Violation of a Betrothed Woman

The law concerning a betrothed woman subjected to sexual assault makes location central to the judgment: an encounter in a city and one in an open field carry different presumptions about the woman’s ability to cry out, and consequently different penalties. By treating her circumstances as relevant to culpability, the rule differentiates the assailant’s responsibility from the woman’s rather than imposing a single outcome.

The City Case

If a man encounters a betrothed virgin in a city and lies with her, the law orders that both be brought to the city gate and stoned. It assigns the woman responsibility because she did not cry out in the city, and describes the man’s act as violating his neighbor’s wife. The stated purpose is to remove evil from the community.

The Field Case

The rule gives a different judgment when the man finds the betrothed woman in a field, seizes her, and lies with her. Only the man is to die; the woman is not to be punished, because there is no offense in her deserving death. The text compares the case to a man rising against and killing his neighbor: she cried out in the field, but no one was there to rescue her.

Responsibility and the Limits of the Rule

The contrast rests on the circumstances of the assault and the possibility of intervention. In the city case, the failure to cry out is treated as grounds for condemning the woman along with the man; in the field case, the text interprets her cry as evidence that she was overpowered and absolves her. The rule thus expressly separates the assailant’s liability from the victim’s in the field scenario, while applying a radically different judgment in the city scenario.