Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics

Rape precedes marriage, engagement, betrothal, and courtship as sanctioned social behavior. In the bad old days, when a man wanted a woman he simply took her—that is, he abducted and fucked her. The abduction, which was always for sexual purposes, was the rape. If the raped woman pleased the

rapist, he kept her. If not, he discarded her.

Women, in those bad old days, were chattel. That is,

women were property, owned objects, to be bought, sold,

used, and stolen—that is, raped. A woman belonged first to

her father who was her patriarch, her master, her lord. The

very derivation of the word patriarchy is instructive. Pater

means owner, possessor, or master. The basic social unit of

patriarchy is the family. The word family comes from the

Oscan famel, which means servant, slave, or possession. Paterfamilias means owner of slaves. The rapist who abducted a woman took the place of her father as her owner, possessor, or

master.

The Old Testament is eloquent and precise in delineating

the right of a man to rape. Here, for instance, is Old Testament law on the rape of enemy women. Deuteronomy, Chapter 21, verses 10 to 15—

When you go to war against your enemies and Yahweh your God

delivers them into your power and you take prisoners, if you see

a beautiful woman among the prisoners and find her desirable,

you may make her your wife and bring her to your home. She

is to shave her head and cut her nails and take off her prisoner’s

garb; she is to stay inside your house and must mourn her father

and mother for a full month. Then you may go to her and be a

husband to her, and she shall be your wife. Should she cease to

please you, you will let her go where she wishes, not selling her

for money; you are not to make any profit out of her, since you

have had the use of her. 2

A discarded woman, of course, was a pariah or a whore.

Rape, then, is the first model for marriage. Marriage laws

sanctified rape by reiterating the right of the rapist to ownership of the raped. Marriage laws protected the property rights of the first rapist by designating a second rapist as an adulterer,

that is, a thief. Marriage laws also protected the father’s

ownership of the daughter. Marriage laws guaranteed the father’s right to sell a daughter into marriage, to sell her to another man. Any early strictures against rape were strictures

against robbery— against the theft of property. It is in this

context, and in this context only, that we can understand rape

as a capital crime. This is the Old Testament text on the theft

of women as a capital offense. Deuteronomy 22: 22 to 23: 1—

If a man is caught sleeping with another man’s wife, both must

die, the man who has slept with her and the woman herself. You

must banish this evil from Israel.

If a virgin is betrothed and a man meets her in the city and

sleeps with her, you shall take them both out to the gate of the

town and stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry

for help in the town; the man, because he has violated the wife

of his fellow. You must banish this evil from your midst. But if

the man has met the betrothed girl in the open country and has

taken her by force and lain with her, only the man who lay with