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BUT WAS SHE RAPED?:

A VERDICT THROUGH COMPARISON1

JOANN SCURLOCK

Methodology
It is not generally the custom to draw conclusions from comparisons
made on the basis of the illuminating insights which they are capable
of providing, regardless of boundaries of genre (myth vs. law), of time
(ancient vs. modern), of space (old vs. new world) and of religion
(Christian, Muslim and pagan). The reason is that to disregard such
boundaries violates a taboo basic to the disciplines of anthropology and
sociology against finding common ground between the “primitive” and
the “complex”. However, information drawn from any source may be
profitably compared with any other, provided that proper care is taken
to avoid decontextualization, and it must be said that overly rigid or
improperly drawn boundaries impede rather than aid scholarship.
Our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia is based on fragmentary
sources. If an unconscious “read in” from our own modern cultural
prejudices is to be avoided, conscious comparisons and contrasts need
to be drawn between ancient Mesopotamia and other, better known,
societies. Those chosen for comparison were selected because they pro-
vided source material suggestive of similarities with ancient Mesopotamia
which were not incidental but which seemed to reveal hidden corre-
spondences in underlying law or custom. The treatment of “rape” cases
here discussed was not, to be sure, a “human universal” but, as the
deliberate choice of widely dispersed examples demonstrates, an unsus-
pected commonality broadly distributed in both time and space. Many
other choices could have been made; historians in disciplines not

1 This is an expanded excerpt from a paper, entitled: “Rape, Adultery, Abortion and

Prostitution: The Regulation of Female Sexuality in the ancient Near Eastern Laws,”
read at the 103rd meeting of the American Historical Association in Cincinnati (1988).
I wish to thank Richard H. Beal, Charles Gray, Rivkah Harris, Eve Levin, Michael
Murrin, Barbara N. Porter, John E. Scurlock, Margaret Schroeder, and the editors and
anonymous reviewers of NIN for reading various drafts of this paper and making many
valuable comments. Any mistakes which remain are, of course, my own.

© Styx/Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005 NIN 4

Also available online – www.brill.nl
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covered in this paper are invited to make these further comparisons for
themselves.

Rape(?) in The Myth of Enlil and Ninlil

There is a Sumerian myth which, in modern colloquial rendering and
omitting poetic repetitions, reads as follows:2
A long time ago in our city of Nippur,3 the god Enlil4 was an adolescent boy, the
goddess Ninlil was an adolescent girl, and Nunbarsegunu (Ninlil’s mother) was a
wise old woman. At that time, Nunbarsegunu gave advice to her daughter Nin
lil: “Don’t bathe in the clear5 canal, Ninlil; don’t walk along the banks of the
Nunbirdu Canal! Handsome6 Enlil, who runs things,7 will see you and when he
sees you, he will have sex with you and kiss you8 and when he has enjoyed you

2 The myth was first translated by Samuel Noah Kramer in his Sumerian Mythology

(Philadelphia, 1944), pp. 43–47. Thorkild Jacobsen, “Sumerian Mythology: A Review

Article,” JNES 5 (1946): 128–152 (especially pp. 132–134) clarified some of the key pas-
sages, and these improvements were incorporated into Kramer’s retelling in S.N. Kramer,
ed., Mythologies of the ancient World (New York, 1961), pp. 96–98. The myth was edited
with German translation by Hermann Behrens in his Enlil und Ninlil: Ein sumerischer Mythos
aus Nippur, Studia Pohl: Series Maior 8 (Rome, 1978) (cf. An English translation from
Behren’s edition, with corrections and improvements appears in Jerrold S. Cooper’s
review of Behrens in JCS 32 (1980): 175–188, a French translation by S.N. Kramer in
Jean Bottéro and S.N. Kramer, eds., Lorsque les dieux faisaient l’homme (Paris, 1989),
pp. 105–115 and a German translation by Willem. H.Ph. Römer, in Texte aus der Umwelt
des Alten Testaments (TUAT ) III/1 (Gütersloh, 1993), pp. 421–434. In this age of com-
puters, it is inevitable that the most up-to-date edition (with additional bibliography) is
to be found on the World Wide Web. It is part of Jeremy A. Black, et al., The Electronic
Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/#), Oxford 1998.
My translation follows Cooper’s except where noted.
3 The original gives a rhapsodic description of the city.
4 The traditional reading of this god’s name has been retained to avoid confusion; it

should, however, probably be rendered as Ellil.

5 Black translates “holy”. However, KÙ in this context does not mean “holy” but

“pure” or “clean,” that is to say, not muddy.

6 Literally: “bright-eyed”.
7 He is described as “the master, the great mountain, father Enlil, the shepherd who

determines destinies.”
8 This seems a rather peculiar order of events to most modern readers; we would

expect kissing to precede copulation. However, “missionary position” and standing or

sitting face-to-face intercourse did not exhaust the possibilities for ancient Mesopotamians.
A number of representations of sexual activity from ancient Mesopotamia also show
intercourse in a back to front position (with the man standing and the woman bending
over) or a right angle position (with the woman on a bench and the man standing or
the man lying and the woman squatting over him—for details, see Jerry S. Cooper,
“Heilige Hochzeit,” in RlA vol. 4/4–5 [Berlin, 1975], pp. 259–269]). It may be, there-
fore, that kissing served a natural post-coital function similar to Hollywood’s ritual smok-
ing of cigarettes. At least the Sumerians did believe in kissing (for references, see Jerry
S. Cooper, “Kuss” in RlA, vol. 6/5–6 [Berlin, 1983], pp. 375–379]); in pre-modern
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and gotten you pregnant, he will abandon you!” This was good advice that her
mother gave her.
(However), Ninlil went and bathed in the clear canal and walked along the
banks of the Nunbirdu Canal. Handsome Enlil, who runs things, saw her there.
He said to her, “Let me have sex with you,” but she wouldn’t agree to do it
with him there; Enlil said to her, “Let me kiss you,” but she wouldn’t agree to
do that there either, saying: “My vagina is young, and has never known preg-
nancy.9 My lips are young, and have never known kissing. My mother and father
will find out, and I will be beaten and will no longer be allowed to talk to my
girlfriend(s).”10
Enlil called to his servant, the god Nusku (who was eager to help) and said:
“Has anyone ever had sex with and kissed a young woman as beautiful as Ninlil?”11
Nusku brought his master something in the way of a boat. If he sailed downstream,
how could he fail to have sex with Ninlil and kiss her? Enlil found Ninlil after
some searching and took her hand.12 How could he fail? At a spot(?) on a small
beach he lay with her; there, he had sex with her and kissed her and, in so doing,
impregnated her with the moon god Suen.
(Sometime later), when Enlil was passing through Ki our (Ninlil’s house), the other
gods who run things13 seized him, saying: “That dirty14 Enlil must leave the city
(of Nippur)!” Enlil, in accordance with the rule which he himself had made,15
went away.16

Japanese society this was considered an “outrageously exotic practice” employed only by
trained prostitutes (see Liza C. Dalby, Geisha [New York, 1985], p. 55).
9 See Römer, TUAT III/1, p. 425.
10 See Römer, TUAT III/1, p. 425.
11 See Römer, TUAT III/1, p. 425.
12 Kramer, Les dieux, p. 107 translates this line: “Sa main toucha ce dont on a tant

envie.”
13 These are: “the very fifty great gods, the very seven gods who determine destinies.”
14 The term in question (Ú.ZUG .GE = musukku) was usually used of women who
X
were in a state of impurity because they were menstruating or had just given birth (CAD
M/2:239–240). It could, however, be used to refer to a similar impurity resulting from
the efflux of blood upon breach of the hymen. In the myth of Nergal and Ereskigal,
the goddess, whose divine lover has abandoned her, protests that she is musukku’d and
consequently “unable to determine the verdicts of the great gods” (SB version v 7,23;
with AHw 678 and against CAD M/2:317b s.v. mùtu mng. a, which attempts to emend
the passage). Ereskigal demands that Nergal be sent back to become her husband or
else she will send up the dead to devour the living (for a translation of the passage in
question, see A. Kirk Grayson, “Akkadian Myths and Epics” in James B. Pritchard, ed.,
A ncient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [ANET ], 3rd edition with supple-
ment [Princeton, 1969], p. 511; Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses, An Anthology
of Akkadian Literature [Baltimore, 1993] and Stephanie Dalley in William Hallo, ed.,
The Context of Scripture, vol. 1 Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World [Leiden, 1997],
pp. 384–390). Presumably, the reference to musukku in our context is to Enlil’s being
polluted with Ninlil’s virgin blood.
15 Black translates “in accordance with what had been decided”, following Römer,

TUAT III/1, p. 427 (also Behrens, Kramer and Jacobsen). However, with Cooper, JCS
32:182, 186, this is an impossible translation of dEn.líl níg.nam.sè nam.mu.un.tar.ra.ke›
which is transitive and clearly marks Enlil as the subject.
16 It is interesting to note that, although Mesopotamian gods could make law, they
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(However) wherever he went, Ninlil followed him. Enlil told the gatekeeper
(of the netherworld): “Gatekeeper, your mistress Ninlil will be coming soon; if
she asks you about me, you mustn’t tell her where I am.” Ninlil said to (him
whom she thought to be) the gatekeeper: “Gatekeeper, where has your master
Enlil gone?” but it was (really) Enlil in the guise of the gatekeeper to whom she
was speaking. Enlil answered her: “I’m sorry, beautiful one, but my master Enlil,
who is lord of all the lands, wouldn’t tell me. But, allow me to make a sugges-
tion.”17 “Must you fill my womb which needs emptying?18 Enlil, lord of the lands,
has [had sex] with me. If Enlil is your master, then I’m your mistress.” “If you’re
my mistress, let me touch your . . . !” “(But) I’m pregnant with the god Suen by
your master.” “Let my master’s semen go to heaven, let my semen go to the
netherworld. Let my semen go to the netherworld instead of my master’s semen.”
Enlil lay down in the bed chamber19 in the guise of the gatekeeper.20 There, he
had sex with her and kissed her and, in so doing, impregnated her with Nergal
(a netherworld god).
Wherever Enlil went, Ninlil followed him. Enlil went up to the man of the
netherworld river and said: “Riverman, your mistress Ninlil will be coming soon;
if she asks you about me, you mustn’t tell her where I am.” Ninlil went up to
(him whom she thought to be) the riverman and said: “Riverman, where has your

were not above it. This concept of the legislator or legislative body being “above the
law” is a natural outgrowth of societies, as ancient Greece and Rome, in which it is
men rather than gods who make the law and is, even in that context, an innovation of
the Roman Empire (and an essential component of the new office of emperor created
by Augustus). Ancient Greek gods were not above the law in this sense. What they were
was lawless, that is, they did what they pleased, bound by no convention of their own
or any other’s making.
17 Untranslated in Cooper’s and Kramer’s editions. Literally: “It being the case that

you have made a determination as to my mind and given heed to my word.” See
Behrens, Enlil und Ninlil, pp. 218, 226 (line 130).
18 Untranslated in Cooper’s and Kramer’s editions. I follow the reading given in

M. Green’s review of Behrens in BiOr 39 (1982): 341, but construe the passage as a
question rather than a statement. Green (BiOr 39: 340–341) wishes to make Ninlil the
instigator of the intercourse, but, with Cooper, JCS 32:183, the rest of the conversation
would seem to argue against this interpretation.
19 Black translates: “Enlil got her (Ninlil) to lie down”, following Römer, TUAT III/1,

p. 429 who follows Jacobsen’s squeamish insistence on missionary position for the lovers.
With Cooper, JCS 32:187, 188 (also Behrens and Kramer), this is an implausible trans-
lation for dEn-líl . . . ba.ná, which is clearly intransitive.
20 The choice of position suggests that Enlil intended for Ninlil to sit on him (see n.

8).We would depict the woman as lying down or being laid on her back by the man,
but then our views on the subject are probably more influenced than we would like by
the Christian notion that certain popular ancient Mesopotamian sexual positions are
“unnatural”, the back to front position because it imitates animal intercourse, or (worse)
makes the woman look like a passive homosexual, and the woman on top position
because it violates the “divinely ordained structure of the universe” by making the female
seem to dominate the male (for a discussion of such beliefs, see Eve Levin, Sex and Society
in the World of the Orthodox Slavs 900–1700 [Ithaca, 1989], pp. 172–173, 199). These philo-
sophical difficulties with sexual positions other than the “missionary” are not shared by
Muslims: “Your women are a field for you (to cultivate), so go to your field however
you wish” (Koran 2:223). In any case, the choice of such a position for intercourse
clearly indicates that, for this and the subsequent two couplings at least, Ninlil was not
being coerced (see n. 37).
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master Enlil gone?” but it was (really) Enlil in the guise of the riverman to whom
she was speaking. Enlil answered her: “I’m sorry, beautiful one, but my master
Enlil, who is lord of all the lands, wouldn’t tell me. But, allow me to make a sug-
gestion.” “Must you fill my womb which needs emptying? Enlil, lord of the lands,
has had sex with me. If Enlil is your master, then I’m your mistress.” “If you’re
my mistress, let me touch your. . . !” “(But) I’m pregnant with the god Suen by
your master.” “Let my master’s semen go to heaven, let my semen go to the
netherworld. Let my semen go to the netherworld instead of my master’s semen.”
Enlil lay down in the bed chamber in the guise of the riverman. There, he had
sex with her and kissed her and, in so doing, impregnated her with Ninazu (another
netherworld god).
Wherever Enlil went, Ninlil followed him. Enlil went up to Silusi,21 the ferry-
man (of the netherworld) and said: “Silusi my ferryman, your mistress Ninlil will
be coming soon; if she asks you about me, you mustn’t tell her where I am.” Ninlil
went up to (him whom she thought to be) Silusi the ferryman and said: “Ferryman,
where has your master Enlil gone?” but it was (really) Enlil in the guise of the fer-
ryman to whom she was speaking. Enlil answered her: “I’m sorry, beautiful one,
but my master Enlil, who is lord of all the lands, wouldn’t tell me. But, allow me
to make a suggestion.” “Must you fill my womb which needs emptying? Enlil, lord
of the lands, has had sex with me. If Enlil is your master, then I’m your mistress.”
“If you’re my mistress, let me touch your. . . !” “(But) I’m pregnant with the god
Suen by your master.” “Let my master’s semen go to heaven, let my semen go to
the netherworld. Let my semen go to the netherworld instead of my master’s
semen.” Enlil lay down in the bed chamber in the guise of Silusi the ferryman.
There, he had sex with her and kissed her and, in so doing, impregnated her with
Enbilulu (yet another netherworld god).
Enlil, you are lord and master; you are strong and mighty. You make the bar-
ley and flax grow; you are lord of heaven and earth. What you have commanded,
no one may alter. May you be praised for your attentive care22 for mother Ninlil!

