that had already arranged to marry her and paid the bride price?” Fortunately Jehovah thought of that too. If someone rapes a betrothed virgin in a city, then it’s the victim’s fault because she didn’t yell loud enough to attract someone that could protect her from the rape. In that case, both the rapist and victim are taken outside the city gate and everyone throws rocks at them until they die.

That may seem unfair, but Jehovah isn’t a monster. If the betrothed virgin is raped out in a field somewhere, the law understands that it isn’t her fault. You see, there aren’t enough people around for her to call successfully for help. In this case only the rapist is stoned to death.

Sadly, the “rape in a field” rule doesn’t bring me a lot of comfort. Once the girl is no longer a virgin the bridegroom can get out of marrying her because he paid for a virgin. Then the victim is an unmarried non-virgin and I’m pretty sure the only job she could get after that is in the respectable field of prostitution. Then I wonder if that is how all biblical prostitutes get started on their career path. Also: please refer to the section of the second paragraph dealing with non-married, non-virgins.

Moral: Jehovah came up with some pretty great rules for dealing with rape in a large community setting.

Ref: Deuteronomy 22:22-29