Exodus 22:16-17: "pre-marital sex" = the beginning of marriage?

[MeganC]

I understand all of this. I was trying to get the sex is marriage crowd to explain to me how a woman forced into sex, taking her virginity, is married to that man. So far I’ve heard no explanation.

I am not going to speak to the broader cultural and social issues here but I will say from personal observation that I have seen women cleave to a man after he forced himself on her.

I think this is partly due to the impulse or urge of some women to try to make the best of a bad situation.

It is also partly due to how we're designed. We're designed to respond to sex, it isn't just a mere physical act like brushing your teeth.

 

[Man_in_the_Middle]

I am not going to speak to the broader cultural and social issues here but I will say from personal observation that I have seen women cleave to a man after he forced himself on her.

I think this is partly due to the impulse or urge of some women to try to make the best of a bad situation.

It is also partly due to how we're designed. We're designed to respond to sex, it isn't just a mere physical act like brushing your teeth.

Females seem to be designed by God to be able to make the best of whatever has happened. This is why war brides simply move on. Their allegiance changes to those they are now with. This is not in any way to demean them. This, I believe, is for preservation of life. If women were like men, they could never be trusted and would have to be killed in war instead.

This mindset can happen in everyday society as well, to Megan's point. What many would deem an impossible situation that a woman needs to evacuate herself from STAT, she often goes right back into it and continues on.

I say all this just to acknowledge an interesting thing about the female psyche and not to point to any specific person or family.

 

[theleastofthese]

Females seem to be designed by God to be able to make the best of whatever has happened. This is why war brides simply move on. Their allegiance changes to those they are now with.

It's definitely interesting, but what would the alternative option be?

 

[steve]

It's definitely interesting, but what would the alternative option be?

Wouldn’t the alternative be a feminist mindset with no allegiance to anyone but herself and her children?

 

[theleastofthese]

Wouldn’t the alternative be a feminist mindset with no allegiance to anyone but herself and her children?

I must have missed something?

 

[steve]

I must have missed something?

I probably misunderstood your question.
Maybe you could expand it?

 

[FollowingHim]

It's definitely interesting, but what would the alternative option be?

There are plenty of alternatives. The most obvious alternative option to willing submission to a husband, is active complaining rebellion to that husband. For instance, I can certainly imagine a war bride who disliked her situation deliberately making her husband's life difficult in the hope that he will send her away. Or even being nice to him on the surface, but deliberately being a "bad wife" in whatever sense you can imagine in the hope that she gets given the boot (if he doesn't like her cooking, she can't clean without damaging stuff, gives bad sex, and there really isn't any benefit to having her, why keep her around?). That's actually the most logical response. Choosing instead to actually go along with her new situation willingly does not seem intuitive - yet that counterintuitive response is what women do seem frequently to do. And that is interesting.

 

[steve]

There are plenty of alternatives. The most obvious alternative option to willing submission to a husband, is active complaining rebellion to that husband. For instance, I can certainly imagine a war bride who disliked her situation deliberately making her husband's life difficult in the hope that he will send her away. Or even being nice to him on the surface, but deliberately being a "bad wife" in whatever sense you can imagine in the hope that she gets given the boot (if he doesn't like her cooking, she can't clean without damaging stuff, gives bad sex, and there really isn't any benefit to having her, why keep her around?). That's actually the most logical response. Choosing instead to actually go along with her new situation willingly does not seem intuitive - yet that counterintuitive response is what women do seem frequently to do. And that is interesting.

I find the risk involved fascinating.
If he doesn’t take her as a wife, he can sell her if she isn’t working out, but if he does take her as wife and it doesn’t work out he cannot sell her but has to free her in order to get her out of his family.

 

[Mark C]

I find the risk involved fascinating.
If he doesn’t take her as a wife, he can sell her if she isn’t working out, but if he does take her as wife and it doesn’t work out he cannot sell her but has to free her in order to get her out of his family.

Interesting. I don't see the part (Deut. 21:10, the 'war bride') in that section about the option to 'sell her,' in that it is phrased "if" you want to take her to wife. But I guess I can't see the converse, either; it does not seem excluded elsewhere in the 'war' context.

I guess I had always considered a scenario where troops select from 'the prize,' and take the one home whom they choose. But I can't argue the option doesn't exist if she's a shrew BEFORE the 'consummation.' ("The sages" often point out that the 'rebellious son' section follows immediately thereafter, as if her children might not be 'optimal.')

 

[steve]

Interesting. I don't see the part (Deut. 21:10, the 'war bride') in that section about the option to 'sell her,' in that it is phrased "if" you want to take her to wife. But I guess I can't see the converse, either; it does not seem excluded elsewhere in the 'war' context.

I guess I had always considered a scenario where troops select from 'the prize,' and take the one home whom they choose. But I can't argue the option doesn't exist if she's a shrew BEFORE the 'consummation.' ("The sages" often point out that the 'rebellious son' section follows immediately thereafter, as if her children might not be 'optimal.')

14And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

 

[Mark C]

Yeah, but that reads to me as AFTER you take her. (Verse 13, and the month of waiting.)

So, I think you're suggesting that the alternative to "sell her for [silver - qesef]" exists PRIOR to that point; during that month. That's what I wanted to clarify.

 

[steve]

Yeah, but that reads to me as AFTER you take her. (Verse 13, and the month of waiting.)

So, I think you're suggesting that the alternative to "sell her for [silver - qesef]" exists PRIOR to that point; during that month. That's what I wanted to clarify.

Any slave taken in war can be sold, to my understanding.
But if you marry one, your options are limited.

 

[Mark C]

Any slave taken in war can be sold, to my understanding.
But if you marry one, your options are limited.

So - here's a Purely Rhetorical Question to the point of this thread, with a slight re-phrase:

"But if you marry sleep with one, your options are limited."

 

[steve]

So - here's a Purely Rhetorical Question to the point of this thread, with a slight re-phrase:

"But if you marry sleep with one, your options are limited."

“You break it, you’ve bought it?”

Seriously, many teach that it was normal for slave owners to take their pleasure as they desired.
But Sarah, Leah and Rachel gave their husbands specific access for reasons. That, combined with the instructions in this passage seem to indicate that they didn’t mess with the slaves without some kind of structure that would be a form of marriage.

What I’m seeing is don’t sleep with them without the structure. And if you do, you can’t sell them any more than you could sell any other wife.

 

[Man_in_the_Middle]

“You break it, you’ve bought it?”

Seriously, many teach that it was normal for slave owners to take their pleasure as they desired.
But Sarah, Leah and Rachel gave their husbands specific access for reasons. That, combined with the instructions in this passage seem to indicate that they didn’t mess with the slaves without some kind of structure that would be a form of marriage.

What I’m seeing is don’t sleep with them without the structure. And if you do, you can’t sell them any more than you could sell any other wife.

In the case of Sarah, Rachel and Leah, the handmaids were their personal slaves. They owned them. So, when they offered them to their husbands to take as a wife, it was because they had authority over those hand maidens.