The Sumerian myth breaks off rather abruptly, omitting the dénoue-
ment. We know, from the mention of our protagonists’ passing by the
gatekeeper (of the netherworld), the man of the netherworld river and
ferryman (of the netherworld), that Enlil and Ninlil went to what the
ancient Mesopotamians called the “land of no return,” with good rea-
son, since it was impossible to come back from it alive without leaving
behind something or someone as ransom.23 ÆFN1Ø Since the three
gods who were engendered by Enlil while he and Ninlil were on the
way to the netherworld are known from other sources to be netherworld

21 The reading of the name is unsure; some scholars prefer to read it Silulima; see

Römer, TUAT III/1, p. 432 for previous bibliography.

22 See Cooper, JCS 32:188.
23 This rule applied even to gods who chose voluntarily to go there—the classic exam-

ple of this is the myth of the descent of Istar into the netherworld and her subsequent
redemption by her lover Dumuzi, who was sent to take her place. For a translation of
this myth see S.N. Kramer, “Sumerian Myths and Epic Tales” in ANET, pp. 52–57
and E.A. Speiser, “Akkadian Myths and Epics” in ANET, pp. 106–109 as well as Dalley
in Context of Scripture, pp. 381–384 and Foster, Before the Muses, pp. 403–409. For a
discussion, see Kramer, Mythologies, pp. 107–115.
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gods,24 it seems reasonable to suppose that these three children were

left behind (as ransom)25 when Enlil, Ninlil, and Suen returned to the
upper world.26 We may thus reconstruct the dénouement of the myth
as follows: After a suitable interval, Ninlil gave birth to her four children;
three of them remained in the netherworld to become gods otherwise
known to the audience as netherworld figures. Ninlil, her lover, and her
son the moon god, on the other hand, all went back up to heaven and
lived happily ever after. Since, in Sumerian mythology, Ninlil is Enlil’s
wife, we may also presume that he made an honest goddess out of her
in the end.
What is interesting to us in this myth of Enlil and Ninlil is the infor-
mation on Sumerian social customs which is woven into the tale. We
must, however, be careful to distinguish the sort of behavior which
might have been acceptable in a real life situation from that demanded
by the narrative. Although the first part of the myth was, as we shall
see, drawn from life, the same cannot be said for Ninlil’s three encoun-
ters with the denizens of the netherworld; a young Sumerian woman
who engaged in willing sexual intercourse with men other than her lover
could hardly expect him to marry her afterwards. However, since Enlil
and Ninlil were the parents not only of the moongod Suen, but also
of three netherworld divinities, the myth had to have Ninlil be impreg-
nated three times in the netherworld. Since, moreover, these three chil-
dren were apparently to be sacrificed to ransom Enlil and the already
pregnant Ninlil from the netherworld, it was just as well that someone
other than Enlil fathered them. Despite the presence of such extenuat-
ing circumstances, it is interesting to note that the myth does not go
so far as to have Ninlil actually be unfaithful to her lover. Although
she appears to engage in willing intercourse with three strange young
men, the myth is careful to save her virtue by having all of her sexual
partners turn out to be Enlil in disguise.27
What, then, of the first part of the myth? In view of the fact that
Ninlil was, at least initially, somewhat resistant to Enlil’s advances, and
that the council of gods forced Enlil to leave Nippur because he had

24 For details, see Kramer, Les dieux, pp. 111–113.

25 In this context, Ninlil’s seeming willingness to jump into bed with various minions
of the netherworld becomes more comprehensible. In this way she could ensure that it
would not be Enlil’s children who would have to be given as substitutes for the two
lovers and their child.
26 On this point, see also Jacobsen, JNES 5: 133–134; Kramer, Mythologies, p. 98;

Cooper, JCS 32: 183 and Green, BiOr 39: 340.

27 It is, of course, perfectly conceivable that Ninlil recognized her lover and played

along in a spirit of fun and/or to help him deceive the queen of the netherworld.
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had sexual intercourse with her, it has become common among

Sumerologists to apply the term “rape” to Enlil’s offense.28 This appli-
cation has, in turn, led scholars to try to understand the behavior of
the participants of the myth in terms of this crime: “The psychological
portrait of Ninlil, who followed the man who raped her, yet had to be
tricked into repeated acts of intercourse with him, is an early attestation
of the well-known ambivalence of the victim toward the oppressor, espe-
cially in sexual contexts.”29
While I am certainly in favor of the use of comparative material to
tease meaning out of difficult texts, I believe that it is essential to choose
one’s analogies with great care. If Enlil’s offense is to be understood in
legal terms, it is, in my view, to be understood in terms of Sumerian
(or at least ancient Near Eastern) law, and not the law of 20th century
America, unless, of course, the modern and the ancient law happen to
coincide. As we shall see, the peoples of the ancient Near East (including
Israelites and Hittites as well as Babylonians and Assyrians)30 regarded
sex offenses in a rather different light from our own.31

28 Jacobsen, JNES 5: 132–133; Cooper, JCS 32: 180; Green, BiOr 39: 340. Note espe-

cially: “The violation he [Enlil] committed was having intercourse with a woman against
her will (and her mother’s)” (Cooper, JCS 32: 182). This interpretation has also been
picked up by non-Sumerologists: Geoffrey S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in ancient
and Other Cultures, Sather Classical Lectures 40 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 99.
29 Cooper, JCS 32: 180.
30 We have, apart from edicts such as that of Uruinimgina, the laws of Ur-Nammu

(UN), the laws of Lipit-Istar (LI), a miscellaneous collection of Sumerian laws (YBC
2177), the laws of Esnunna (CE), the laws of Hammurapi (CH), the Middle Assyrian
laws (MAL), the Hittite laws (HL), the so-called Neo-Babylonian laws (NBL), and the
Bible. For references and bibliography to Mesopotamian texts, see R. Borger, Handbuch
der Keilschriftliteratur, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1975): §§ 23, 139. For editions or translations of indi-
vidual collections of legal pronouncements, see R. Borger, H. Lutzmann, W.H.Ph. Römer,
and E. von Schuler, Rechts- und Wirtschaftsurkunden, Historisch-chronologische Texte, TUAT 1/1
(Gütersloh, 1982); J.J. Finkelstein, Th. Meek, S.N. Kramer, and A. Goetze in J.B.
Pritchard, ed., ANET£, pp. 159–198, 523–526; M.T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia
and Asia Minor, SBL Writings from the ancient World Series 6 (Atlanta, 1995; 2nd ed.
1997); M.T. Roth and H.A. Hoffner in W.W. Hallo, ed., The Context of Scripture vol. 2
(Leiden, 2000), pp. 332–361, 408–414; S.N. Kramer, The Sumerians (Chicago, 1963),
pp. 317–322; F. Yildiz, “A Tablet of Codex Ur-Nammu from Sippar,” Orientalia N.S.
50 (1981): 87–97; R. Yaron, The Laws of Eshnunna, 2nd ed. ( Jerusalem, 1988); G.R.
Driver and J.C. Miles, The Babylonian Laws (Oxford, 1955); G.R. Driver and J.C. Miles,
The Assyrian Laws (Oxford, 1935); G. Cardascia, Les Lois Assyriennes, Litteratures Anciennes
du Proche-orient 2 (Paris, 1969); J. Friedrich, Die hethitischen Gesetze, Documenta et
Monumenta Orientis Antiqui, 7 (Leiden, 1959), H.A. Hoffner, The Laws of the Hittites: A
Critical Edition, Documenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui 23 (Leiden, 1997); E. Szlechter,
“Les Lois Néo-Babyloniennes,” Revue Internationale du Droit Antique 18 (1971): 43–107, 19
(1972): 43–126, 20 (1973): 43–50.
31 On this point, see also Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible (New

York, 2002), pp. 182–197.

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Rape(?) in ancient Near Eastern Collections of Laws

In modern times, rape is conceived of as a crime in which a man has
intercourse with a woman without her consent. If convicted, the rapist
is subject to punishment; if acquitted, he is allowed to go free, but no
punishment (other than the loss of her case) is contemplated for the
woman. Up to a point, Sumerian pronouncements on the subject of
adulterous intercourse are analogous to this modern conceptualization.32
“If a man deflowers a young man’s virgin wife using violence, they kill
him;”%UN6%33 however, “If a young man’s wife, on her own initia-
tive, follows another man and he sleeps with her, they kill the woman,
but the man shall be set free.”34
Moreover, as we shall see, parallel laws from the ancient Near East
project a concept of “violence” along lines familiar from more modern
rape cases. If the incident occurred in a public place where the woman
had a perfect right to be, or in another woman’s house, or if she resisted
her attacker, or if, having been caught in a place where nobody could
hear her screams,35 she complained immediately afterwards, then the
man was killed and the woman was considered guiltless. From the laws

32 For more information on these laws, and others relating to women in the ancient

Near East, see Sophie Lafont, Femmes, droit et justice dans l’Antiquité orientale, Orbis Biblicus
et Orientalis 165 (Göttingen, 1999). Lafont subdivides her discussion into a chapter on
“rape” (pp. 133–171) and a chapter on “seduction” (pp. 93–131).
33 UN 6.
34 UN 7.
35 A woman was not expected to scream where she could not be heard; in such cir-

cumstances, resistance was presumed: “If a man seizes a woman in the mountains (it is)
the man’s crime, and he shall be put to death” (HL 197); “If within the city a man
comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall . . . stone
them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the
city . . . Thus you shall purge the evil from your midst. If, however, it is in the open
fields that a man comes upon such a betrothed maiden, seizes her and has relations
with her, the man alone shall die. You shall do nothing to the maiden, since she is not
guilty of an offense for which the punishment is death. This case is like that of a man
who rises up against his neighbor and murders him: it was in the open fields that he
came upon her, and though the betrothed maiden may have cried out for help, there
was no one to come to her aid” (Deut. 22.23–27). According to CH 155–156, a woman
(whether she was a virgin or not) was not considered at fault if she was taken advan-
tage of by her father-in-law: “If a man chooses a daughter-in-law for his son and his
son gains (carnal) knowledge of her (and) he (the father-in-law) afterwards lies in her lap
and they catch him, they bind that man and throw him in the water (to drown). If a
man chooses a daughter-in-law for his son and his son does not gain (carnal) knowledge
of her and he (the father) lies in her lap, he pays her one half mana (thirty shekels) of
silver and, in addition, he repays to her whatever she brought from her father’s house
so that a man of her choice may marry her.”
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of Hammurapi we have: “If a man pins down the wife of another man
who has not known a male and is living in her father’s house and then
lies in her lap and they catch him, that man is killed; that woman is
released”%CH130%36 to which the Middle Assyrian laws add: “If a
man’s wife passes through the squares (and) a man seizes her (and) says
to her: ‘I want to have intercourse with you,’ (and) she does not agree
(and) defends herself continually (and) he takes her forcibly (and) has
intercourse with her (and) either they catch him on top of the man’s
wife or witnesses prove that he had intercourse with the woman, they
kill the man (and) the woman has done nothing wrong”;37 and “If a
man’s wife takes another man’s wife to her house (and) gives her to a
man for intercourse and the man knows she is another man’s wife, they
do to him as they would do to one who had intercourse with another
man’s wife and as the husband of the woman does to his slept-with
wife, they do to the procuress. But if the husband of the woman does
not do anything to his slept-with wife, they do not do anything to the
man who had intercourse (with her) or to the procuress (and) they let
them go. And if the man’s wife did not know (what was going on) and
the woman who took her to her house made a man enter to her by
force and he had intercourse with her, if after she leaves the house she
says she was subjected to intercourse, the woman is released (and) cleared.
They kill the man who had intercourse (with her) and the pro-
curess.”%MAL23A%38

36 CH 130.
37 MAL A 12. In this and the preceding law, emphasis is placed on the man’s “pin-
ning down” his victim (CH 130) or being “caught on top of her” (MAL A 12). Note
also MAL A 55 (see n. 59), where the victim is “pressed down” (mazû, the D stem of
which is translated “rape” in CAD M/1 440a and “(Mädchen) vergewaltigen” in AHw
637, actually means “to press” or “to squeeze out liquid” (AHw 637 “auspressen”), more
usually said in the G and N stems of ingredients being prepared for use in medicine
[CAD M/1 439–440]). It would appear from these examples that the fact that the “mis-
sionary position” had been employed helped to strengthen the married woman’s argu-
ment that she had not agreed to the adulterous intercourse.
38 MAL A 23. As may be seen from this law, a married woman did not rouse any

suspicions as to her virtue by visiting another woman’s house alone, provided that she
took the proper steps if the woman she was visiting turned out to be a procuress (see
below). It is interesting to note in this connection that MAL A 24, which punishes a
woman running away from her husband, specifies that the culprit has spent three or
four nights in another woman’s house. It would seem from this that a woman might
even spend one or two nights at a friend’s house without bringing down the wrath of
the community on her head (see Cardascia, Lois, p. 146). No punishment is meted out
in MAL A 22 to a woman who goes on a trip with her father or brother or son (see
p.%MAL22%) and we may perhaps assume, on analogy with custom in (Amran in
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If, on the contrary, the putative victim went to visit the “rapist” in
his house or invited him into her own house or went on a journey with
him, if she initially led him on and only tried to resist when it was
already too late, or suspiciously failed to complain afterwards, or if
she was loitering in places frequented by prostitutes, the man could be
punished to the same degree as the erring wife, required to pay dam-
ages, or released, depending on the circumstances. The Middle Assyrian
laws have: “If a man’s wife leaves her house and goes to a man where
he lives (and) he has intercourse with her (and) he knows that she is
another man’s wife, they kill the man and the woman too;”39 “If another
man, not her father, her brother, or her son, takes a man’s wife on a
journey and does not know that she is another man’s wife, (if ) he swears
(this), then he gives two talents of tin to the woman’s husband. If [he
did know], he gives damages [and swears]: ‘If I had intercourse with
her, (may I be punished)!’ But if the man’s wife [says]: ‘He had inter-
course with me,’ [after] the man gives damages to the man (whose wife
he took on a journey), he goes to the river ordeal. There are no con-
tracts for him—if he turns back from the ordeal (i.e. cannot prove his
innocence), they do to him as the husband of the woman did to his
wife”%MAL22%;40 “If a man [(is to) have intercourse with] another
man’s wife at her invitation . . . (but then) he has intercourse with
her by force, (if ) they prove it of him, his punishment is the same as
that of the man’s wife;”%MAL16%41 “But if the woman does not
say (anything), the man imposes what punishment he pleases on his
wife; they kill the man who had intercourse (with her) and the pro-
curess;”%MAL23%42 and “If a man has intercourse with another man’s
wife in a tavern/brothel or in the square . . . If he does not know she

