Post by FilmFlaneur on Feb 26, 2019 21:27:47 GMT
A necessary corrective to all that has gone before: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, his female slave, his ox, his donkey or anything which belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21). Because the Ten Commandments are so well known, it’s quite easy to miss the assumptions in them about gender. There is no commandment against rape (nor child abuse either come to that), since the Lord presumably finds assuaging his ego and ruling out graven images etc as a more pressing matter. But, when mentioned at all, the marginalization of women is clear. The wife is classified as her husband’s property, and so she’s listed with the slaves and work-animals. There’s also a striking, but entirely characteristic omission in this commandment: never does it say “You shall not covet your neighbor’s husband.” Yes, there were biblical women who flourished in spite of the contemporary patriarchy, women like Ruth, Esther, Lydia and Priscilla. But women in the Bible were normally viewed as second class, if even that.
There are even more difficult texts, not just about wives but in connection with women more generally, with men said to be willing to surrender women to horrendous violence. For example, Genesis says the patriarch Lot was willing to force his two daughters out the door to be raped, and the book of Judges says a Levite actually did force his concubine out the door to be gang raped, and after she died he cut her corpse into twelve pieces (Genesis 34; Judges 19-21). And an unmarried woman could be compelled to marry her rapist, as long as the rapist could pay the standard bride price and the woman’s father was comfortable with the marriage (Deuteronomy 22:28-29; Exodus 22:16-17). And some fathers were comfortable, if Jacob is any indication (Genesis 34). And polygamy (a man having multiple wives) was approved of (Genesis 4:19-24; Deuteronomy 21:15; 2 Samuel 3:2-5). Some narratives even have wives referring to their husbands as “lord,” such as Sarah in Genesis 18:12. And a woman’s religious vow could be nullified by her father or her husband (Numbers 30:3-15). Let us not forget either the, apparently justified, use of rape as an act of war as God occasionally commands. Within the “Household Codes” of the New Testament, husbands are commanded to “love their wives” and to avoid treating them “harshly,” but women are commanded to “submit to” their husbands (Colossians 3:18-19; Ephesians 5:22-25). And so on. Of course it is unwise to judge primitive culture by modern standards. But when we are asked to judge modern societies by the measures laid down by distant, early communities, as we typically are by the sanctimonious and devoutly-challenged, then it seems fair to make a point of it by way of return.
There are even more difficult texts, not just about wives but in connection with women more generally, with men said to be willing to surrender women to horrendous violence. For example, Genesis says the patriarch Lot was willing to force his two daughters out the door to be raped, and the book of Judges says a Levite actually did force his concubine out the door to be gang raped, and after she died he cut her corpse into twelve pieces (Genesis 34; Judges 19-21). And an unmarried woman could be compelled to marry her rapist, as long as the rapist could pay the standard bride price and the woman’s father was comfortable with the marriage (Deuteronomy 22:28-29; Exodus 22:16-17). And some fathers were comfortable, if Jacob is any indication (Genesis 34). And polygamy (a man having multiple wives) was approved of (Genesis 4:19-24; Deuteronomy 21:15; 2 Samuel 3:2-5). Some narratives even have wives referring to their husbands as “lord,” such as Sarah in Genesis 18:12. And a woman’s religious vow could be nullified by her father or her husband (Numbers 30:3-15). Let us not forget either the, apparently justified, use of rape as an act of war as God occasionally commands. Within the “Household Codes” of the New Testament, husbands are commanded to “love their wives” and to avoid treating them “harshly,” but women are commanded to “submit to” their husbands (Colossians 3:18-19; Ephesians 5:22-25). And so on. Of course it is unwise to judge primitive culture by modern standards. But when we are asked to judge modern societies by the measures laid down by distant, early communities, as we typically are by the sanctimonious and devoutly-challenged, then it seems fair to make a point of it by way of return.