Post: #1

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 says, "If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days."

I wonder, what was the effect of this legislation? What were those marriages like? What were relations between the rapists and their brides' families like? How high were rape rates in ancient Israel, compared to the modern United States?

This kind of legislation is reminiscent of Roosh's satirical rape legalization idea. If there are no criminal penalties for rape, then women who don't want to be raped will have to take greater care not to put themselves in situation where they would be at elevated risk of getting raped. On the other hand, maybe unmarried men who didn't want to be tied down to a wife would still have been deterred from committing rape.

Rape legalization also removes the incentives for women to make false rape accusations. With this type of law in effect, courts need not adjudicate whether sex was consensual, since the consequence of rape is the same as the consequence for consensual sex. See Exodus 22:16-17: "And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins." Interestingly, if the sex was consensual, the father had the right to veto the marriage; but in the case of rape, marriage apparently was mandatory.

The idea of women being married to their rapists isn't all that farfetched. Until the mid-1970s, every U.S. state allowed a husband to rape his wife. Even now, some states' laws give lenience to rape that occurs within marriage. For example, Virginia law provides that a sentence for marital rape can be suspended "if, after consideration of the views of the complaining witness and such other evidence as may be relevant, the court finds such action will promote maintenance of the family unit and will be in the best interest of the complaining witness."

These types of policies seem to reflect three ideas: (1) a raped woman is damaged goods, except to the man who raped her; and (2) rape isn't necessarily all that psychologically traumatic. If it were, then surely marital rape would've been outlawed many years earlier than it was. Women would have been demanding an end to marital rape long before they were pushing for other reforms, such as the right to vote, the right to own property, etc. Apparently, they didn't mind all that much being raped by their husbands, although now organizations like RAINN have made a big deal about it, and even said that it's worse than being raped by a stranger, because it's an act of betrayal.

And also (3), keeping biological families together is important. When a woman was forced to marry her rapist, it prevented any offspring resulting from the rape from becoming bastard children. Looking at other passages, it's clear that the Bible was very concerned with not breaking up families, even if men committed some objectionable behavior against their wives. For example, Deuteronomy 22:13-19 provides that a man who slanders his wife is to be assessed a monetary penalty. Modern law doesn't assess any such penalties, except in the form of alimony, child support, etc. after a divorce.

To this day, the laws of some jurisdictions provide that if a woman marries her rapist, he is to be released from any criminal penalty. E.g., in the Philippines, Republic Act 8353 "The Anti-Rape Law of 1997" states:

Republic Act 8353 The Anti-Rape Law of 1997 Wrote:Article 266-C. Effect of Pardon. - The subsequent valid marriage between the offended party shall extinguish the criminal action or the penalty imposed.

In case it is the legal husband who is the offender, the subsequent forgiveness by the wife as the offended party shall extinguish the criminal action or the penalty: Provided, That the crime shall not be extinguished or the penalty shall not be abated if the marriage is void ab initio.

Actually, I should've titled this post, "What happens when the law requires a rapist to marry the women he deflowers?" because that's the true effect of the Biblical law.

By the way, those who say that victim-blaming is wrong should take a look at Deuteronomy 22:23-24: "If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you." Not only is the woman who was raped blamed for what happened, she's executed for not fulfilling her responsibility to cry for help when she had the opportunity.

Incidentally, I think a lot of these passages also lend support to the view that the Bible condoned polygyny. What happens if a man rapes multiple virgins? The Bible doesn't specifically address that situation, but I think we can assume that he would have had to marry all of them. Otherwise, married men could have raped all the virgins they wanted, without being held accountable to financially support them and their offspring.

Post: #2

so aside from glossing over

[ fifty shekels of silver]

to be paid to the father in lieu of him getting a dowry. Just how much would that be and who could afford that?

Also glossed over the cultural habits if people family and tribes. Assuming she wasn't stoned to death.

A single facet of an antiquated culture strewn into something the current culture would consider takes more than googl I ng bible verses.

Remember Judas betrayed Jesus for some silver coins.

Post: #3

(02-16-2017 03:12 PM)cascadecombo Wrote:  so aside from glossing over

[ fifty shekels of silver]

to be paid to the father in lieu of him getting a dowry. Just how much would that be and who could afford that?

Also glossed over the cultural habits if people family and tribes. Assuming she wasn't stoned to death.

A single facet of an antiquated culture strewn into something the current culture would consider takes more than googl I ng bible verses.

Remember Judas betrayed Jesus for some silver coins.

TruthSaves.org attempts to give an approximation of what 30 shekels (about $500-600 worth of silver, assuming silver is selling for $40/ounce) were worth back then:

TruthSaves.org Wrote:There is always difficulty in trying to bring the values of the ancient world into today’s terms. The relative value of goods and services today are entirely different than the relative value of goods and services of past times. For purposes of the valuation of the 30 shekels, I used the simple equivalent of the number of days of wages such would represent. A working person in biblical times could earn 30 shekels in about 4 months. Thus, if we want to figure what the value of 30 shekels would be to a person in biblical times, we would note that it was far more valuable to that person than what $600 would be to us today. Today, a working person would earn approximately $12,000 to $15,000 during that same period. I believe this is an appropriate way of looking at the relative value of the shekels.