Yemen (Susan Dorsky, Women of (Amran [Salt Lake City, 1986], pp. 141–143), in Egypt
(Hani Fakhouri, Kafr el-Elow: An Egyptian Village in Transition, Case Studies in Cultural
Anthropology [New York, 1972], p. 61), and in Palestine (Hilma Granquist, Marriage
Conditions in a Palestinian Village, vol. 2. SSF VI.8 [Helsinki, 1935], pp. 218–256), that the
usual way a woman expressed her dissatisfaction with her marriage was by running
home to her relatives. Similarly, medieval Russian law allowed a husband to divorce his
wife on suspicion of adultery if she travelled in the company of other men or slept out-
side the home (Levin, Orthodox Slavs, pp. 115–116, 122) but “in seventeenth century
Russia, dissatisfied wives could legitimately seek refuge with their natal families, as eccle-
siastical court cases testify” (personal communication, E. Levin).
39 MAL A 13.
40 MAL A 22.
41 MAL A 16.
42 MAL A 23.
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is a man’s wife (and) has intercourse with her, the man who had inter-
course (with her) is cleared; (if ) the man proves it of his wife, he does
to her as he pleases.”%MALA14%43 To this list of suspicious circum-
stances, the Hittite Laws add: “But if he seizes her in (her) house, the
guilt is the woman’s. The woman shall be put to death.”%HL197%44
To be sure that we are in fact dealing with the crime of rape as we
know it, we must, however, ask ourselves what difference the married
woman’s struggles or suspicious behavior made to her guilt. If the puta-
tive victim is to be punished for proved non-resistance to intercourse,
then the real concern of the law is adultery, and not rape.
In fact, the laws which we have been discussing take more than a
passing interest in the woman’s guilt. In the Sumerian, as in the other
parallel laws, a married woman who has failed the resistance test does
not merely lose her case, but is herself liable to the penalty for adul-
tery.45 Moreover, a review of the parallel laws reveals that a simple plea
of inadequate resistance on the part of the victim did not result in the
“rapist” being released. What it accomplished was to ensure that the
woman got her fair share of the punishment46 and/or that both of them
were left to the tender mercies of her outraged husband.47

43 MAL A 14. For the rationale behind this law, see p. %MAL14A%.
44 HL 197.
45 This was either death: “If a young man’s wife, on her own initiative, follows another

man and he sleeps with her, they kill the woman” (UN 7); “If a man’s wife leaves her
house and goes to a man where he lives (and) he has intercourse with her . . . they
kill . . . the woman” (MAL A 13); cf. HL 197 (see p. %HL197%); Deut. 22.23–24 (see
n. 35) or some other punishment determined by the wronged husband: “If a man [has
intercourse with] another man’s wife at her invitation . . . the man imposes on his wife
what punishment he wishes” (MAL A 16); cf. MAL A 14 (see p. %MAL14%); MAL A
22 (see p. %MAL22%); MAL A 23 (see p. %MAL23%). Note MAL A 56 (see n. 59).
46 “If a man’s wife leaves her house and goes to a man where he lives (and) he has

intercourse with her (and) he knows that she is another man’s wife, they kill the man
and the woman too” (MAL A 13); cf. MAL A 23 (see p. %MAL23%); “If within the
city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you
shall bring them both out to the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the
girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man
because he violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
(Deut. 22.23–24).
47 “If a man has intercourse with another man’s wife in a tavern/brothel or in the

square (and) knows she is a man’s wife, as the man says to do to his wife, so do they
do to the man who had intercourse (with her)” (MAL A 14); cf. MAL A 16 (see
p. %MAL16%); MAL A 22 (see p. %MAL22%); MAL A 23 (see p. %MAL23a%).
In Assyrian law, adultery was an offense against the husband, which he could punish
or not punish as he saw fit. At least this gave the wife the opportunity to talk her way
out of what she had done. This did not put her in a pleasant position, but it could
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The laws which foresee letting the man go without punishment are,
as parallels to the Sumerian laws make clear, specifically designed for
situations in which the man could plausibly argue that he did not real-
ize that he was sleeping with a married woman. The importance of the
man’s knowledge or lack of knowledge of his partner’s marriage is repeat-
edly stressed in the Middle Assyrian laws.48 In the Sumerian example
where the man escaped punishment, the woman took the initiative.”49
This is very similar to the Middle Assyrian: “If a man [has intercourse
with] another man’s wife at her invitation, the man (who had inter-
course with her) has done nothing wrong.”50 Other parallel laws where
the man goes unpunished envisage the woman inviting him into her
house or having willing intercourse with him in a tavern/brothel or in
full view of other people.51 In all of these circumstances, the man had
a good prima facie case that he mistook his partner for a prostitute. Since
prostitution was perfectly legal in ancient Mesopotamia, it is hardly sur-
prising that the man escaped punishment under such circumstances.

have been worse. In Biblical Israel, adultery was an affront to God (and to society)
which could not go unpunished even if the injured husband was not in a vindictive
mood. It was probably for this reason that Biblical law provided for a public stoning
(Deut. 22.24 [see n. 35]), which was not exactly an improvement over being at the hus-
band’s mercy.
48 “If a man’s wife leaves her house and goes to a man where he lives (and) he has

intercourse with her (and) he knows that she is another man’s wife, they kill the man
and the woman too” (MAL A 13); “If a man has intercourse with another man’s wife
in a tavern/brothel or in the square (and) knows she is a man’s wife, as the man says
to do to his wife, so do they do to the man who had intercourse (with her). If he does
not know she is a man’s wife (and) has intercourse with her, the man who had inter-
course (with her) is cleared” (MAL A 14); “If another man, not her father, her brother,
or her son, takes a man’s wife on a journey and does not know that she is another
man’s wife, (if ) he swears (this), then he gives two talents of tin to the woman’s hus-
band. If [he did know], he gives damages [and swears]: ‘If I had intercourse with her,
(may I be punished)!’ But if the man’s wife [says]: ‘He had intercourse with me,’ [after]
the man gives damages to the man (whose wife he took on a journey), he goes to the
river ordeal. There are no contracts for him—if he turns back from the ordeal, they do
to him as the husband of the woman did to his wife” (MAL A 22); “If a man’s wife
takes another man’s wife to her house (and) gives her to a man for intercourse and the
man knows she is another man’s wife, they do to him as they would do to one who
had intercourse with another man’s wife and as the husband of the woman does to his
slept-with wife, they do to the procuress” (MAL A 23).
49 If a young man’s wife, on her own initiative, follows another man and he sleeps

with her . . . the man shall be set free” (UN 7).

50 MAL A 16. Note MAL A 56 (see n. 59).
51 “But if he seizes her in (her) house, the guilt is the woman’s. The woman shall be

put to death” (HL 197); “If a man has intercourse with another man’s wife in a tavern/
brothel or in the square . . . If he does not know she is a man’s wife (and) has inter-
course with her, the man who had intercourse (with her) is cleared” (MAL A 14).
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In sum, the Sumerian laws on intercourse with married women were

intended to punish adultery, not rape, and men who forced their sexual
attentions on married women were punished, not for having sexual inter-
course with a woman against her will (i.e. rape), but for violently dis-
honoring a married woman (i.e. aggravated adultery).
If Sumerian regulations on intercourse with a married woman were
not really rape laws, the treatment of intercourse between unmarried
persons in Sumerian law has even less to do with the crime of rape as
we know it. It should already be apparent from our retelling of the
Enlil and Ninlil myth that the application of the word “rape” to Enlil’s
offense is somewhat problematic. Not that what he did was legal—it is
clear that it was in some sense “against the law,” and Enlil’s own law
at that. In a modern court, however, Enlil’s lawyer would certainly not
have failed to argue that Ninlil “led him on,” and a modern jury might
well have been tempted to acquit Enlil. If Ninlil was not “looking for
trouble,” why did she deliberately go bathing in a place where she had
been warned Enlil would see her and attempt to have intercourse with
her? Nor was a word said in Ninlil’s defense about screaming and strug-
gles, and one could argue rather convincingly that her initial refusal
had more to do with the location suggested by Enlil (and the dangers
of her parents’ finding out) than any real desire to resist his advances.
Nonetheless, the fifty gods (and we may presume that the Sumerian
audience of the myth was expected to concur) had no hesitation in con-
demning Enlil for what he had done. Perhaps even more shocking to
modern sensibilities is the summing up at the end of the whole inci-
dent as “attentive care for Mother Ninlil.”
The problem is not, however, as we shall see, the strange minds of
Sumerians, but a misapplication of modern terminology. To see what
a Sumerian would have thought of Enlil’s behavior (and Ninlil’s reac-
tion to it), we must again turn our attention to the Sumerian laws and
their ancient Near Eastern parallels.
If an unmarried man like Enlil deflowered a virgin like Ninlil, the
Sumerian solution was to force%force% him to marry her: “If a man
deflowers the daughter of a free citizen in the street, her father and
mother not having known, (saying) ‘I want to marry you’52 and she tells

52 J.J. Finkelstein, “Sex Offenses in Sumerian Laws,” JAOS 86 (1966): 364 with n. 31,

wished to see in ka.ar.ab.du6 a direct reference to forcible rape; according to him, this
enigmatic phrase was to be interpreted as “(my) mouth was gagged,” taking dufl as a
verb “to cover” (with a passive verbal prefix: ab), and the ka (“mouth”, etc.) as the
object of the verb (with the “elimination” of the postposition ra). This interpretation is,
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74  

her father and mother all about what happened,53 her father and mother
may give her to him as a wife. If a man deflowers the daughter of a
free citizen in the street and her father and mother knew (she was in
the street) but the man denies he knew (the true situation), standing at
the temple gate, he may swear an oath (to this effect and so escape the
forced marriage).”54 The emphasis in these laws on the parents’ knowl-
edge that she was on the street %street% may suggest a concern to
avoid cases where persons living by their daughter’s prostitution tried
to force a marriage with an innocent customer.55
As our myth has gone to great pains to inform us, Ninlil’s mother,
Nunbarsegunu, did not know that Ninlil was, so to speak, in the street.
Moreover, Enlil could have had no hope of denying that he knew her
to be a free woman of the finest family; Ninlil’s initial reluctance to
accept his advances gave him ample warning that he was not dealing
with a prostitute.56 Unfortunately, as Nunbarsegunu had warned Ninlil,
Enlil was simply not the marrying kind. In this context, Ninlil’s behav-
ior takes on decidedly less than neurotic overtones—she was simply a
determined young woman who believed, and ultimately proved, that
her love could redeem a philandering scoundrel.
Our myth also reflects the Sumerian laws in another respect. We
have already noted that it was not necessary for Ninlil to have been
taken with extreme force and violence, and with no contribution on
her own part, in order to enlist the gods’ sympathy in asking that Enlil
be punished. Similarly, the Sumerian laws do not seem overly worried
about whether the virginal victim of the sex offense resisted %struggle%
her unmarried assailant. There is no reference to the whole host of
possible aggravating circumstances which we have seen in the laws on

however questionable. Roth, Law Collections, p. 45 n. 2 solves these problems by inter-

preting ka.ar.ab.du6 as a variant of ga.ra.ab.du12: “I want to marry you”.
53 nam ad.ni ù ama.e ì..dug .e Roth, Law Collections, p. 44, followed by Lafont, Femmes,
4
pp. 468–469 removes the nam and the ad.ni ü ama.e and takes the deflowerer as the
subject of the verb. Roth also takes the preceding “not having known” as the parents
identifying the young man (cf. also Lafont, Femmes, pp. 105–121). However, neither is
necessary to make sense of the passage.
54 YBC 2177 nos. 7–8.
55 This would be in line with the laws on intercourse with married women, which

sought to protect men who honestly thought their sexual partner was an experienced
professional.
56 We should not allow the sequence in the netherworld to convince us otherwise.

Although Ninlil appears to engage in willing intercourse with three young men other
than her lover, the myth maker is careful to save her virtue by having all of her sex-
ual partners turn out to be Enlil in disguise.
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married women, nor any mention of the use of force and violence on
the part of the man. Moreover, the man’s ability to plead ignorance as
to the woman’s virtue or status is heavily dependent on her parents’
behavior57 not, one would think, a relevant consideration if it was her
lack of resistance that was at issue.
In the parallel laws from other ancient Near Eastern societies, the
question of the girl’s resistance seems similarly unimportant. %resist%
The Middle Assyrian Laws worried about consent on the part of a vir-
gin only in the case where the assailant was a married man and then
only because a third party (the man’s wife) was involved. Moreover, to
be blamed for her behavior, the girl was required not merely to con-
sent passively , but actively to give herself to the married man who
deflowered her.58 In any case, the married man could not avoid a penalty
by arguing that the girl had consented. All he escaped was a forced
marriage; he still had to pay damages to the girl’s father.59

57 “If a man deflowers the daughter of a free citizen in the street, her father and

mother not having known . . . her father and mother may give her to him as a wife. If
a man deflowers the daughter of a free citizen in the street and her father and mother
knew (she was in the street) but the man denies he knew (the true situation), standing
at the temple gate, he swears an oath” (YBC 2177 nos. 7–8). Those who wish to see
these as rape laws are forced, like Finkelstein, to read this interpretation into the text
(for discussion, see n. 52.
58 On this point, see Cardascia, Lois, p. 251.
59 “If a (married) man forcefully seizes the adolescent daughter of another man, who

was living in her father’s house and [. . .], she has not been asked for (see Roth, Law
Collections, p. 174 with n. 31), is a virgin (and) has not been married and has not had
a claimant to her father’s house, either in the city or in the steppe or by night in the
square or at a granary or at a city festival and presses her down, the father of the ado-
lescent girl may take the wife of the man who had intercourse with the girl and give
her to be pressed down, he need not return her to her husband—he may take her;
the father may give his slept-with daughter to the man who had intercourse with her
in marriage. If he does not have a wife, the man who had intercourse (with the ado-
lescent girl) gives a third of silver as the market value of the girl to her father (and)
the man who had intercourse with her may marry her; he may not send her away. If
her father does not want (this), he may receive silver—the third—for the girl and give
his daughter to whomever he pleases. “If the girl gave herself to the (married) man (who
had intercourse with her), (and if ) the man can swear it, they may not approach his
wife; the man who had intercourse (with her) gives a third of silver as the market value
of the girl (and) the father does to his daughter as he pleases” (MAL A 55–56). Note
that the verb used to describe the forced intercourse, mazû, is translated as “rape” in
CAD M/1 440a but actually means “to press” or “to squeeze out liquid”, more usually
said of ingredients being prepared for use in medicine (CAD M/1 439–440). The “third”
is translated by Roth, Law Collections, p. 175, following Borger, TUAT I, p. 92, as “triple”.
However, salsatu means “third” (CAD S/1:263–268; AHw 1150; also Cardascia, Lois,
p. 249; Driver and Miles, Middle Assyrian Laws, p. 423 and Lafont, Femmes, pp. 483,
151–155).
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The Biblical laws even go so far as to explicitly require the same

penalty (forced marriage %forced%) in cases of “rape” and seduction.60
The only requirement was that the young woman in question immediately
tell her father what had happened to her. If her loss of virginity was
left to be discovered by an innocent third party on their wedding night,
the Israelite ex-virgin was stoned to death by the outraged community.61
The ancient Mesopotamians did not approve of non-complaining ex-
virgins either, although the punishment, if any, was left strictly up to
the girl’s father: “If the girl gave herself to the (married) man (who had
intercourse with her) . . . the father does to his daughter as he pleases.”62
What all this suggests is that a Mesopotamian woman, like her Biblical
counterpart, was required not to let the incident pass by in silence
%notify% if she wished to avoid being treated as an unpaid prostitute,
which is presumably why the Sumerian laws mention a statement to
the parents by the deflowered girl: “If a man deflowers the daughter
of a free citizen in the street . . . and she tells her father and mother
all about what happened,63 her father and mother may give her to him
as a wife.”64 This is, however, a far cry from requiring her to prove
that she resisted intercourse in the first place.

