Thursday, July 15, 2010

Death commanded for brides!

We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).[3]

The Old Testament was not kind to women.  Proof of virginity is a not clear cut.  The woman may or may not have been born with  a complete hymen, and if she does possess it it can be torn easily at any point during childhood and a woman may or may not bleed with her first experience with penetration.  The groom had already paid a bride price and the father had already sold his daughter into an arranged marriage in the tribal custom of the ancient hebrews.  If a groom wanted to take displeasure in the bride and claim she was not a virgin the groom was "commanded" to stone her to death on her father's doorstep.  This continues the belief that the virginity and the proof of it was the only value a woman possessed.  Virginity is worshipped in the worship of the virgin Mary and seen in both the muslim and christian  and jewish cultures as the only quality that makes a woman desirable and valuable.  The root of this obsession with virginity no doubt springs from this Old Testament commandment and continues to this day.  Would the god creator write such a commandment? Or was this a teaching from a patriarchal society?  When we go into court we swear on the bible to tell the truth.  Does the bible tell the truth?
For 4,000 years religious men and women have sworn that every word is in fact the "word of God".
Would a just and loving god prescribe such unjust treatment for a young girl because she did not bleed upon penetration on her wedding night?

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