Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

FEMALE SLAVES AND DEPENDENTS | 145
divorce. The motive clause found in v. 14 ... is found also in the law concerning
the violation of an unbetrothed girl (Deut 22:29), further linking the law to
other Deuteronomic family legislation. Finally, the law is followed by two
family laws. 75
Several of its points remain unclear and find all kinds of explanation, such as the
significance of the rites later associated with her mourning her family, and the
significance of “humiliate her” (התינע) in such a text. 76 While some scholars
understand this law as an example of Dtr’s “humanization” of the treatment of
captives, others are more mindful of the position of the weakest in this scheme.
Thus, Washington asks about the location and authorization of abuse:
What sort of abuse does the text refer to in the expression התינע? Does this
refer to the devastating circumstances of the woman’s original capture, the
destruction of her home, killing of her family, and forcible removal of her
person? Or does it refer to the woman’s subjugation to ritual denigration in the
captor’s household, followed by compelled sexual penetration? Is the woman
humiliated by the decision to dismiss her after marriage, or perhaps by the
man’s choice not to go through with the marriage after bringing her to his
household?
There is a slight protection for the woman in this law. The primary effect
of the law is to assure a man’s prerogative to abduct a woman through violence,
keep her indefinitely if he wishes, or discard her if she is deemed
unsatisfactory, above all, perhaps, if she proves to be pregnant by another man.
By authorizing the violent seizure of women, this law takes the male-againstfemale
predation of warfare out of the battlefield and brings it to the home. 77
Washington’s analysis hits the point: warfare is now at home. Even though
the language is that of family, her status within the household is debatable as to
her working conditions. And it is precarious, as the law itself foresees. As
Carole Fontaine expresses, “Force her into marriage if you will, but should it not
turn out as desired, leave her some small honor—let her go free to beg on the
streets, or hire herself out for more exploitation, or become a prostitute. After
all, niceties must be observed if the conscience of the victor is to be at rest.” 78
75 Pressler, View of Women, 9.
76 Westbrook, “Female Slave,” 235, thinks that “the captive woman is initially a slave, marriage
makes her a free person, but subsequent termination of the marriage revives her previous status: her
husband becomes her master again, and therefore can in principle sell her as a slave. The law forbids
him to do so.”
77 C. H. Washington, “Lest He Die in the Battle and Another Man Take Her: Violence and the
Construction of Gender in the Laws of Deuteronomy 20–22,” in Gender and Law, 207.
78 Carole R. Fontaine, With Eyes of Flesh: The Bible, Gender and Human Rights (The Bible in the
Modern World 10; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008), 69.