60 For “rape” we have: “If a man comes upon a maiden that is not betrothed, takes

her and has relations with her, and their deed is discovered, the man who had rela-
tions with her shall pay the girl’s father fifty silver shekels and take her as his wife,
because he has deflowered her. Moreover, he may not divorce her as long as he lives”
(Deut. 22.28–29); and for seduction: “When a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed,
and lies with her, he shall pay her marriage price and marry her. If her father refuses
to give her to him, he must still pay him the customary marriage price for virgins”
(Exod. 22.15–16). In medieval Jewish law, these passages were taken to mean that seduc-
ers could opt out of subsequent marriage by paying a fine, but “rapists” could be forced
to marry the girl with no possibility of husband-initiated divorce unless the woman was
a relative (and hence ineligible for marriage on grounds of incest) or the “rapist” hap-
pened to be a High Priest (and therefore required to marry a virgin) (Maimonides, Book
4, Treatise 4, Chap. 1.3, 1.5–6 [Isaac Klein, The Code of Maimonides 4: The Book of Women
(New Haven, 1972)]). One should note that, even here, a seducer was penalized even
though his victim had, by definition, consented.
61 “But if this charge (by her husband) is true, and evidence of the girl’s virginity is

not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her
townsmen shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her
unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deut.
22.20-21).
62 MAL A 56.
63 See above, n. 53.
64 YBC 2177 no. 7.
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This lack of concern with violence and struggles is not, moreover, to

be confused with our own “statutory rape”65 which penalizes men for
sleeping with girls under a prescribed age.66 The references in the Enlil
and Ninlil myth to young, unstretched, vaginas have to do with Ninlil’s
virginity, not with her age as such. In any case, Ninlil should not be
considered under age. As the myth makes abundantly clear, Ninlil was
an adolescent, and adolescent girls were of marriageable age in ancient
Mesopotamia,67 as in early Medieval Europe.68 Besides, we must be care-
ful not to foist our own views on the precious innocence of childhood
onto pre-modern societies. The Sumerians certainly prized virginity in
unmarried girls, but there is no reason to suppose that they regarded
the very idea of sexual intercourse with someone below a certain age
with horror. Perhaps the most striking example of a non-modern sen-
sibility on this point is to be found in Medieval Jewish law which states:
“A father may betroth his daughter without her consent as long as she
is a minor . . . If she is three years and one day old, she may be betrothed
by an act of intercourse, with the consent of her father.”69
Why, we must now ask ourselves, did the Sumerians take this course
with regard to sexual offenses? One must not be too hasty in assuming

65 This seems to be the assumption of Kirk, Myth, p. 103 and Cooper, JCS 32: 182.
66 The age in question varies rather radically from state to state, ranging from a mini-
mum of seven years old in Delaware to a maximum of eighteen years in Arizona (etc.);
for a listing, see Samuel G. Kling, Sexual Behavior and the Law (New York, 1965),
pp. 216–217.
67 A number of actual marriage contracts specify that the girl is a young adolescent

(VAS 6.3: 9, 227: 4; Evetts, Ner. 13: 4; Nbn. 243: 4) and literary and medical references
indicate that older adolescents were expected to have intercourse with their husbands
(BE 31.56; AMT 67/3: 10; KAR 1: 37; BAM 398 r. 9–10) and to have children (BAM
248 iii 34). For more on this subject, see Martha Roth, “Age at Marriage and the
Household: A Study of Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Forms,” Comparative Studies in
Society and History 29 (1987), pp. 715–747. Moreover, girls who died as unmarried ado-
lescents were believed to haunt young men in search of the sexual gratification that had
been denied them (see Sylvie Lackenbacher, “Note sur l’ardat-lilî,” Revue d’Assyriologie 65
[1971]: 119–154). Similarly, “the death of an unmarried person of marriageable age . . .
(is) especially perilous . . . unless a symbolic wedding is performed during the funeral,
then it is believed that this ‘person’ will return in search of a mate to fulfill his or her
social destiny, as well as frustrated sexual desires” (Gail Kligman, The Wedding of the Dead
[Berkeley, 1988], p. 216); cf. the Slavic vila, as in the ballet Giselle.
68 Twelve is given as the acceptable age for marriage in the Lombard Laws, with the

further proviso that fathers and brothers may engage their daughter or sister at any age
they please (Laws of Liutprand, Title 12.VI [K. Fischer Drew, The Lombard Laws
(Philadelphia, 1973)]); cf. Levin, Orthodox Slavs, pp. 96–97.
69 Maimonides, Book 4, Treatise 1, Chap. 3.11. The cut-off point was set at this age

because connection with a girl younger than three years was not considered to be inter-
course (Treatise 1, Chap. 11.3; Treatise 4, Chap. 1.8).
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78  

that the reason for this difference in approach is that ancient Meso-
potamians did not recognize a woman’s right to resist a man’s advances.
As we have seen, a married woman was expected to strongly resist inter-
course with a third party if she did not wish to be punished. Moreover,
the Hammurapi code, which parallels the Sumerian laws in ignoring
the crime of rape as we know it while severely punishing forcible adul-
tery, gives official support to a woman’s refusal to consummate her mar-
riage,70 providing that she is careful not to fall afoul of the adultery
laws in the process.71 In fact, a man victimized by an arranged mar-
riage was in a worse position than his bride; a refusal to consummate
a marriage on his part cost him or his family dearly.72
Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that the rule of forced mar-
riage was ever meant to apply where the rapist was a mentally deranged
individual or where the rape was committed as an expression of class

70 “If a woman hates her husband so that she says: ‘You may not “take” me,’ her

case is investigated in her city quarter and if she has been careful and has done noth-
ing wrong and, moreover, her husband has been going out and thus causing her to be
very humiliated, that woman has done no wrong; she may take her seriktu (dowry) and
go to her father’s house” (CH 142). For a discussion, see Raymond Westbrook, Old
Babylonian Marriage Law, AfO Beiheft 23 [Horn, Austria, 1988], pp. 45–47. Assuming,
as it seems from the terminology employed, that this refers to consummation rather than
a subsequent refusal of conjugal rights by the wife, this regulation would correspond
closely to the provision of Islamic law which allows a child bride the option of appeal-
ing to the qadi for dissolution of the marriage when she comes of age ( Joseph Schacht,
An Introduction to Islamic Law [Oxford, 1964], p. 165).
71 “If she was not careful, and has been going out (and) scattering her house (and)

causing her husband to be humiliated, they throw that woman into the water (to drown)”
(CH 143). Drowning was the draconian penalty for adultery. See, for example: “If a
man’s wife is caught lying with another man, they bind them and throw them into the
water. If the husband wants to spare his wife, then the king may spare his subject” (CH
129).
72 CH 142 guaranteed the refusing woman her seriktu (dowry) back; as we know from

actual documents, a man who refused consummation had not only to restore the seriktu,
but to pay divorce money as well. See AbB 2.109, apud Westbrook, Marriage, p. 15,
n. 37 (the wife appealed to higher authorities who ordered the local authorities to give
the recalcitrant husband the choice of “taking” her or paying her divorce money); BE
6/2.58, apud Westbrook, Marriage, p. 116 (the man volunteers to pay to get out of the
marriage); CT 45.86, apud Westbrook, Marriage, pp. 120–121 (the authorities order the
man to make the woman equal to what she was when she came in). Curiously, in the
last two cases, both men volunteer to be “hung” (i.e. impaled) as a preferable alterna-
tive to “taking” the undesired woman (BE 6/2.58: 13–14, apud Westbrook, Marriage,
p. 116; CT 45.86: 20–22, apud Westbrook, Marriage, pp. 120–121). This would seem to
suggest that there was a draconian penalty held over the head of uncooperative hus-
bands to force them either to consummate the marriage or to divorce the woman.
Medieval Jewish Law also tried to discourage the refusal of conjugal rights (see Maimonides,
Book 4, Treatise 1, Chap. 14.6–16).
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or tribal warfare. When Israelite men demonstrated their hospitality by

saving their guests from being sodomized by offering their virgin daugh-
ters to be gang-raped instead,73 they were certainly not thinking in terms
of making the rapists marry them afterwards, although by Biblical Law,
“rapists” were usually compelled to marry their victims.74 Neither, in
view of Biblical attitudes towards miscegenation, could there be any
question of having the usual rules apply when the deflowerer was not
an Israelite, whatever his honest intentions of marrying the girl.75 The
ancient Mesopotamians did not take hospitality to the extremes men-
tioned in these Biblical stories, nor were they, unlike the Israelites, deter-
mined to discourage intermarriage between themselves and other peoples.
However, marriage with an actual rapist or otherwise unsuitable marriage
partner was avoided by allowing the father the option of refusing the
match and collecting monetary damages instead.76

73 Genesis 19: 4–8; Judges 19: 22–24. It should be noted that, in both cases, the

daughters were spared and the guilty fiercely punished. The first incident resulted in the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19: 12–29), the second in the virtual elim-
ination of the tribe of Benjamin ( Judges 20-21).
74 Deut. 22.28–29 (rape); cf. Exod. 22.15 (seduction). For citations of these laws, see

n. 60.
75 This is demonstrated by the incident with Shechem and Dinah: “Dinah, the daugh-

ter whom Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit some of the women of the land.
When Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, who was chief of the region, saw her, he
seized her and lay with her by force. Since he was strongly attracted to Dinah, daugh-
ter of Jacob, indeed was really in love with the girl, he endeavored to win her affection.
Shechem also asked his father Hamor, ‘Get me this girl for a wife.’ . . . Now Hamor,
the father of Shechem, went out to discuss the matter with Jacob, just as Jacob’s sons
were coming in from the fields. When they heard the news, the men were shocked and
seethed with indignation. What Shechem had done was an outrage in Israel; such a
thing could not be tolerated. Hamor appealed to them, saying: “My son Shechem has
his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him in marriage. Intermarry with us;
give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. Thus you can live
among us. The land is open before you; you can settle and move about freely in it,
and acquire landed property here.’ Then Shechem, too, appealed to Dinah’s father and
brothers: ‘Do me this favor, and I will pay whatever you demand of me. No matter
how high you set the bridal price, I will pay you whatever you ask; only give me the
maiden in marriage” (Genesis 34: 1–12). The response of the Israelites, whose own law
mandated marriage when the “rapist” was an Israelite, was to trick Shechem and his
people into thinking they had agreed; having gotten them off their guard, they pro-
ceeded to slaughter the entire male population of the city (Genesis 34: 13–31). For a
full discussion of this incident, see Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Women of the Bible, pp. 179–198.
76 “If her father does not want (the forced marriage), he may receive silver—the

third—for the girl and give his daughter to whomever he pleases” (MAL A 55); “If her
father refuses to give her (the seduced girl) to him (the seducer), he (the seducer) must
still pay him (the father) the customary marriage price for virgins” (Exod. 22.16). Similarly,
Maimonides, Book 4, Treatise 4, Chap. 1.3 (which also gives the girl a right of refusal).
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80  

Seduction in the American South

If the problem and solution contemplated in ancient Near Eastern legal
regulations does not fit the modern concept of “rape” or “statutory
rape,” it does not follow that it has no parallels in relatively modern
law. Where these parallels lie, however, is in the treatment of “seduction.”
It was not uncommon, in late nineteenth and early twentieth century
America, for “seducers” to be vigorously encouraged to marry their vic-
tims and/or to be forced to pay damages to the outraged father. In
Virginia, Kentucky, and Georgia, for example, seduction could be either
a civil or a criminal matter.
In all three states, a father could take advantage of the Common
Law provision protecting him from “loss of service” to sue his daugh-
ter’s seducer for damages without having to prove that he had suffered
any actual loss of service.77 To benefit by these statutes, it was sufficient
to show that the girl lived with her father, or was under his control
(that is, under twenty-one and not emancipated); in such a case, ser-
vice might be implied, “though it may have consisted in milking his
cows, or even pouring out his tea.”78 Two interesting features of the
way in which these laws were applied are worth noting for our pur-
poses. One is that, in all three states, it was the father of the girl and
not the girl herself who was entitled to compensation.79 The other is
that, in Virginia and Georgia at least, even if the defendant could show
that his victim was not virtuous, he could still not escape conviction
(although he could considerably reduce the amount of damages).80

If the “rapist” was too poor to pay, he would have had to work off his debt to the
girl’s father or to anyone to whom the father sold the debt.
77 For Virginia, see Code 1849 ch. 148 § 1; for Kentucky, see Ky Stat 1852 ch. 1

§2; for Georgia, see Code 1861 § 2951. This right of action for damages on the part
of the injured father was still available in Virginia as of Code 1950 § 20–37.2, but was
repealed by Acts 1968 ch 716 p 1259. It is still available in Kentucky as Ky Revised
Stat 1970 § 411.030 and in Georgia as Code 1982 (with 1989 Supplement) § 51-1-16.
78 Kendrick v McCrary (1852) 11 Ga 603.
79 Georgia’s Code 1861 § 2951 makes this explicit; it is implicit in the wording of

the Virginia and Kentucky statutes. See Woodward v Anderson (1873) 72 Ky 624. It
was not universally the case in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America that
the seduced girl was left out of consideration. Even as of 1880, the states of Wisconsin,
Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, and Alabama allowed her to also bring suit for damages (Cline
v Templeton [1880] 78 Ky 550).
80 In Virginia, a father could collect actual damages (as, for example, the cost of the

girl’s pregnancy) if it could be established that intercourse had taken place (Litton v
Wolliver [1919] 126 Va 36–37). He could, in addition, collect punitive damages if the
girl was seduced (that is, turned from the path of virtue), especially if there was a promise
of marriage (White v Campbell [1856] 54 Va [13 Gratt] 573; Litton v Wolliver [1919]
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In all three states, it was also possible for the seduced girl to have
her seducer prosecuted on a criminal charge.81 The criminal statutes of
these three states allowed an unmarried or underage woman82 who was
“virtuous” or “of previous chaste character”83 to proceed against a man
who had promised her marriage84 and subsequently engaged in voluntary
sexual intercourse with her, with the proviso that the miscreant might
escape conviction if he married her.
The Georgia statute was later strengthened to the effect that seducers
were to be punished with between two and twenty years of hard labor
with marriage as a bar to conviction, provided that the seducer not
only married his victim but also gave bond that he would maintain and
support her and her children for a period of five years subsequent to

