De Specialibus Legibus (lib. i‑iv)

"If you have not transgressed the laws of your marriage, and if no other man has been associated with you, so that you have not violated the rights of him who is joined to you by the law, you are blameless and innocent; but if you have neglected your husband and have followed

Then the priest shall write these words on a paper and dip it in the water which is in the earthenware vessel, and give it to the woman. And she shall drink it and depart, awaiting the reward of her modesty or the extreme penalty of her incontinence; for if she has been falsely accused she may hope for seed and children, disregarding all apprehensions and anxieties on the subject of barrenness and childlessness. But if she is guilty then a great weight and bulk, form her belly swelling and becoming full, will come upon her, and a terribly evil condition of her womb will afflict her, since she did not choose to keep it pure for her husband, who had married her according to the laws of her nation.

And the law takes such exceeding pains to prevent any irregularity taking place with respect to marriages, that even in the case of husbands and wives who have come together for legitimate embraces, in strict accordance with the laws of marriage, after they have arisen from their beds it does not allow them to touch anything before they have had recourse to washings and ablutions; keeping them very far from adultery and from all accusations referring to adultery.

But if any one should offer violence to a widow after her husband is dead, or after she has been otherwise divorced from him, and defile her, committing a lighter offence than adultery, and one that may perhaps be about half as serious, he shall not indeed be liable to the punishment of death, but he shall be impeached for violence, and insolence, and intemperance, having thus adopted the most infamous conduct as if it had been the most creditable; and the tribunal of the judge shall decide and condemn him to the penalty that he deserves to suffer.

Again, seduction is an offence which is similar and nearly related to adultery, as they are both sprung from one common mother, incontinence. But some of those persons who are accustomed to dignify shameful actions by specious

Therefore we must say to a man who desires to enjoy a virgin who is a free-born citizen, "My good man, rejecting your shameless rashness and audacity, the sources of treachery and faithlessness, and all such feelings, do not allow yourself to be discovered to be wicked, either openly or secretly,

but if, indeed, you have any legitimate feeling of love for the maiden in your soul, go to her parents, if they are alive, and if they are not, then go to her brother or to her guardians, or to any other persons who chance to be her protectors, and having discovered to them your feelings towards her, as a free-born man should do, ask her in marriage, and implore them not to account you unworthy.

"For no one of those who have the guardianship of the maiden entrusted them could be so base as to oppose an earnest and persevering entreaty, and especially as to refuse you since you, would be found, by strict examination, not to have falsely pretended a passion which you do not feel, or to have conceived only a superficial love for her, but one which is genuine and thoroughly established." [*](Deuteronomy xxii. 18.)

But if any one, being insane and frantic, repudiating and discarding all the suggestions of reason, were to submit himself wholly to passion and desire as his masters, and looking, as people say, on might as stronger than right, were to ravish and seduce women, treating free-born women as slaves, and doing acts of war in time of peace, let such a man be led before the judges.

And if the damsel who has been forced has a father, let him take counsel and deal with the ravisher about espousing her; then if he refuse to do so, he shall give the damsel a dowry for another husband, being fined in a sum of money sufficient for this purpose. But if he consents and registers her as his wife, let him marry her at once without any delay, confessing a second time that he owes her the same dowry, and let him have no permission to delay or evade the fulfilment of this marriage; both because [*](Deuteronomy xxii. 18.)

But if the damsel be an orphan and have no father, then let her be asked by the judges whether she is willing to take this man for her husband or not; and whether she agrees to do so or whether she refuses, still let her have the same dowry that the man would have agreed to give her while her father was yet alive.

Some people think that a licensed concubinage is an offence something between seduction and adultery, when the two parties come together, and agree to live as man and wife by a certain agreement, but before the marriage ceremony is completed, some other man meeting with the woman, or forcing her has connection with her; but in my opinion this also is a kind of of adultery; for such an agreement as is here mentioned is equivalent to a marriage, for in it the names of the woman and of the man are both registered, and all other things which were to lead to their union;

on which account, the law orders both the parties to be stoned if with one and the same mind they agree together to commit adultery; for it is impossible that, unless they both set out with the same intention, they should be looked upon as equal in iniquity, if they and not both sinned in an equal degree;

at all events it often happens that the offence is enhanced or diminished, with reference to the difference of place in which it is committed. for, as it seems, such an offence is greater if it be committed in a city, and less if it be committed outside the walls of any city, in a wilderness; for in such a place there is no one to assist the maiden, even though she may have said and done everything, which could conduce to the preservation of her virginity, unattacked and undefiled; but in a city there are halls of council, and courts of justice, and great assemblies of generals, and aediles, and rulers of the markets, and other magistrates; and besides all these there is the people;

for there is in the soul of every man, even though he may be a private individual, a feeling which is hostile to iniquity, which, when it is excited, makes the man who cherishes it a champion for the time being, and a

Therefore justice in every case pursues the man who has committed violence, nor is his iniquity excused by the difference of the place, so that cannot be any plea to defend him from the consequence of his violence and lawlessness; but as I have said before, there will be compassion and pardon for the damsel in the one case, and in the other inexecrable punishment will visit her.

And concerning her the judge must examine the matter very carefully, not referring everything to or making everything depend upon the place; for it is possible that a woman may be ravished against her will even in the middle of the city; and on the other hand even if outside the city, she may have voluntarily given herself up to an illicit connection. Wherefore the law, making a very careful and very admirably conceived defence, on behalf of a damsel ravished in the wilderness, says, "for the damsel cried out, and there was no one to help her;" [*]( Deuteronomy xxii. 27.) so that if she neither cried out nor resisted, but willingly consented to her ravisher, she must be looked upon as guilty, having only put forward the fact of the place, as a sophistical excuse to make it appear that she had been ravished.

And yet in the city what advantage can her efforts be to a damsel, who is willing to do everything for the sake of preserving her own reputation, but who is unable to succeed by reason of the strength of the man who is assaulting her? for what advantage could she derive from those who live in the same house if he were to bind her with ropes, or to gag her mouth, so that she could not utter even a word; for in some sense she then, although dwelling in a city, is in reality in a wilderness, inasmuch as she is destitute of all protection; but if she be in a wilderness, and yet willingly gives herself up to her ravisher, she is in no different condition from a woman in a city.

There are also some persons easily sated with their connection with the same woman, being at once both mad for women and women haters, full of promiscuous and irregular dispositions, who at once give themselves up to [*]( Deuteronomy xxii. 27.)

and concerning these men we have this law enacted. . When those men who marry virgins in accordance with the law, [*]( Deuteronomy xxii. 13.) and who have sacrificed on the occasion and celebrated their marriage feast, and who yet afterwards preserve no natural affection for their wives but treat them with insolence, and behave to freeborn citizens as if they were courtesans, if they seek to procure a divorce, and not being able to find any pretext for such a separation, then betake themselves to bringing forward false accusations, and from an absence of any clear grounds of impeachment direct all their charges at things which cannot be made certain, and come forward and accuse them, saying that though they fancied that they had been marrying virgins, they found on the first occasion of their having intercourse together, that they were not so. When, I say, these men make such charges let all the elders be assembled to decide on the case, and let the parents of the woman who is accused also appear, to make their defence in this their common danger.