And He Shall Marry Her Immediately: A Brief History of Divine Gaslighting, Legalized Trauma & The Holy Matrimony of Misogyny...

By Dr. Pradeep JNA aka Blasphemia Jones, Senior Correspondent for WTF Theology

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Opening Hymn: “Blessed Be the Name of the Patriarchy”

Imagine you’re a young woman living in an ancient desert society. You’ve just been assaulted. You’re bleeding, terrified, and possibly concussed. A few hours later, you’re told, “Good news! You’re getting married.” To him. Your attacker. The man who just turned your life into a tragic Greek chorus with no singing but plenty of stoning.

Welcome to the horrifyingly awkward, religiously endorsed institution known historically—and disturbingly—as the “marry-your-rapist” law.

From Mesopotamia to the Mosaic covenant to modern Middle Eastern courtrooms, this legal horror show has been marketed as a form of moral “damage control.” Because nothing says divine justice quite like subjecting victims to eternal brunches with their abusers.

Let’s unpack this cosmic train wreck with historical facts, scriptural analysis, and more sarcasm than the Book of Job’s footnotes.

SECTION I: Divine Marriage Counseling, Circa 1300 BCE

“He that humbleth her shall wed her.” — Deuteronomy 22:28–29, paraphrased, by Satan’s divorce attorney.

This infamous biblical passage is often dragged into the spotlight by skeptics and survivors alike. And for good reason.

On the surface, the verse seems to say: “If a man seizes a virgin and has sex with her, he must pay her father and marry her.” On closer examination, depending on your Hebrew proficiency and theological flexibility, it may not be about rape at all. Or it might. Scholars still argue about it. Heatedly. In multiple languages. Over wine.

But here’s the kicker: the punishment isn’t prison, restitution, or exile. It’s marriage. A legally binding trauma reenactment with full Mosaic approval and an eternal “no returns” policy.

The law's presumed logic? She’s now “damaged goods,” unlikely to marry anyone else, so this is how we “fix” her. Because in Iron Age social economics, female virginity was both currency and certificate of value. Once violated, you didn’t get a refund. You got a receipt—and a groom.

SECTION II: Consent? We Don’t Speak That Language Here

The Hebrew word “taphas” means “to seize.” Not quite “rape,” but definitely not “romantic stroll under the stars.” Think “grab-and-go” ethics, endorsed by the Almighty.

Another term used, “anah” (translated as “violate” or “humble”), shows up in other fun-filled biblical rape narratives—like Shechem and Dinah or Amnon and Tamar. In short: this word does not bode well for the woman involved.

Yet, apologists, ancient rabbis, and modern theologians have gone full Sherlock Holmes trying to argue that the man and woman were probably in a consensual situation. You know, just a little “premarital enthusiasm.” Just a youthful indiscretion. Just a lifetime of forced intimacy because no one else wants her now.

SECTION III: Hammurabi, Assyria & the Fertile Crescent of Patriarchy

Long before Deuteronomy canonized awkward shotgun weddings, the Code of Hammurabi and the Middle Assyrian Laws were busy cooking up their own trauma-flavored justice systems.

• In MAL 55, if a virgin is raped, the girl’s father gets to rape the rapist’s wife in retaliation. Because obviously, that balances the cosmic scale.

• If the perpetrator doesn’t have a wife? He gets to marry the victim and pay a modest dowry. Because nothing soothes a broken spirit like livestock and silver.

This wasn’t justice—it was ritualized property transfer dressed in legalese and sacred garb. And like a bad subscription plan, once signed, you couldn’t cancel. Ever.

SECTION IV A: Jesus, Paul & the Ghost of Leviticus Past

Fast forward to New Testament times. Jesus comes in hot with messages of love, grace, and turning the other cheek. But He never directly repeals Deuteronomy 22:28–29. Nor does Paul, despite having lots of opinions about women and silence.

Instead, the early Church fathers inherited the scriptures like spiritual hoarders. Rather than throwing out old laws, they stacked them in the attic next to burnt offerings and unused dietary restrictions. And so, awkward passages about marrying one’s rapist continued to echo, mutate, and metastasize.

SECTION IV B: Theology of “Holy Matrimony or Hell No”

Apologists continue to argue that Deuteronomy 22:28–29 isn’t about rape. That it's about consensual premarital sex. That “violate” doesn’t mean “violate.” That “seize” doesn’t mean “seize.” That “he shall never divorce her” is the romantic sequel to Fifty Shekels of Gray.

But theological revisionism can't bleach away the underlying structure: this law, and others like it, exist to maintain patriarchal property lines—not protect human dignity.

The victim’s desires are irrelevant. The man's ability to pay is central. The father's honor is paramount. This isn’t a divine commandment—it’s bronze-age damage control wrapped in spiritual ribbon.

SECTION IV C: Islamic Law, Sexual Consent, and the Legacy of Slavery: A Complex Historical Landscape

Under traditional interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence, rape — legally termed zina bil-ikrah or zina bil-jabr (literally, "fornication by force") — is recognized as a punishable crime. Classical jurists defined it as forced sexual intercourse with a woman who is neither a wife nor a slave and without her consent. However, the broader legal structure historically did not recognize the concept of consent in marital or slave contexts. Wives and female slaves could file complaints if intercourse resulted in physical harm, but not purely on grounds of lack of consent.

Historical records and a limited number of hadiths (sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) prescribe penalties for the rape of free women and slaves not owned by the perpetrator. Yet several Quranic verses — often referring to ma malakat aymanukum ("those whom your right hands possess") — have been interpreted as permitting sexual relations with female slaves, particularly in the context of warfare and captivity. These verses are accompanied by injunctions on male sexual conduct, urging chastity except with wives or slaves.

Islamic law, as practiced during earlier centuries, allowed for the distribution of female captives as spoils of war. These women could be bought, sold, and became sexually permissible to their captors following a mandated waiting period to ensure they were not pregnant. This system was part of a broader institution of slavery that continued for centuries across the Muslim world.

Importantly, slavery — including sexual slavery — was legally abolished in nearly all Muslim-majority countries during the 19th and 20th centuries. The global consensus against such practices was solidified with international agreements like the 1949 Geneva Conventions, whose Article 27 specifically prohibits rape and mistreatment of female prisoners of war. Nonetheless, isolated incidents of illegal slavery persist today, most notably in countries like Mauritania, drawing condemnation from human rights organizations.

SECTION V: When Colonizers Brought Holy Trauma Abroad

Fast forward again, and the marry-your-rapist ethos starts globetrotting like a cursed relic:

• France’s Penal Code of 1810 had clauses allowing a rapist to escape justice if he married his victim—with or without her consent. Merci, Napoleon!

• Ottoman law, influenced by Hanafi jurisprudence, spread similar provisions across the Islamic world. Marriage became the redemption plan for the defiled.

• Latin America, North Africa, and the Middle East inherited a delightful blend of these customs, forming legal systems where rape could be wiped clean with a wedding ring and a smile.

Some versions of the law even allowed gang rapists to be exonerated if just one of them married the victim. That’s not justice—it’s spiritual group insurance.

SECTION VI: Modern Misogyny—Now with Post-Colonial Packaging

By the mid-20th century, as many Middle Eastern and North African nations joyfully threw off the yoke of colonial rule, they somehow forgot to throw out the “marry-your-rapist” clause tucked in their legal constitutions like expired condiments in grandma’s fridge. These trauma-disguised-as-tradition laws weren’t homegrown so much as Frankenstein-ed together from ancient tribal codes, Ottoman imperial policies, and colonial hand-me-downs courtesy of the French and British. The result? A patchwork of jurisprudential horror.

In societies where women were still viewed as walking dowries or ornamental extensions of a family’s honor, rape was treated less like a violent crime and more like a property dispute. “Damaged goods” logic prevailed: the attacker could either fork over a financial apology or just marry the evidence. To dodge the fine (and actual consequences), rapists often opted for door number two—lifelong marital imprisonment for the victim, who, naturally, had no say in the matter.

Translation? The victim ends up with a lifetime sentence in matrimonial hell, while the attacker gets to avoid jail, family drama, and potentially even in-laws.

Fast forward to the 1970s—aka the age of disco and human rights—and global patience for these laws began to wear thin. Nations slowly started realizing that "surprise nuptials with your abuser" wasn’t quite the feminist milestone they’d been hoping for.

Back in 1997, an impressive fifteen Latin American countries still had these laws on the books. From Argentina to Venezuela, loopholes allowed rapists to walk free if they offered marriage and the victim said yes (or in Costa Rica’s case, even if she didn’t). Peru went full WTF by letting any member of a gang rape marry the victim to absolve the entire group. That’s not legal justice—that’s a cosmic glitch in the moral matrix.

Thankfully, progress finally came knocking. Between 1997 and 2017, country after country repealed these ancient legislative fossils. Colombia said adiós in 1997, Peru and Chile followed in 1999, and Brazil and Uruguay caught the memo by 2005. By 2017, all but four Latin American nations had officially killed off the marry-your-rapist provision. Italy, for the record, dragged its feet till 1981—proving Rome wasn’t un-built in a day.

But wait—2017 had more headlines. A World Bank report flagged twelve countries still clinging to this dystopian idea: Angola, Bahrain, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iraq, Jordan (repealed in August 2017), Lebanon (repealed July 2017), Libya, Palestine, the Philippines, Syria, and Tunisia (also repealed in July 2017). Reuters threw in a few more for good measure: Algeria, Kuwait, and Tajikistan. That’s a full rap sheet of legal systems where trauma is still followed by wedding invitations.

SECTION VII: The Zombie Laws That Won’t Die - Modern Times, Ancient Mindsets

Even where marry-your-rapist statutes have been scrapped, the practice often lingers like a morally bankrupt poltergeist. In Ethiopia, for instance, marriage by abduction remains disturbingly common—even after being outlawed in 2004. In Afghanistan, laws don’t formally allow it, but real-world prosecutions tend to vanish the moment someone waves a wedding ring.

And in Somaliland, the rule of law sometimes takes a coffee break while families “encourage” rape victims to tie the knot with their attackers, all in the name of honor, reconciliation, and cosmic irony.

In these places, justice isn’t a courtroom—it’s a family council with medieval logic, patriarchal blindfolds, and a bizarre obsession with dowry math.

And even where such laws have been repealed—like in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or Somaliland—the practice continues. Social pressure does the job that legislation failed to extinguish.

Pakistan’s Stolen Daughters: Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Minority Girls

Karachi / Lahore — Behind closed courtroom doors and shuttered village homes, a silent crisis is unfolding across Pakistan’s provinces. Every year, hundreds of young girls — primarily from Hindu and Christian communities — are abducted, sexually assaulted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to their captors. Many of these girls are under the age of 15.

Human rights activists say this is not an isolated phenomenon, but a systematic pattern of abuse targeting vulnerable religious minorities. In provinces like Sindh and Punjab, where most cases occur, local NGOs report that law enforcement routinely fails to act — or actively sides with perpetrators. Police often register such abductions as consensual marriages following a swift, coerced conversion ceremony.

“In most cases, families are silenced through threats or legal loopholes,” says a human rights lawyer in Lahore who represents minority families. “The girl is removed from the courtroom, kept in custody by her 'husband,' and forced to say it was her choice. She is then denied contact with her parents.”

In these societies, rape isn’t seen as a crime against a person—it’s a crime against family honor. And the only way to restore honor? Marry your attacker. The survivor becomes the social scapegoat, the family shame receptacle, the sacrificial bride. All to maintain the illusion of purity.

In modern contexts, Islamic scholars overwhelmingly consider slavery and sexual relations with captives to be impermissible. However, controversial voices persist, such as that of Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, who has argued that slavery remains a theologically legitimate concept. Legal recognition of marital rape also varies across Muslim-majority countries: while some have criminalized it, others—particularly in the Arab world—do not explicitly prohibit it, a stance not unique to Islamic nations alone.

Further complicating the issue is the legal treatment of zina, or illicit sexual relations, in certain jurisdictions. In some cases, women reporting rape risk prosecution if their claim is not substantiated to the legal standard, leading to international criticism and concerns over justice for victims.

Apologetic interpretations often attempt to reconcile the historical treatment of slaves by suggesting captives may have consented to sexual relations as a means of survival, especially in the absence of male protectors. Critics dispute this narrative, arguing that genuine consent is incompatible with conditions of captivity. Some modernist Islamic thinkers challenge the authenticity of the hadiths that reference such practices and seek to reinterpret Quranic passages through contemporary ethical frameworks.

FINAL BENEDICTION: DIVINE COMPLEXITY OR COSMIC BUREAUCRACY?

In fairness, ancient scriptures often reflect the worldviews of their time. Laws that shock modern sensibilities were once seen as social bandages in brutal systems. The Torah’s legislation did, in some ways, protect women from abandonment, economic ruin, or worse.

But calling that "justice" is like calling a medieval amputation “preventative medicine.” Yes, it’s what they had. But we’ve come a long way since.

So here’s the takeaway: if your sacred text says the solution to assault is lifelong matrimony with your attacker, maybe it’s time for contextual nuance, not literal obedience.

Religious traditions evolve. Interpretations evolve. And if your God is truly just, then perhaps justice should evolve too.

CLOSING PRAYER (MILLENNIAL REMIX EDITION)

"Lord, deliver us from awkward scriptures, shady footnotes, and divine logic that feels like it was brainstormed during a Bronze Age frat party. Amen."

ENDING PARAGRAPH

This article, while satirical and irreverent in tone, addresses a deeply serious issue that continues to affect lives around the world. Ancient legal codes—including those found in sacred scriptures—often reflect cultural norms that may no longer align with modern values of justice, autonomy, and human rights. 

Interpreting these texts requires careful consideration, historical literacy, and empathy for the marginalized voices they often overlook. The goal is not to attack belief, but to spark critical thought about how sacred texts are understood and applied in our world today.