126 Va 36). In Georgia, the statute specified that the father could sue for damages even
if there was no pregnancy (Code 1861 § 2951). Moreover, in order to collect, it was
not necessary to allege or prove that the girl had been virtuous, although juries were
encouraged to award exemplary damages if she was (Mosley v Lynn [1930] 172 Ga
193–194). Even in Kentucky, a lack of virtue in the seduced woman did not necessar-
ily help the miscreant, provided that she had been chaste “for a reasonable time” before
the alleged seduction (Stowers v Singer [1902] 113 Ky 589–591).
Breach of promise suits in Victorian England took a more, well, Victorian, attitude
towards “bad girls” but nonetheless awarded to “good girls” who had remained chaste
throughout the engagement identical damages to those awarded otherwise virtuous girls
who had not resisted or had even encouraged their lover’s advances. Moreover, “although
the courts persisted in seeing good women as passive, they rewarded them for their
aggressive use of the courts.” (Ginger S. Frost, Promises Broken: Courtship, Class and Gender
in Victorian England [Charlottesville, 1995], pp. 98–117, especially p. 113).
81 For Georgia, see Code 1861 § 4270; for Virginia, see Acts 1872-1873 ch. 192

p 178 § 1 (Code 1873 § 17); for Kentucky, see Acts 1885–1886 ch. 1230 p. 809 (Ky
Stat 1888 ch 29 Amendment 10 § 2). This law is still in force in Virginia as Code 1950
(1988 Replacement Volume with 1989 Supplement) §§ 18.2.68–70; in the other states
the corresponding statutes have been repealed (for details, see below).
82 In Georgia and Virginia, the statutes specified that the victim had to be unmarried.

The state of Kentucky did not regard the marital status of the female as relevant, spec-
ifying instead an age limitation. Originally, this was sixteen, but it became twenty-one
as of Kentucky Statutes 1899 § 1214. The obvious advantage to the latter variant, from
the woman’s point of view, was that it allowed widows the benefit of the statute.
83 This is made explicit in the Georgia and Virginia statutes. In Kentucky, virtue was

also required although, as in civil cases in this state, “virtue” did not imply virginity or
even chastity, provided that the woman was of chaste character at (and for a reasonable
time prior to) the act of intercourse (Berry v Commonwealth [1912] 149 Ky 398; Hudson
v Commonwealth [1914] 161 Ky 257; Morehead v Commonwealth [1922] 194 Ky 593).
84 Standards of proof of such a promise vary. Virginia has always, since the criminal

offense was first instituted, insisted that the girl’s own unsubstantiated testimony as to
the existence of such a promise is not sufficient to obtain a conviction (Acts 1872–1873
ch. 192 p. 179 § 2; Code 1950 § 18.2–69). However, the corroborating evidence need
not of itself be sufficient to convict, and it may be circumstantial (Riddleberger v
Commonwealth [1918] 124 Va 783).
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82  

the marriage. If he was unable to give bond, the miscreant remained

under threat of further prosecution until the couple had lived together
for the statutory five years.85 Despite the fact that the miscreant had,
in effect, been pressured into marrying his ex-victim, he was not enti-
tled to an annulment on the grounds that the marriage had been made
under duress.86 Moreover, the requirement of marital constancy to the
ex-victim for the statutory five years was “without reference to the con-
duct of the female or her offspring.”87
The corresponding Kentucky statute was also amended with the result
that a seducer might escape between one and five years in the peni-
tentiary by marrying his victim, provided that he did not abandon or
desert her within three years after the date of the marriage. To ensure
compliance, the prosecution was suspended, with the understanding that
it would be renewed and proceed as though no marriage had taken
place if he abandoned her before the expiration of the statutory three
years (divorce on statutory grounds was, however, permitted).88

85 Acts 1893 ch. 328 pp. 39–40 (Penal Code 1895 §§ 387–388). This law was still in

effect as of Penal Code 1933 § 26–6001–2, but was dropped by Code 1982. Such pro-
visions were necessary in order to ensure good faith on the part of seducers who mar-
ried their victims in order to avoid a prison sentence. As Judge Cobb points out: “The
law of this State has for many years provided that a prosecution for seduction may be
stopped at any time by a marriage of the parties. . . . The public offense was allowed
to be condoned, for the reason that the seducer had in this way made all the repara-
tion in his power to the female whom he had injured, and had assumed an obligation
a compliance with which it was supposed would save the woman and her offspring from
becoming a charge upon the public. In time it was demonstrated that in many cases—
it might be safe to say, in nearly all, the seducer who availed himself of the privilege
of marriage did so without any intention of complying with the obligation imposed by
the marriage vow, but for the sole purpose of releasing himself from the toils of the
law, and, once released, left his victim and her offspring without pretending to provide
in any way for their maintenance, often going beyond the limits of the State for the
express purpose of avoiding the obligations imposed by the marriage contract” (Duke v
Brown [1901] 113 Ga 313). Judge Cobb goes on to add that the 1893 act was passed
in order to remedy this defect in the law).
86 Griffin v Griffin (1908) 130 Ga 527.
87 Duke v Brown (1901) 113 Ga 316; cf. Crew v Hutcheson (1902) 115 Ga 511.

According to Judge Cobb: “Whether living together in peace and amity, or living together
in violence and tumult, or living separate by mutual consent or for good reason, or liv-
ing separate on account of mutual fault, or solely on account of the fault of the female,
the plain obligation of the bond remains the same at all times—the female and her
offspring must be supported by the seducer. It may be said that this is cruel and harsh
in the extreme, but the bond is so written, and it can well be said that nothing in this
requirement is so cruel as the act of leading a virtuous female to her ruin, or as harsh
as a term of twenty years penal servitude, which the seducer has avoided by undertak-
ing the obligation required by the bond” (Duke v Brown [1901] 113 Ga 316).
88 Acts 1905–1906 ch. 25 pp. 253–254 (Kentucky Statutes 1915 § 1214). This law
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In all three states, therefore, fathers faced with the problem of a

seduced daughter had a choice of having the girl file a complaint, thus
pressuring the miscreant to marry her in order to avoid punishment,
or (if the father did not wish the marriage or if girl’s virtue was in ques-
tion, or if the young man could not be proven to have promised mar-
riage) the father could instead himself sue the miscreant for damages.89
The similarities between this complex of laws and the ancient Near
Eastern regulations on sexual offenses between unmarried persons are
striking. Whether the offense occurred in late nineteenth century America
or in ancient Mesopotamia, the father of the girl had the option of
allowing a marriage90 or of accepting damages instead. In order to avoid
being pressured into marrying his victim, either miscreant could attempt
to prove her lack of chastity.91 He could not, however adduce evidence
of lack of screams and struggles to prove his case.92 Neither miscreant

was still in effect as of Kentucky Statutes 1963 § 436.010, but was repealed by Acts
1974 ch 406 p. 889 § 336. The inclusion of the divorce clause indicates that the inten-
tion was not to deny the new husband the right to divorce his wife if she gave him
grounds for doing so, but to prevent his dumping her as soon as the shotgun had been
lowered.
89 That is, if he lived in Georgia, he could take advantage of either Code 1861 §

4270 (criminal) or of Code 1861 § 2951 (civil). If he lived in Virginia, he could use
either Code 1873 § 54.187.16 (criminal) or Code 1873 § 45.145.1 (civil). In Kentucky,
the choice was between Ky Stat 1888 ch. 29 Amendment 10 § 2 (criminal) and Ky
Stat 1888 ch. 1 § 2 (civil). This double option was still available in Georgia as of 1933
(either Penal Code § 26-6001-6002 or Civil Code § 105–1204), in Virginia as of Code
1950 (either §§ 18.2.68–70 [criminal] or § 20–37.2 [civil]), and in Kentucky as of Ky
Revised Stat 1970 (either § 436.010 [criminal] or § 411.030 [civil]).
90 American law could not, of course, actually force a marriage between the con-

cerned parties. On the other hand, making a prison sentence the alternative certainly
went a long way towards encouraging miscreants to marry their victims. The ancients
had no such qualms; see above, pp. %force%, %forced%.
91 In Georgia, Kentucky, and Virginia, conviction under the criminal seduction statute

required that the woman be in some sense virtuous (see above, n. 83). Although her
chastity was presumed in the absence of evidence to the contrary (Woodward v State
[1908] 5 Ga App 447; Fogle v Commonwealth [1925] 210 Ky 745; Atkins v
Commonwealth [1922] 132 Va 500), it was possible for the defendant to avoid convic-
tion if he could impugn it (Keller v State [1897] 102 Ga 506; Hudson v Commonwealth
[1914] 161 Ky 257; Flick v Commonwealth [1899] 97 Va. 766). ancient Near Eastern
regulations on the subject of forced marriages usually specify that the girl was a virgin,
a circumstance which would have created a strong presumption of chastity in the minds
of American judges and jurors (see especially Woodward v State [1908] 5 Ga App 447:
“every virgin is virtuous”). Moreover, indications are that the Sumerian miscreant could
escape a forced marriage if he could argue that he honestly mistook his victim for a
prostitute (see above, p. %STREET%). Note also that the girl seems to have been
required to notify her parents immediately after the offense if she wished to avoid being
treated as an unpaid professional (see above, p. %notify%).
92 The American miscreant was being prosecuted for seduction and not rape. For

ancient Mesopotamia, see above, pp. %struggle%, %resist%, %forced%.

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84  

could avoid punishment simply because he happened to be married.93

Even where it was obvious that the girl was not “good,” either miscreant
might still be expected to pay damages to her father.94 The later addition
of the divorce restrictions brings Georgia and Kentucky law even closer
to the legal regulations of the ancient Near East, since a number of the
latter forbid seducer/rapists from divorcing their new brides.95 The only
major differences between the American laws on “seduction” and ancient
Mesopotamian legal regulations are apparent conflation of seduction and
rape in the latter,96 and the insistence in the former of proof of promise
of marriage before a seducer could be vigorously encouraged to marry
his victim.
These differences are not, however, as great as they may at first
appear. In Virginia, if a girl under sixteen was abducted or detained
against her will either for marriage or simply for “defilement,” her
deflowerer could be prosecuted under the abduction statute, which
allowed the miscreant to escape three to ten years in the penitentiary
if he married his victim.97 It was thus not absolutely necessary in Virginia,
in order for a marriage between the concerned parties to be vigorously

93 Since proof of promise of marriage was essential to conviction in Georgia, Kentucky,

and Virginia, and since marriage of seducer and seducee was a bar to conviction, one
might think that they would have applied exclusively to unmarried men. On the con-
trary, Georgia and Kentucky allowed married men to be prosecuted, provided that the
seduced girl was ignorant of this marriage (Wood v State [1873] 48 Ga 192; Gordan
v State [1904] 120 Ga 864; Davis v Commonwealth [1896] 98 Ky 708). Virginia went
even farther; an amendment in Acts 1877–1878 ch. 2 p. 283 § 16 (Code 1887 í 3677)
allowed married men to be prosecuted under the statute without there being any require-
ment of a promise of marriage. Thus, it was no bar to prosecution in Virginia that the
victim knew her seducer to be a married man (Tyree v Commonwealth [1946] 185 Va
628). It had still to be proven, however, that the girl had been seduced (Flick v
Commonwealth [1899] 97 Va 766). For the ancient Near East, note MAL A 55–56, in
which the miscreant is clearly a married man (see above, n. 59).
94 For America, see above, n. 80 For the ancients, see above, n. 59 (MAL A 56).
95 “If he does not have a wife, the man who had intercourse (with the adolescent

girl) gives a third of silver as the market value of the girl to her father (and) the man
who had intercourse with her may marry her; he may not send her away” (MAL A
55); “If a man comes upon a maiden that is not betrothed, takes her and has relations
with her, and their deed is discovered, the man who had relations with her shall pay
the girl’s father fifty silver shekels and take her as his wife, because he has deflowered
her. Moreover, he may not divorce her as long as he lives” (Deut. 22.28–29).
96 For the ancients, see above, p. %forced%.
97 Acts 1872–1873 ch. 192 pp. 178–179 § 2 (Code 1873 § 54.187.17). Abduction was

already a crime in Virginia (Code 1849 § 54.191.16); marriage was not, however, orig-
inally a bar to conviction in such cases. This criminal action for abduction, with mar-
riage as a bar to prosecution, was still available as of Code 1950 §§ 18–50, 18–52, but
was repealed by Acts 1952 ch. 429 p. 723 (which assimilated abduction to other laws
on kidnapping with the result that the marriage bar was lost).
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encouraged, that the man promised marriage beforehand or that the

young woman consented to the original act of intercourse (as opposed
to subsequent acts after the miscreant had persuaded her to marry him).
Nor, in Georgia, did the fact that the man had somewhat forced his
sexual attentions on his victim necessarily put him under the rape, as
opposed to the seduction statute as Judge Fish makes more or less clear:
“It follows, plainly enough and without argument, that a rape cannot
be made the basis of a prosecution for seduction. The two offenses are
so totally different, they cannot be confused . . . While this is manifestly
true, it can scarcely be doubted that no modest girl or woman, upon
occasion of her first carnal contact with a man, will readily submit to
the intercourse without some reluctance and some show of resistance. . . .
We imagine it would be very difficult indeed to find a virgin of any
age who would boldly and without shame or hesitation indulge for the
first time in the sexual act; and while she may consent to it, it is per-
fectly natural to expect a greater or less degree of reluctance on her
part. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that a woman may yield herself to
the sexual embraces of a man when the act is absolutely repulsive to
her, and offends, in the highest measure, her every sense of delicacy. . . .
That a woman exhibits hesitation, reluctance and a slight degree of
physical resistance does not, by any means, make the intercourse, when
accomplished, rape.”98
Having warmed to his subject, Judge Fish continues: “Even if the
first sexual contact between the accused and herself had amounted to
a rape, and he had afterwards, by persuasion and promises of mar-
riage, obtained her free consent to have intercourse with him, and thus
seduced her, he would be guilty of the crime of seduction. A virtuous
woman upon whom the crime of rape has been committed does not
thereby lose her virtue; and if unmarried, there is no reason why she
may not afterwards become the victim of seduction by her ravisher.”99
It would appear that, in late nineteenth century Georgia, it might have
been possible for an actual rapist to escape punishment via the seduc-
tion statute, provided that he could persuade his victim to cooperate,
and that he was willing not only to marry her but to stay with her for
the statutory five years.
Perhaps most striking in its conflation of rape and seduction is a law
which was still to be found in the code of the state of Virginia as of

