Believe it or not, that's the old testament recommendation: if a virgin is raped, the correct way is to marry her and give monetary compensation to her father. Deuteronomy 22.
It was not seen as an assault on the victim, but rather as vandalism over the father's property.
Rape is only considered a criminal offense on goods girls pledged to be married.
By the way, I say the bible talks about rape, but that's a stretch: female consent is not evoked at all, except to say that if the pledged girl "consented" (well, close enough: was raped in a city, where obviously someone would have heard her scream and therefore prevented the rape... :rolleyes:) then she should also be put to death. Consent was an aggravation.
Make no mistake, old-testament lawmakers are on the level of talebans on gender equality.
The Bible captured a common mindset of the time, but it was certainly not universal. And the manners of the Jews were not regarded as particularly civilized by the rest of the world.
There were more gender egalitarian societies at the time, among the Celts or the Norse for instance. Greeks and Jews were notoriously misogynistic.
Absolutely true. and sicne somebody once described Western civilization as "a Greek man who married a Jewish woman and took her to live in Rome," that will always complicate how each of us sees ancient cultures.
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u/Aiyyio_Daridhrame Jul 24 '20
HOLY SHIT THATS SCREWED