her shall die; you must do nothing to the girl, for hers is no
capital offence. The case is like that of a man who attacks and
kills his fellow; for he came across her in the open country and
the betrothed girl could have cried out without anyone coming to
her rescue.
If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed and seizes her
and lies with her and is caught in the act, the man who has lain
with her must give the girl’s father fifty silver shekels; she shall
be his wife since he has violated her, and as long as he lives he
may not repudiate her.
A man must not take his father’s wife, and must not withdraw
the skirt of his father’s cloak from her. 3
Women belonged to men; the laws of marriage sanctified that
ownership; rape was the theft of a woman from her owner.
These biblical laws are the basis of the social order as we
know it. They have not to this day been repudiated.
As history advanced, men escalated their acts of aggression
against women and invented many myths about us to insure
both ownership and easy sexual access. In 500 B. C. Herodotus, the so-called Father of History, wrote: “Abducting young women is not, indeed, a lawful act; but it is stupid after the
event to make a fuss about it. The only sensible thing is to take
no notice; for it is obvious that no young woman allows herself to be abducted if she does not wish to be. ”4 Ovid in the
what they really like to give. ”5 And so, it became official:
women want to be raped.
Early English law on rape was a testament to the English
class system. A woman who was not married belonged legally
to the king. Her rapist had to pay the king fifty shillings as a
fine, but if she was a “grinding slave, ” then the fine was reduced to twenty-five shillings. The rape of a nobleman’s serving maid cost twelve shillings. The rape of a commoner’s serving maid cost five shillings. But if a slave raped a commoner’s serving maid, he was castrated. And if he raped any woman of
higher rank, he was killed. ®
Here, too, rape was a crime
against the man who owned the woman.
Even though rape is sanctioned in the Bible, even though
the Greeks had glorified rape— remember Zeus’ interminable
adventures— and even though Ovid had waxed euphoric over
rape, it was left to Sir Thomas Malory to popularize rape for
us English-speaking folk.
work on courtly love. It is a powerful romanticization of rape.
Malory is the direct literary ancestor of those modem male
Amerikan writers who postulate rape as mythic lovemaking.
A good woman is to be taken, possessed by a gallant knight,
sexually forced into a submissive passion which would, by
male definition, become her delight. Here rape is transformed, or mystified, into romantic love. Here rape becomes the signet of romantic love. Here we find the first really modern rendering of rape: sometimes a woman is seized and carried off; sometimes she is sexually forced and left, madly, passionately in love with the rapist who is, by virtue of an excellent rape, her owner, her love. (Malory, by the way, was