98 Jones v State (1892) 90 Ga 626–627.

99 Jones v State (1892) 90 Ga 628.
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1989. To be sure, a rapist was not allowed to plead subsequent mar-

riage as a defense in Virginia100 (although it would have been difficult
to obtain a conviction if the ex-victim refused to file a complaint or to
testify against the alleged rapist), and those having sexual intercourse
with children under the “age of consent” (i.e. thirteen years) could be
prosecuted for statutory rape, as in any other state.101 However, if a girl
was between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, a boy or man who had
willing intercourse with her could instead be prosecuted under a special
statutory rape statute which allowed the miscreant to escape punishment
if he agreed to marry his victim.102 Since the miscreant was guilty of
statutory rape and not seduction, no evidence of a promise to marry
was required by the statute (i.e. the charge of rape could be used as
an inducement to a marriage not contemplated by the seducer).103
Moreover, since a girl under fifteen could not legally consent to an act
of intercourse in Virginia, force was not an essential ingredient, and the
girl’s failure to make an outcry was thus immaterial to conviction.104
Finally, in a section clearly inspired by earlier Georgia and Kentucky
seduction statutes, the miscreant was required not only to live with the
girl, but also to support and provide for her under threat of further
prosecution under the statute until she reached the age of sixteen (the
charges against him were not dropped when he married his “victim;”
the case was simply continued until she reached the statutory age, at
which point the indictment was finally dismissed).105
It would seem, then, that if ancient Near Eastern laws on “rape”
bear little relation to the crime of rape as we know it they do bear a
fairly close resemblance to the way in which seduction was treated in
late nineteenth and early twentieth century American law (and in the
odd case was still treated as of 1989), although it must be said that jus-

100 Code 1950 (1988 Replacement Volume with 1989 Supplement) § 18.2–61.
101 Code 1950 (1988 Replacement Volume with 1989 Supplement) § 18.2–61.A.
102 Code 1950 (1988 Replacement Volume with 1989 Supplement) §§ 18.2–63, 18.2–66.

This statute was laid down in more or less final form by Acts 1924 ch. 443 p. 667
(Code 1942 § 4414). Marriage as a bar to conviction in such cases is somewhat older,
first appearing in Acts 1918 ch. 82 p. 139 (Code 1919 § 4414). Fortunately or unfor-
tunately, the state of Virginia was peculiar in this regard. Marriage is not normally a
bar to prosecution for statutory rape; for a discussion, see Kling, Sexual Behavior and the
Law, pp. 214–215.
103 Neither was it required that the victim have been chaste (Carpenter v Commonwealth

[1962] 193 Va 851).

104 Buzzard v Commonwealth (1922) 134 Va 641; Salyer v Commonwealth (1934)

163 Va 1027; Carpenter v Commonwealth (1952) 193 Va 851.

105 Code 1950 (1988 Replacement Volume with 1989 Supplement) § 18.2–66.
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tice was served with much greater efficiency and clarity in the ancient
legal regulations.
As for what might have motivated late nineteenth and early twentieth
century American legislatures to pass such statutes, evidence points to
the conclusion that in all cases the object was to rectify the damage
done to family honor (and public morality) by the “ruination” of an
unmarried girl. In Taylor v Commonwealth of Virginia, a case involving
a prosecution for “(statutory) rape of a female child under 16 years of
age,” Judge Browning, speaking for the circuit court of Washington
county, was of the opinion that: “Surely to permit the marriage of the
parties, who had sinned against society and who wished to make the only
amends within their power, would be within the interest of the conservation
of good morals and the public well being.”106 In Lee v Commonwealth
of Virginia, the “victim” was under sixteen but, since she was also
abducted, the case was prosecuted under the abduction statute107 which
also allowed for marriage as a bar to conviction.108 In this case, Judge
Kelly delivered himself of the opinion that: “In those cases even where
decent public sentiment has been outraged and the denounced crimes
of seduction and abduction have been committed, the statute provides
that the subsequent marriage of the culprits shall bar further prosecution
of the criminal. However reprehensible the conduct of this defendant,
and however just the public condemnation of his conduct, the
Commonwealth by statute opens a door and offers him a place for pen-
itence. He has not yet sinned away his days of grace, or his legal oppor-
tunity to repair the immediate wrong done to womanhood and the
potential wrong to childhood.”109
The same may be said for the criminal cases involving seduction. In
Morris v State of Georgia, a seducer tried to avoid punishment by
invoking the victim’s subsequent marriage (to a third party!) as a bar
to his conviction. The court was not amused, delivering itself of the
opinion that: “The provision which allows a seducer to repair to some
degree his wrong is an anomaly in the interest of social peace . . . while
the provisions allowing marriage may relieve the seducer from the pains
and penalties of the law, the statute was primarily designed in the
interest of the injured female and of helpless and hapless offspring . . .
since this provision has its origin in mercy rather than in the strict

106 Taylor v Commonwealth (1945) 184 Va 373.

107 Code 1919 § 4411.
108 Code 1919 § 4413; see above.
109 Lee v Commonwealth (1925) 141 Va 531.
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justice of the law, it is available only while the accused is still on mercy’s
ground.”110
Even the civil cases, which might seem on the surface to have the
least to do with repairing the “ruination” of an unmarried girl, also fit
into the pattern. In Virginia, Kentucky, and Georgia, the invocation of
the Common Law provision was by way of legal fiction. The collection
of damages by the father was not grounded in any actual “loss of ser-
vice”; the real damage being compensated for was that to the family’s
honor: “The old idea of loss of menial services, which lay at the foundation
of the action, has gradually given way to more enlightened and refined
views of the domestic relations; these are, that the services of the child are
not alone regarded as of value to the parent. As one of the fruits of
more cultivated times, the value of the society and attentions of a virtuous
and innocent daughter, is properly appreciated; and the loss sustained
by the parent, from the corruption of her mind and the defilement of
her person by the guilty seducer, is considered ground for damages.”111
In Mosley v Lynn, a case in which a sixteen year old girl was seduced
by a married man who gave her expensive presents and promised her
that she would not get pregnant by him (as it happened, he was miss-
ing a testicle), the sentiments of the outraged parent (the child’s mother),
as expressed by her lawyer, are quoted as follows: “(He) has destroyed
the peace, happiness, and the hope she had in the flower of her fam-
ily, her sweet daughter; the happiness of petitioner’s life has been taken
away from her, and she has been left to weep and mourn and lament
over the mistake her said daughter has made, brought about by said
defendant, and because of the disgrace and dishonor of her said daugh-
ter[,] petitioner’s life has become almost unbearable.”112 Moreover, in
the opinion of Judge Daniel, incontinence in a daughter was not merely

110 Morris v State (1914) 14 Ga App 396–398.

111 Hewitt v Prime (1839) 21 Wend 80 (Supreme Court of New York), apud James
M. Matthews, Digest of the Laws of Virginia (C.H. Wynne, 1857), pp. 257–258. Compare:
“The second exception is equally as untenable as the first. It assumes that the only con-
sequential injury to the father, of which he has a right to complain, consists in the loss
of the services of his daughter, and the expenses he may incur during her confinement.
This certainly is not so . . . All the authorities show that the relation of master and ser-
vant, between the parent and child, is but a figment of the law, to open to him the
door for the redress of his injuries. It is but the substratum on which the action is built;
the actual damages which he has sustained, in many, if not in most cases, exists only
in the humanity of the law, which seeks to vindicate his outraged feelings. He comes
into the court as a master; he goes before the jury as a father (Briggs v Evans [1844]
27 NC [5 Ired] 16, apud Mosley v Lynn [1930] 172 Ga 199).
112 Mosley v Lynn (1930) 172 Ga 195.
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an injury to the parent but “an offense against the good order, peace,
and dignity of the commonwealth . . . Properly construed, the word
‘seduction’ as used in § 4466 [of the Civil Code 1910], has reference
to any and all cases in which a child is led astray and her morals
destroyed, uprooted, and extirpated, her social standing damaged, and
she is thereby rendered an unfit associate for other children in the fam-
ily, and a debased member of society.”113
One can hardly accuse the Sumerians of having Victorian attitudes
to sex. They would hardly have agreed with Judge Lumpkin that: “Never,
so help me God, while I have the honor to occupy a seat upon this
bench, will I consent to control the jury, in the amount of compensa-
tion which they may see fit to render a father for the dishonor and dis-
grace thus cast upon his family; for this atrocious invasion of his household
peace. There is nothing like it, since the entrance of Sin and Death
into this lower world. Money can not redress a parent who is wronged
beyond the possibility of redress; it can not minister to a mind thus dis-
eased. Give to such a plaintiff all that figures can number, it is as the
small dust of the balance. Say to the father, there is $1049, embrace
your innocent daughter for the last time, and let her henceforth become
an object for the hand of scorn to point its finger at. What mockery!
And yet this is the identical case we are considering. . . . In cases of
deliberate seduction, there should be no limitation to verdicts, because
there is none to the magnitude of the injury.”114
In late nineteenth and early twentieth century America, the tend-
ency was to award actual damages in cases of unvirtuous women
whose lovers had gotten them pregnant, but to allow for punitive dam-
ages in cases of seduction, especially where a promise of marriage
had been made,115 and to encourage the juries to be generous in their

113 Mosley v Lynn (1930) 172 Ga 194.

114 Briggs v Evans (1844) 27 NC (5 Ired) 16, apud. Mosley v. Lynn (1930) 172 Ga
200. Judge Daniel also quotes § 4466 of the Civil Code 1910 to effect that “in well
defined cases the damages should be exemplary” Mosley v Lynn [1030] 172 Ga 198,
cf. 199).
115 The failure of a suitor to marry his intended had serious economic consequnces

for the girl, whether she was actually “ruined” or not, since either way her chances of
ever being married were diminished. It is easy for feminists to condemn women for
embracing male domination; however, the reality of the situation was that there was
then little opportunity for a woman to make it on her own. For more on this subject,
see Mary Coombs, “Agency and Partnership: A Study of Breach of Promise Plaintiffs,”
Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 2 (1989/1990): 1–23. For the development of American
law on the subject of breach of promise suits, and of influence of the opinions of jus-
tices such as those we have been quoting on this development, see Michael Grossberg,
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awards.116 By contrast, ancient Near Eastern legal regulations had no

hesitation in assigning a specific value to the damage done to the father
by the loss of his daughter’s virginity,117 or in charging the miscreant
the same amount regardless of whether the woman was virtuous or
not.118 Still, in a general way, the motivation behind the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century American laws and the ancient Near Eastern
legal regulations would seem to be similar.
To sum up our findings to this point: it appears that what is treated
in the Sumerian laws, and depicted in the Enlil and Ninlil myth, is not
rape at all, but the “ruination” of an unmarried girl. Provisions for-
bidding the forcibly married “rapist” from divorcing his new bride119
strongly suggest that at least part of the problem caused by the “rape”

Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill, 1985).
For the situation in Victorian England, see Ginger S. Frost, Promises Broken: Courtship,
Class and Gender in Victorian England (Charlottesville, 1995).
116 See above, n. 80.
117 The assignment of specific damages was also a feature of Ottoman Law. Note that

in Art. 200 of the Ottoman Penal Code ( John A. Strachey Bucknill and Haig Apisoghom
S. Utidjian, tr., The Imperial Ottoman Penal Code, [London, 1913], p. 152) as well as in
Art. 424 of the modern Turkish Criminal Code (Orhan Sepiçi and Mustafa Ovaçık, tr.,
The Turkish Criminal Code, The American Series of Foreign Penal Codes 9 [New York,
1965), the compensation is proportional to the social standing of the victim and the
scope and nature of the offense.
118 “If he does not have a wife, the man who had intercourse (with the adolescent

girl) gives a third of silver as the market value of the girl to her father (and) the man
who had intercourse with her may marry her; he may not send her away. If her father
does not want (this), he may receive silver—the third—for the girl and give his daugh-
ter to whomever he pleases. § If the girl gave herself to the (married) man (who had
intercourse with her), (and if ) the man can swear it, they may not approach his wife;
the man who had intercourse (with her) gives a third of silver as the market value of
the girl (and) the father does to his daughter as he pleases” (MAL A 55–56); “If a man
comes upon a maiden that is not betrothed, takes her and has relations with her, and
their deed is discovered, the man who had relations with her shall pay the girl’s father
fifty silver shekels and take her as his wife, because he has deflowered her. Moreover,
he may not divorce her as long as he lives” (Deut. 22.28–29); “When a man seduces a
virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall pay her marriage price and
marry her. If her father refuses to give her to him, he must still pay him the custom-
ary marriage price for virgins” (Exod. 22.15–16). Whether he married the girl or not,
and whether the girl was virtuous or not, the payment made by the miscreant to the
girl’s father was the same: actual damages (or some multiple thereof ) as measured by
the diminution produced in her potential bride price by her loss of virginity. The insis-
tence that the marrying seducer/rapist also pay this amount was presumably designed
to ward off any attempt on his part to argue for a discount on the grounds that his
intended was no longer a virgin.
119 “If he does not have a wife, the man who had intercourse (with the adolescent

girl) gives a third of silver as the market value of the girl to her father (and) the man
who had intercourse with her may marry her; he may not send her away” (MAL 55);
cf. Deut. 22.28–29 (see previous note).
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was trying to find any third party who was willing to marry the victim
afterwards. Enlil was, therefore, “sullied” by his intercourse with Ninlil
and subsequently banished from his city, not because he had lain with
her against her will, although Ninlil did make some attempt to refuse
him, but because he had failed to wash away her virgin blood by doing
the honorable thing and marrying her.120
If we are to understand this Sumerian attitude to sex offenses, we
must first understand the social context which inspired it. No one would
deny that twentieth century Western attitudes to “sex crime” have been
shaped on the one hand by strongly negative Christian attitudes to non-
procreative sex121 and on the other by the occasional toleration of out
and out rape, even when committed by the lower orders, provided
always that the victims were not members of the upper classes.122 To
explain why the Sumerians (and other peoples of the ancient Near East)
put so much more emphasis on what we would term seduction than
on what we would term rape, it is necessary to have a look at other
societies which have also seen forced marriage as a blanket solution to
sex offenses.

