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A Tough Passage


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 her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. (Deuteronomy 22:28-30) 
          I’ve been floundering with Proverbs 14 for most of the day, so I guess I’ll try a really tough passage. Most people who read this passage horrific. What? Force a woman to live with a man who has raped her for the rest of his life? Heinous! It’s reason enough to reject the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity. Except, that’s not what it says. It says that he must marry her and provide for her for the rest of his life. It doesn’t say that she has to live with hi or act as his wife. All it says is that he has to take responsibility for her reputation and upkeep for the rest of his life, even if he takes other wives, and that in addition to paying her father fifty shekels. 
          Here's the other unfortunate reality. In that culture, at that time, a woman's well-being was the responsibility first of her father, then her husband, then her sons. Women who weren't virgins didn't tend to find good husbands or may not ever want to be touched again meaning that the rapist not only violated her but took away two of her future sources of income. Killing him wouldn't have provided for her future needs.

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