However, I acknowledge that it is not the only way of viewing the value. We could value a shekel in terms of what food it would have bought in biblical times and what food it would buy today. If we do that, we may find that the value is more closely aligned with the present value of silver. But this is largely due to the fact that in the past 150 years the relative price of food has dramatically declined in the West and to a lesser extent in the world at large.

Post: #4

Wouldn't this encourage men to rape 10's that are unmarried?

Post: #5

Post: #6

(02-16-2017 10:11 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  Wouldn't this encourage men to rape 10's that are unmarried?

(02-16-2017 10:11 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  Wouldn't this encourage men to rape 10's that are unmarried?

No, you'd get killed for that.

10's are by and large, upper class, and upper class people have resources. In these cultures, even today to an extent, but much more so back then, (Latin/Greek/Middle Eastern), upper class people could have you killed pretty easily for doing something like that. If you rape a woman in Mexico today, for example, and she has brothers, you might not live to see a trial. I know one guy who killed a guy that raped his teenage daughter, he can't go back to Mexico. He's wanted over there, so he stays over here in the U.S. It's not certain anyone would prosecute, but he doesn't want to take his chances with the law or the family members of the rapist.

Anyhow, in reference to the "marry the rapist" theme, think of the reasoning behind these things. Women were supposed to remain chaste. If they don't, they're stigmatized and unable to find a good mate. Women still have sex with the men courting them before marriage, though, human nature being what it is. What happens when a woman is seeing a guy in secret, and they get caught?

In most situations, the guy will go ahead and get married and the family will keep things on the down-low, if possible.

However, what if they guy doesn't want to get married? He's thinking of just carrying on with his womanizing.

In that case, the woman cries rape. Then there's an aggrieved party, all of her relatives, who form a gang to punish the "rapist," with death if need be.

But wait! If he marries her, all is forgiven!

That's the scenario here. Actual rape wouldn't happen too often, as male relatives would kill the guy, it's a serious offense.

In my family, on my mother's side, if any of the women ever spent the night outside the home, that very night, or the next morning, or as soon as the necessary information was available, every male in the family, plus cousins and friends, were outside the boyfriend's doorstep, armed, making it clear the choice was a wedding or a very severe beating that could leave the guy crippled or dead. They all chose a wedding.

That's also how my cousin married his wife. He'd been messing around with a bunch of girls and got one pregnant. She told him and he was like, "I'm not ready for marriage yet." The girl told her dad what was up and her dad and his male relatives went over to my cousin's place, armed. He was given a week, they'd be back then for a wedding or to kill him, his choice.

He got married.

It turns out she wasn't pregnant, she just wanted the ring and he wasn't playing along, so she helped things along.

Women.

They're still married, although I'm not surprised, divorce is a risky option with those in-laws.

So yeah, when you read these laws/scriptures, read between the lines.

Feminists will have you believe they're written to have some guy that jumps out of the bushes be able to waive the crime of rape with marriage: "Ravish a 10 and all will be forgiven if you marry her!"

No.

That's just not quite what those laws are there for, they're there to protect the dignity of a woman from a cad.

To understand these things, you have to read between the lines, and also, read in the context of the society which created those laws, not in the context of our own society.

Post: #7

(02-16-2017 10:11 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  Wouldn't this encourage men to rape 10's that are unmarried?

Probably. Regardless of her SMV, the Biblical dowry is a flat rate of 50 shekels, or about 25 ounces of silver. Currently, silver is going for about $15/ounce, for a total bride price of less than $400. Given that pricing structure, the 10 is a "better buy" than a 6, one might say.

However, in Biblical times, girls were typically married off at 13. So there weren't a lot of pubescent girls around who weren't already hitched, or at least betrothed. Having sex with, or raping, a betrothed or married woman was of course punishable by death.

Post: #8

OP, you might as well have started a thread that asked "What happens to the textiles market if it's illegal to sew two types of material in the same garment?"

Leviticus and Deuteronomy are religious instructions given by God (or more likely Moses) to the Hebrews just ahead of their spending forty years wandering around in the desert looking for Israel/Palestine. If they had a discernible social purpose, it appeared to be keeping an ethnic group together when engaged for a long war of ethnic cleansing against multiple tribes over the course of generations. You don't adopt wartime rules in peace.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #9

Why would God command a woman to marry the man who just raped her?

Post: #10

(02-16-2017 10:56 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  OP, you might as well have started a thread that asked "What happens to the textiles market if it's illegal to sew two types of material in the same garment?"

Leviticus and Deuteronomy are religious instructions given by God (or more likely Moses) to the Hebrews just ahead of their spending forty years wandering around in the desert looking for Israel/Palestine. If they had a discernible social purpose, it appeared to be keeping an ethnic group together when engaged for a long war of ethnic cleansing against multiple tribes over the course of generations. You don't adopt wartime rules in peace.

In wartime, aren't penalties usually more draconian, rather than less? A country that is threatened from without will tend to be less tolerant of lawbreaking from within, because they need to maintain tight discipline in order to meet the challenges that confront them. When they're not in that kind of danger, they can relax more and say that infractions are not as big a deal.

Post: #11

Award for most autistic thread title of 2017 goes to........Ray--I mean Jean ValJean.

Seriously guys, I know we pride ourselves on being able to ask questions that no one else wants to ask but the optics on this are awful.

Post: #12

(02-17-2017 12:19 AM)Fortis Wrote:  Award for most autistic thread title of 2017 goes to........Ray--I mean Jean ValJean.

Seriously guys, I know we pride ourselves on being able to ask questions that no one else wants to ask but the optics on this are awful.

He already won 2016, not surprised to see him take 2017.

Let's not forget his other wonderful threads such as:

"The RVF community should become a polygynous tribe"
"Game recognized: Polygynist neo-Nazi Heath Campbell has 9 kids with 5 different women"
"Were skirts and dresses invented to tantalize men and make it easier to grope women?"
"Let's replace "consent" with "marriage" as the criterion for when sex is lawful"

Post: #13

(02-16-2017 11:31 PM)sokiu93 Wrote:  Why would God command a woman to marry the man who just raped her?

He doesn't. Take a quick Google around on the Jewish interpretations of this phrase and the conclusion is essentially that if she consents she can marry him, but she and her father could still refuse permission.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #14

(02-17-2017 12:19 AM)Fortis Wrote:  Award for most autistic thread title of 2017 goes to........Ray--I mean Jean ValJean.

Seriously guys, I know we pride ourselves on being able to ask questions that no one else wants to ask but the optics on this are awful.

Perhaps some of the deepest truths have been hidden in plain view, underneath a boulder that all passers-by hitherto have been afraid to disturb, because written on it are the words, "Bad Optics."

Post: #15

(02-16-2017 11:40 PM)Jean Valjean Wrote:  

(02-16-2017 10:56 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  OP, you might as well have started a thread that asked "What happens to the textiles market if it's illegal to sew two types of material in the same garment?"

Leviticus and Deuteronomy are religious instructions given by God (or more likely Moses) to the Hebrews just ahead of their spending forty years wandering around in the desert looking for Israel/Palestine. If they had a discernible social purpose, it appeared to be keeping an ethnic group together when engaged for a long war of ethnic cleansing against multiple tribes over the course of generations. You don't adopt wartime rules in peace.

In wartime, aren't penalties usually more draconian, rather than less? A country that is threatened from without will tend to be less tolerant of lawbreaking from within, because they need to maintain tight discipline in order to meet the challenges that confront them. When they're not in that kind of danger, they can relax more and say that infractions are not as big a deal.

This is one of my pet peeves.

Stop f*cking reading bible passages out of context J. Go and read Deuteronomy in its entirety and come back to us.

Secondly, read the entire bible old AND new. If you were familiar with the message the bible gives Jesus left you an important message in the gospel for antiquated laws like this.

Post: #16

It's such a feminist thing - to see rape everywhere.

Post: #17

(02-18-2017 01:35 AM)Mage Wrote:  It's such a feminist thing - to see rape everywhere.

an optimist sees the glass as half full. a pessimist - as half empty. a feminist sees the glass is getting raped.

:-)

Post: #18

Feminist have long seized on this passage, but most people have no clue what the ancient world was like. This law is SPECIFICALLY for the women's protection and future. The command is for the rapist to marry her. Now, before we all freak consider ancient times, culture, and the reality back then.

Travel was dangerous. Women being alone and unprotected was VERY dangerous. We aren't just talking about a city being conquered. Roving bands of robbers, marauders and essentially raiders were all over. Even the Romans couldn't protect their roads fully.

Idea here is that a women who had lost her virginity - even if it wasn't her fault - lost her ability to be paired up with the best possible match for a husband. This was a big deal. If a family cant find a husband to provide for their daughter it spelled not just a loss of name and reputation, but of their future.

If a man did rape a woman, he would have to marry her therefore guaranteeing she was provided for instead of used and discarded. This ensured she would be taken care of and adding an additional wife to care for was supposed to make a man think twice about it - besides the fact her male relatives might kill him.

Obviously non jews didn't care about these laws, but it was meant for their to be order and stability within the Jewish community. Don't forget that women were often fought over as were the family disputes that would occur.

Post: #19

So you have to understand that women at the time were property and no discernable value outside of their virginity.

A woman deflowered was a woman deflowered, regardless of how it happened.

If she were raped, she'd be broken and worthless and no man would marry her.

The law, then, was a sort of "You break it, you buy it." to ensure that the woman would at least have food and a roof for the rest of her life.

Sort of like a man marrying his brother's widow - the purpose wasn't sexual polygamy, but rather to offer a man's protection and provision to a woman who would otherwise be unable to attain it for herself.

Post: #20

And MORE plagarism also "isn't all that farfetched."

http://blockedurl.com/wiki/Legalization_of_marital_rape