120 See n. 14. Similarly, in ancient Mesopotamia a murderer could wash away the

blood by paying compensation to the victim’s relatives: “Now they have extended (their
hands) to one another. He (the murderer) will give KUR-adimri, [daug]hter of Atar-
qamu the scribe (to) Samas-kenu-uœur son of Samaku (the murdered man) in lieu of
blood-money (and so) will he wash away the blood” (Theodore Kwasman, Neo-Assyrian
Legal Documents in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, Studia Pohl [Series Maior]
14 [Rome, 1988], no. 341 = Raija Mattila, Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh,
Part II, SAA 14 [Helsinki, 2002] no. 125: 1’–6’).
121 Late antique and early Christian philosophers considered non-procreative sex

between a man and a woman to be a “crime against nature,” on a par with homo-
sexual acts (Vern L. Bullough, “The Sin Against Nature” in Sexual Practices and the Medieval
Church, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage [Buffalo, 1982], pp. 55–71. Such atti-
tudes were also typical of medieval Slavs. “Rape could not be the result of benign but
overly enthusiastic romantic love; there was no such thing. If a man revealed true love
for a woman by helping her avoid sex, he manifested hatred by forcing her into it. . . .
Thus the medieval Slav’s conception of sexuality as evil prompted them to understand
forced sex as a crime of violence” (Levin, Orthodox Slavs, p. 212). I do not mean to imply
that such an attitude is sufficient to produce the modern crime of rape; on the con-
trary, the canonists just quoted sanctioned a treatment of “rape” strikingly similar to
that just outlined for the Sumerians; see n. 124.
122 The most obvious case is the toleration accorded the rape of black women by

white men, whatever the social class. Note also the lenient treatment accorded to lower
class rapists in Renaissance Venice, provided they confined themselves to lower class
victims (Guido Ruggiero, Violence in Early Renaissance Venice [New Brunswick, 1980],
pp. 101–102). Medieval Russian Canon law charged miscreants on a sliding scale which
increased the penalty with the social status of the victim (Levin, Orthodox Slavs,
pp. 219–220).
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Rape and Seduction in Medieval England

To judge solely by the law on the books, Medieval England would
not seem to be a pertinent example, since the penalty laid down for
rape was castration (with or without blinding), not, one would think,
an auspicious start to a marriage between the concerned parties.123
However, thirteenth century judges found no difficulty in allowing the
woman to release the man from his penalty if she agreed to marry him
(i.e. the threat of a draconian penalty could be used to arrange a forced
wedding).124
This rather Sumerian attitude to sex offenses is, as one might expect,
also reflected in folk literature. A nice parallel to our Enlil and Ninlil
myth (particularly in terms of the “psychology of the rape victim”) is
the Medieval ballad: “Royal Forester”which is worth quoting in full:
“I am a forester of this land as you may plainly see. It’s the mantle of your maid-
enhead that I would have from thee.” He’s taken her by the milk white hand and
by the leylan sleeve. He’s lain her down upon her back and asked no man’s leave.
“Now since you’ve lain me down young man, you must take me up again. And
since you’ve had your will of me, come tell to me your name.” “Some call me
Jim, some call me John, begad it’s all the same. But when I’m in the king’s high
court, Erwilian is my name.” She being a good scholar, she’s spelt it o’er again.
“Erwilian, that’s a Latin word, but Willy is your name.” Now when he heard his
name pronounced, he mounted his high horse. She’s belted up her petticoat and
followed with all her force. He rode and she ran a long summer day, until they
came by the river that’s commonly called the Tay. “The water it’s too deep my
love; I’m afraid you cannot wade.” But afore he’d ridden his horse well in she
was on the other side. She went up to the king’s high door, she knocked and she

123 “Si quis mulierem vi oppresserit et violaverit, membrorum dampno punietur” (Laws

of William the Conqueror, Title 18); “Quod quide crimen si couincatur, sequitur poena
s. amissio mebroru, vt sit mebru p. membro, quia virgo cum corrupitur, mebru amit-
tit, & ideo corruptor puniatur in eo in quo deliquit, oculos igitur amittat opter aspectu
decoris, quo virgine cocupiuit, amittat & testiculos, qui calore stupri induxerut” (Bracton,
De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, III.147).
124 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2nd ed.

(Cambridge, 1898), vol. 2: 490–491; cf. J.B. Post, “Ravishment of Women and the
Statutes of Westminster,” in Legal Records and the Historian, John Hamilton Baker, ed.
(London, 1978), pp. 150–164. Under the influence of the twelfth century Decretum of
Gratian, medieval Canonists also allowed rapists to escape more or less unscathed if they
married their victims ( James Brundage, “Rape and Seduction in the Medieval Canon
Law,” in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage
[Buffalo, 1982], p. 146). Among the South Slavs, as with the Sumerians, the rape of a
married woman was treated as adultery (Levin, Orthodox Slavs, p. 216); the question of
the woman’s resistance or lack thereof was relevant to her penalty, but not the man’s
(Levin, Orthodox Slavs, pp. 216–217, 218–219), and a forced marriage was a perfectly
acceptable outcome when an unmarried girl was involved, although the parents were
free to settle for money damages instead (Levin, Orthodox Slavs, p. 217).
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went in, said: “One of your chancellor ‘as robbed me and he’s robbed me right
and clean.” “Has he robbed you of your mantle? Has he robbed you of your
ring?” “No, he’s robbed me of my maidenhead and another I cannot find.” “If
he be a married man, then hanged he shall be. And if he be a single man, he
shall marry thee.” This couple they got married. They live in Huntley town. She’s
the earl of Airlie’s daughter and he’s the blacksmith’s son.125

In line with this rather curious story are other ballads, such as “Blow
the Winds, I-Ho,” which poke cruel fun at young men who fail to
“rape” young women while they have the chance, and have to be taught
a sober lesson by their would-be “victims”.
There was a shepherd’s son, he kept sheep on yonder hill . . . He
looked east and he looked west, he took another look, and there he
spied a lady gay, was dipping in a brook. She said, “Sir, don’t touch
my mantle, come, let my clothes alone; I will give you as much money
as you can carry home.” “I will not touch your mantle, I’ll let your
clothes alone; I’ll take you out of the water clear, my dear to be my
own.” . . . He set her on a milk-white steed, himself upon another; and
there they rode along the road, like sister, and like brother. . . . And
when they came to her father’s gate . . . And when the gates were open,
this lady jumped in; she says, “You are a fool without, and I’m a maid
within. Good morrow to you, modest boy, I thank you for your care;
if you had been what you should have been, I would not have left you
there. . . . There is a flower in my father’s garden, they call it mary-
gold; the fool that will not when he may, he shall not when he wold.”126
Another version of this ballad, called “The Baffled Knight” is even
more explicit:
Yonder comes a courteous knight, lustely raking ouer the lay; he was well aware
of a bonny lasse, as she came wandring ouer the way. . . . “Also Ioue saue you,
faire lady, among the roses that be so red; if I haue not my will of you, full soone,
faire lady, shall I be dead.” . . . “If you will carry me, gentle sir, a mayde vnto
my father’s hall, then you shall haue your will of me, vnder purple and vnder
paule.” . . . When she came to her father’s hall, it was well walled round about;
she yode in at the wicket-gate, and shut the foure-eared foole without. “You had

125 Steeleye Span, “Below the Salt,” (Chrysalis-CHR 1008). The first English text of

this ballad, a faithful translation of the original Latin, appeared in Anchovy Ram’s ele-
mentary drum tutor: Half Way to Para-diddle, published in 1293. Compare the very sim-
ilar ballad “The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter” in Francis James Child, The
English and Scottish Popular Ballads (New York, 1882–1898), vol. 2: 457-477 (no. 110). In
one of the Child versions (E in Ballads, vol. 2: 465–467]), it is made quite clear that
the maiden was, in fact, raped.
126 See James Henry Dixon, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England (London, 1846),

pp. 82–84; cf. Child, Ballads, vol. 2: 487–488 (no. 112 D).
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me,” quoth she, “abroad in the field, among the corne, amidst the hay, where you
might had your will of me, for, in good faith, sir, I neuer said nay. Ye had me
also amid the field, among the rushes that were so browne, where you might had
your will of me, but you had not the face to lay me downe.” He pulled out his
nut-browne sword, and wipt the rust off with his sleeue, and said, Ioue’s curse
come to his heart that any woman would beleeue! When you haue your owne
true-loue a mile or twaine out of the towne, spare not for her gay clothing, but
lay her body flat on the ground.”127

A variant adds to the “good advice” given the hapless knight by his
escaped victim: “And if you chance for to meet a maid, a little below
the hill, sir, you need not fear her screeking out, for she quickly will
lye still, sir.”128 This last sentiment may well represent male views pro-
jected onto women, but it does emphasize the extent to which the
woman’s initial consent to the act of intercourse was, in English as well
as Sumerian examples, immaterial to the outcome.
Quite apart from shaking ourselves free of the notion that any woman
who would behave like Ninlil must come from some strange and benighted
part of the world, the English examples point up the extent to which,
given the right social context, the “typical” sexual offense may come to
be viewed, not as a form of brutal assault, but as a rather rough form
of courtship.129 Noteworthy in the case of the “Royal Forester” and
“Blow the Winds, I-Ho” is the great social distance between the two
lovers, which might have led the young woman, or her father, to reject
a more conventional suit on the part of the young man.
This is, however, as far as our English examples can take us since,
when one comes to examine attitudes towards fornication, the English
and the Sumerians quickly part company. Folk custom in England dis-
played a refreshingly nonchalant attitude to pre-marital sex,130 an atti-

127 Child, Ballads, vol. 2: 483 (no. 112 A).

128 Child, Ballads, vol. 2: 485 (no. 112 C, verse 17). Child also quotes (vol. 2: 479–483)
variants of this ballad from Spain, France, Italy, Denmark/Sweden, Germany, and
Greece. In consonance with the Italian folk ballads, are actual records from medieval
and early Renaissance Italy of “rapes” which ended in forced marriages (see Ruggiero,
Violence, p. 167).
129 This is not to imply that there were no genuine rape cases in medieval England

(or among the Sumerians for that matter). For the treatment of the crime of rape in
English courts, see John Marshall Carter, Rape in Medieval England: An Historical and
Sociological Study (Lanham, 1985).
130 In cases of seduction, the usual practice in England was to wait and see whether

the girl got pregnant; the strong-arm tactics were reserved for cases where fornication
resulted in conception (see G.R. Quaiffe, Wanton Wenches and Wayward Wives [New
Brunswick, 1979], pp. 59–123). Early Germanic peoples seem to have been quite relaxed
in such matters; not only could single and betrothed women be abducted without unduly
serious consequences, but one could even acquire a wife who was already married to
someone else in this way, provided the proper payments were made to her father or
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tude which ancient Mesopotamians did not share. The importance to

public opinion of an unmarried woman’s virginity may readily be seen
from the laws of Lipit Istar, which fine a man for unjustly casting asper-
sions on it,131 and from an actual Sumerian case in which a man tried
to escape from the duties of intercourse with an unwanted wife by claim-
ing that his bride was not a virgin.132

Rape and Seduction in Modern Turkey

A more revealing set of examples comes from the rural districts of mod-
ern Turkey, where virginity among unmarried girls is still held at a pre-
mium. The situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that Turkey,
like Medieval England, has a genuine rape statute on the books,133 not to
mention a tradition, probably inspired ultimately by late Roman law,134

husband before any children were born (Lex Alamannorum, L–LI, LIII, XCVII.4=Pactus
Legis Alamannorum, XXXII.1; Rothair’s Edict, 186–191, 214; Laws of Liutprand, 31.II,
119.III; Laws of Ethelbert of Kent, 82–83).
131 “If a man says that the unmarried daughter of a free man has had intercourse,

if it is proven that she is a virgin, he pays 10 shekels of silver” (LI 33). This collection
of laws unfortunately does not contain any price regulations indicating the buying power
of ten shekels; by the roughly contemporary code of Esnunna, this amount of money
would have been sufficient to hire a wagon with oxen and driver for thirty days, or the
wages of a hired laborer (exclusive of food rations) for ten months (CE 3, 11). Compare
the twelfth century C.E. code of Jaroslavl which penalized the slanderer of a woman’s
virtue as severely as if he had raped her (Levin, Orthodox Slavs, p. 222).
132 See William W. Hallo, “The Slandered Bride,” in Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim,

Robert D. Biggs and John A. Brinkman, eds. (Chicago, 1964), pp. 95–105. Cf. “If a
man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, comes to dislike her, and
makes monstrous charges against her and defames her by saying, ‘I married this woman,
but when I first had relations with her I did not find her a virgin,’ the father and mother
of the girl shall take the evidence of her virginity and bring it to the elders at the city
gate. . . . And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the city. . . .” (Deut.
22.13–17). On the importance of virginity in a bride in the ancient Near East, see also
Clemens Locher, Die Ehre Einer Frau in Israel, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 70 (Göttingen,
1986), especially pp. 232–237. Contra Karel van der Toorn, Review of Locher, Ehre in
BiOr 46 (1989): 430, if MAL A 55–56 (and other laws on the violation of virgins) came
into play only when the girl became pregnant, then why do such laws not say: “If an
unmarried girl has been made pregnant”?!
133 Articles 414–417 of the Turkish Criminal Code; cf. articles 197–200 of the Ottoman

Penal Code. Seduction is also a criminal offense under modern Turkish law (articles
423–424 of the Turkish Criminal Code; cf. article 200 of the Ottoman Penal Code), as
is abduction (articles 429–431 of the Turkish Criminal Code; cf. article 206 of the
Ottoman Penal Code).
134 Abductions and forced marriages were customary in the Roman Empire, although

the emperors did their best to put a stop to them by threatening the man with mutilation
or death either at the hands of the government or of the outraged relatives, the woman
with death if she consented to the elopement and disinheritance by her outraged parents
if she was raped ( Justinian allowed the raped woman to collect the rapist’s property),
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of draconian punishments for abductors.135 This has not, however, pre-

vented certain “rapes” and abductions from being “punished” by a mar-
riage between the concerned parties.136 I quote two cases from a recent
ethnographic study.

assistants with death, any slaves who were involved with a mouthful of molten lead or
incineration, and the parents with deportation if they forgave the culprit and/or con-
sented to the marriage (Theodosian Code, Book IX, Titles XXIV.1–2, XXV.1; Justinian’s
Code, Book IX, Title XIII; Leo, Constitution XXXV). If, however, anyone was hardy
enough to persist and managed to escape accusation for five years, the marriage, and
any resulting offspring, were considered legitimate (Theodosian Code, Book IX, Title
XXIV.3). Later, even this concession was withdrawn ( Justinian’s Code, Book IX, Title
XIII.1.1). Justinian. Novellae, Ninth Collection, Title XXVI (cf. Title XXXIII) fulmi-
nates against authorities who recognized such marriages but awarded the woman the
man’s property under the terms of the rape law!
Similarly, the Liber Augustalis of Frederick II Hohenstaufen of Sicily did its best to
discourage rape with a view to marriage by threatening the rapist with death (Liber
Augustalis, Title XXII [25]) while fulminating at those who “escaped capital punishment
by marrying (the victim) or by arranging for another to marry her” (Liber Augustalis,
Title XXII [25]) and against those who used the threat of capital punishment to force
“unequal marriages” (Liber Augustalis, Title XXIV [28]).
By contrast, the Byzantine Ecloga, doubtless inspired by Exod. 22.15–16 and Deut.
22.28–29, allowed for marriage with the option of a fine in cases of seduction (Angelici
E. Laiou, “Sex, Consent, and Coercion in Byzantium” in Angelici E. Laiou, ed., Consent
and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in ancient and Medieval Societies [Dumbarten Oaks, 1993],
pp. 120–121). St. Basil’s canons permitted marriage in cases of seduction while still insist-
ing on punishing the attendant pre-marital intercourse. They also allowed for marriage
as an outcome in cases of abduction without ecclesiastical punishment as long as no vio-
lence was involved and as long as the young couple had not actually slept together
(Laiou, “Sex,” pp. 134–135). Interestingly, the Isaurian emperors who issued the Ecloga
were determined to encourage marriage, even between unequal partners (Laiou, “Sex,”
p. 126).
135 The Old Ottoman Criminal Code (Uriel Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law

[Oxford, 1973], pp. 95–131) punished abductors with castration, willing abductees with
branded vulvas, and accomplices with fines, and dissolved the marriage, if any (Chapter
I.10–12, 15). The Dulkadir Regulations (Heyd, Old Ottoman Criminal Law, pp. 132–147)
punished rape and seduction with fines; in cases of abduction they refused to acknowl-
edge the marriage unless the girl’s guardian gave his consent (Dulkadir Regulations,
12.2–3, 16; Register 9). Interestingly, the reason given for insisting on the guardian’s
consent is explicitly to prevent marriages between persons of unequal birth (Dulkadir
Regulations, 16).
136 The situation is similar in Italy. “Rape has also received some ex post facto approval

in Sicily and elsewhere when it is preceded by the abduction of a virgin by an unmar-

ried male who following the defloration not only offers but insists upon marriage” (Donald
E.J. MacNamara and Edward Sagarin, Sex, Crime and the Law [New York, 1977], p. 34).
Such customs were tacitly recognized in Italian law until very recently; according to Art.
544 of the Italian Penal Code of 1930 (E.M. Wise and A. Maitlin, tr., The Italian Penal
Code, The American Series of Foreign Penal Codes 23 [New York, 1978]), marriage was
a bar to conviction in cases of rape (articles 519–520) and abduction (articles 522, 524)
as well as seduction (article 526). Compare the Italian Penal Code of 1889, articles 352
(the marriage bar), 331 (rape), 340–341 (abduction). The section on seduction appears
to have been added between 1889 and 1930.
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Case 1: “Between ten and fifteen years ago, my brother was in love with a girl
named Ay(r)e, but she was engaged to another man. The night before her wed-
ding, my brother Hamut and I went to the girl’s house with guns. Her parents
were very old, and we threw salt in their eyes. We took the girl, and shot our
guns in the air. My brother married the girl . . .” “Were her parents angry?” I
asked. “What could they do? They were so old. My brother wanted to marry her,
so they let him.” “Did she want to marry him?” I asked. “Who remembers? She
was so young. It was a long time ago.” . . . Although the elements which went into
the parent’s decision to accept the union are unknown, certain aspects of the case,
relating to widely held rural attitudes and customs, can be discussed. For instance,
virginity in a bride is highly valued and it is unlikely that her fiancé would have
been willing to marry her after her kidnapping, which carries the presumption of
deflowering. Any man who did marry her (except her kidnapper) would lose face
and be the brunt of veiled jokes for a considerable period.137

Case 2: “Last year a young man named Hasan Ali was in love with a girl who
lived in a village halfway between Bodrum and Mandalinci, but her parents would
not let him marry her. One night, after a wedding, Hasan Ali and fifteen of his
friends went to her house with guns. They threatened to shoot her parents; they
threw pepper in their eyes, and knocked them down. They took the girl in Hasan
Ali’s jeep to a seaside village. . . . The morning after the girl was abducted, the
girl’s parents reported the incident to the gendarmes, who began a search for her.
At the end of two weeks in Didim, the girl was still refusing to marry Hasan
Ali. . . . Ali became afraid that word of where they were hiding would reach the
Bodrum police, so he took the girl to Izmir. . . . By this time Hasan Ali was out
of money, but the girl had decided she would marry him. It had taken him twenty-
eight days to persuade her. They returned to her village and married. The par-
ent’s case against the boy was subsequently dropped. They now have a baby, and
her parents have forgiven Hasan Ali for her abduction.” . . .
Reporting a girl’s elopement to the gendarmes gives the parents the grounds to
prosecute her kidnapper if later he decides not to marry her. When the case comes
to court, as it will because of the gendarme report, the only way the defendant
(her abductor) can have the case dismissed is to show the judge a marriage certificate
(which he can only do after he has wed the girl). Thus, in dismissing charges
against the male once he has become husband to the female he abducted, the pre-
sent law takes account of the widespread custom of kız kaçırma as an alternative
marriage form. By kız kaçırma, a man avoids costly bridewealth gifts to the woman
and her family, and the woman’s parents avoid the expenses of a village wedding,
which are considerable. Under Turkish law, the female is considered the passive
person, victimized by her abductor, because abduction diminishes her desirability
as wife to any male except her abductor, since everyone assumes she is no longer
a virgin (whether sexual intercourse has taken place or not). The young woman’s
role in the elopement, and even her initiation of the flight—some young women
entice the man they want to marry to run off with them—is not relevant legal evi-
dence, and will not help a man avoid a six month jail sentence (or more), if he—
or she—is unwilling to marry. Under Turkish law, a man is subject to retrial for
abduction if the couple divorces without sufficient reason within the first five years
of marriage. . . . Had the police or gendarmes discovered them before she was

137 June Starr, Dispute and Settlement in Rural Turkey, Social, Economic and Political

Studies of the Middle East, vol. XXIII (Leiden, 1978), pp. 139–140 (no. 8).
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willing to marry, he would be tried for abduction, forcible rape of a virgin, and
threat and assault against her parents.138

These exempla cannot be applied to the Sumerian case without a few

reservations. As we have seen, the Turkish peasants, like their English
counterparts, had a real rape statute to hold over the head of the
“rapist” and thus force his cooperation. Moreover, a betrothed girl (as
in Case 1) would not have been eligible in the ancient Near East for
a forced marriage.139 Finally, it was not the case in ancient Mesopotamia
that the “rapist” spared himself the expense of a bride price and his
in-laws the expense of a wedding.140 If he did not eventually make a
contract with her parents and celebrate the marriage feast, she was not
legally his wife, even if she lived with him for a year.141
Otherwise, however, the parallel is striking, especially when it comes
to the irrelevance of the girl’s consent to the man’s “guilt”142 and to
the proviso restricting the divorce rights of the forcibly married man in
view of the bride’s reduced chances of finding a third party for a hus-
band. Equally striking is the fact that the situation of Hasan Ali would
not have been greatly different if he had lived in late nineteenth or
early twentieth century Georgia, down to the number of years he was

138 Star, Dispute, pp. 186–189 (no. 24).

139 “If a man brings the brideprice (teræatu) for another man’s daughter but someone
else seizes her without asking her father and mother and has intercourse with her, he
shall die” (CE 26); cf. UN 6 (see p.%UN6%); CH 130 (see p. %CH130%); Deut.
22.23–24 (see n. 35).
140 “If he does not have a wife, the man who had intercourse (with the adolescent

girl) gives a third of silver as the market value of the girl to her father (and) the man
who had intercourse with her may marry her; he may not send her away. If her father
does not want (this), he may receive silver—the third—for the girl and give his daugh-
ter to whomever he pleases” (MAL 55); cf. “If an overseer or a shepherd elopes with
a free woman and does not pay the brideprice (kùsata) for her, she becomes a slave (to
his master who paid it) for three years” (HL 35); Deut. 22.28–29 (see n. 60); Exod.
22.15–16 (see n. 60); Genesis 34: 11–12 (see n. 75). The “rapist” did not even escape
paying if the woman was clearly at fault: “If the girl gave herself to the (married) man
(who had intercourse with her), (and if ) the man can swear it, they may not approach
his wife; the man who had intercourse (with her) gives a third of silver as the market
value of the girl (and) the father does to his daughter as he pleases” (MAL A 56).
141 “If a man ‘takes’ another man’s daughter without asking her father and mother

and does not set up a kirru-jar and contracts for her father and mother, even if she lives
for a year in his house, she is not a wife. If a man sets up contracts and a kirru-jar for
her father and mother and then “takes’ her, she is a wife; the day she is caught in the
lap of another man, she dies, she need not live” (CE 27–28); cf. “If a man ‘akes’ a wife
and does not establish her contracts, that woman is not a wife” (CH 128).
142 Similarly, see Levin, Orthodox Slavs, pp. 216–217, 218 (for South Slavic canon law).
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required to remain married to his new bride.143 This is perhaps not

entirely accidental, since Turkish laws on the subjects of seduction,
abduction, and rape reached final form during this same period.144
As in the ancient Near East and Medieval England, the offense con-
templated by Turkish law is not really rape at all but the “ruination”
of an unmarried girl; moreover, the context which generates such “rapes”
is clearly the parents’ refusal to consider a love-struck man’s suit, a con-
tingency which would naturally arise in any situation where, as in ancient
Mesopotamia, marriages were typically arranged by the couples’ parents.145

143 The attitude of the law towards the seducee was also the same in both cases.

“Under Turkish law, the female is considered the passive person, victimized by her
abductor, because abduction diminishes her desirability as wife to any male except her
abductor, since everyone assumes she is no longer a virgin (whether sexual intercourse
has taken place or not)” (Star, Dispute, p. 187). Similarly: “Where a virtuous unmarried
female has been cruelly betrayed, it is evident that she has been much more sinned
against than sinning; the law regards her as the victim, rather than an accomplice, of
him who accomplishes her ruin and brings about her downfall” (Keller v State [1897]
102 Ga 511).
144 The original Ottoman Penal Code of 1858 made no mention of seduction. However,

article 200 was amended on December 17, 1860 (1277 A.H.) so as to make it a crim-
inal offense to seduce a virgin under promise of marriage. In addition to a prison term,
the miscreant was also required to pay compensation for the loss of virginity. Articles
423–424 of the Turkish Criminal Code, which was adopted in 1926, further provided that
if the defendant married his victim, the prosecution was to be suspended unless the mar-
riage terminated in divorce within five years. Article 206 of the Ottoman Penal Code
allowed for marriage as a bar to conviction in cases of abduction; in an amendment of
August 1, 1911 (1329 A.H.), a provision was added to the effect that the statutory pun-
ishment would fall on the abductor’s head if he divorced his new bride. Article 434 of
the Turkish Criminal Code provided that a marriage between the abductor and his ex-
victim would suspend the prosecution or, if he had already been convicted, the execu-
tion of the sentence, provided that he did not try to divorce her before the termination
of the period prescribed by law. It also extended this option to cover cases of rape (arti-
cles 414–416). It should be noted that, despite the fact that the Turkish Criminal Code
of 1926 is generally viewed as being “almost entirely” based on the Italian Penal Code
of 1889, this does not seem to be the case with modern Turkish law on the subjects of
rape, seduction, and abduction; indeed, the only obvious influence of the Italian Penal
Code of 1889 on these laws is in regard to those who assist in an abduction. In the
Turkish Criminal Code of 1926 (article 434), as in the Italian Penal Code of 1889 (arti-
cle 352), a marriage between the interested parties protected not only the abductor, but
his accessories as well. By contrast, according to the Ottoman Penal Code of 1858 (article
206 as amended on 1st August 1911), those who assisted in an abduction were to be
punished even if the abductor married his victim afterwards.
145 The Sumerian-sounding provisions in South Slavic canon law (Levin, Orthodox Slavs,

pp. 216–217, 218–219; see n. 124) may well be influenced by the Biblical passages which
we have examined. However, it should be noted that the Slavs, like the ancient
Mesopotamians, arranged their children’s marriages (Levin, Orthodox Slavs, pp. 95–96).
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Imagine the despair of a young man whose lady love was engaged
to another man in accordance with the Middle Assyrian laws: “If a
man pours oil on the head of a man’s daughter or brings metal dishes
(for the wedding feast), and the son to whom they assigned the wife is
either dead or has fled, he (the father-in-law) may give (her) to whichever
he pleases among the remaining sons from the eldest to the youngest
who is ten years old. If the father(-in-law) is dead, and the son to whom
he assigned the wife is also dead, (but) there is a son of the dead son
who is ten years old, he may marry (her) and if the sons of the son
are younger than ten years, if the father of the daughter wants, he may
give his daughter (to one of them) and if he wants, he may return (the
marriage gifts) one-fold.”146
It should further be remarked that ancient Mesopotamia is only an
extreme case; it is hardly necessary to have marriages actually arranged
by the parents in a given society in order to generate a disproportion-
ate number of seductions. Thus, in 19th century Cuba, young people
were theoretically allowed to chose their own mates but, in fact, the
families concerned intervened forcibly if they felt that a proposed match
would bring them dishonor. On the other hand, the even greater dis-
honor presented by a deflowered daughter was usually sufficient to con-
vert the parents into advocates for the match (presuming that the social
distances involved were not too great), which gave “true love” an oppor-
tunity to have its way via seduction.147
Such considerations are not entirely irrelevant to the importance of
seduction in late nineteenth and early twentieth century American law
either. For complete freedom to choose her own marriage partner, a
girl had to wait until she was eighteen in Georgia148 and twenty-one in
Kentucky and Virginia.149 Keeping in mind that the reported cases
nearly always involve appeals from convictions where the seducer refused

146 MAL A 43.

147 Verina Martinez-Alier, “Elopement and Seduction in 19th-century Cuba,” Past and
Present 55 (1972): 91–129. Compare, for example, Spanish Andalusia: “It is accepted that
young people who face opposition to their marriage from the girl’s father may force the
father’s hand by running away to spend the night together. After this, their recognition
as a married couple . . . is the only way in which his honour can be retrieved” ( