In many modern contexts these laws are strange at best and offensive at worst. Are they teaching that wives are something men can buy? And why do fathers have such a say in who their daughters marry? Any attempt to answer such questions must begin with a clear understanding of the cultural and theological context surrounding these laws.
What Aspects of Cultural and Theological Context Need to Be Kept in Mind?
See the opening paragraph in the Comment section for three important cultural and theological factors informing these laws.
In What Ways Do These Laws Actually Protect Women?
Requiring the man to marry the woman protects her both socially and financially. See the second paragraph in the Comment section. Giving the father the right to disallow the marriage protects the seduced woman from a potentially unwise youthful decision or from marriage to an unsavory character.
What Do These Laws Teach Us about God’s View of the Proper Context for Sexual Activity?
These laws emphasize that God has created sexual activity for the context of marriage. First, they require the man who has seduced a young woman and slept with her to marry her (22:16). If physical activity is the cart, marriage is the horse. The couple may have put the cart before the horse in this instance, but horse and cart go together. Sexual activity is marital. Second, if the marriage is disallowed, the man still has to pay the equivalent of the betrothal gift (v. 17). This not only penalizes him for his wrong but also had a deterrent effect, discouraging others from engaging in fornication. It also again makes clear that sexual union and marriage go together. Honoring God’s design therefore means not only saving sexual activity for marriage but also avoiding adultery and other forms of non-marital sexual activity. See discussion in the Response section on 20:1–21, “You shall not commit adultery.”
In a world of sexual brokenness, it is also vital to remember that, when we have failed in any of the above ways, we need not only to repent of the wrong but also to embrace God’s promise that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Sexual sin is not beyond God’s forgiveness. In Jesus cleansing from any sin is always full and complete.Exodus 22:16–17
Exodus 22:18–20
Or a girl of marriageable age; also verse 17
Or engagement present; also verse 17
22:16–17 Three aspects of historical and theological context shed light on what these stipulations are protecting against. First, in the ancient Near East issues of continuing the family line and passing property on to legitimate heirs were central to the purpose of marriage. As a result, “traditions favoring premarital virginity as well as legislation requiring marital fidelity [were] common,” since both help assure that any offspring would be legitimate heirs. Second, it was also common for a man who wanted to marry a woman to give an “engagement present” (cf. ESV mg.), which would “often be returned to the woman as part of her dowry or inheritance, thus providing for her financial well-being.” Third, from a theological perspective the Bible understands sexual activity to be a physical way for a husband and wife to act out and confirm the covenant commitment they have made to one another in marriage; as they have promised to cleave in covenant loyalty to one another for all of life, sexual activity becomes the physical way they confirm, reaffirm, and strengthen this commitment throughout marriage. This is why sex must be marital: it relates to a covenant commitment two people have already made.
This context in turn helps to clarify the purpose of these stipulations. They concern a case in which “a man seduces” and then “lies with” a “virgin who is not betrothed,” meaning she has not been pledged in marriage (cf. note 459 within comment on 21:2–6 and attendant discussion). This is an important detail. In Israel betrothal was somewhere between modern engagement and marriage. Like engagement it was a promise to wed. Like marriage it required sexual fidelity, such that sexual relations with another person during betrothal was considered adultery (leading to adultery’s penalty for the guilty parties; Deut. 22:23–24). But in this case she is not betrothed, so no such punishment applies. Instead the man is now to give the betrothal present and take her to be his wife (Ex. 22:16). This protects the woman socially. Since she is no longer a virgin, her chances of marriage may be harmed, and the man is therefore prevented from leaving her in a potentially vulnerable state. “A man cannot ‘love her and leave her’: by sleeping with her he has assumed the obligation to marry her.” (By way of comparison, we might think of the expectation—fading in many modern contexts but very strong only a generation or two ago—that a man should marry a woman if she becomes pregnant by him.) Moreover, as already noted, it appears that the betrothal present the man must give will provide “indirectly for the financial wellbeing of the bride (as the marriage present . . . was customarily returned to brides in the dowry).” Finally, requiring marriage reinforced God’s purpose for sexual relations by underscoring the bond between sexual activity and marriage. Indeed, the man has led the woman to commit the covenantal act of marriage without entering a covenant with her. By preventing him from misusing sex and the woman in this way the law points to the true nature of what sexual activity is to be: an expression of marital commitment.
But the law is not naive and does not give the man the automatic right to marriage. The woman’s father is able to deny the union (v. 17). This may have been an expected right in a culture where the head of the household was responsible for all major decisions within it, but a protective function also accompanies this right. Various lines of evidence suggest females “generally married soon after puberty,” meaning the normal case of seduction would involve a woman who was quite young and whose decision-making capabilities were not fully developed. The father’s right to deny the marriage gives the daughter an important protection, whether from the lack of wisdom that comes with youth or from a man of ill repute who has taken advantage of her in some way. That the man still has to pay the equivalent of the betrothal gift punishes him for his wrong and discourages men from engaging in premarital sex, emphasizing again that God has created sexual union for the context of marriage.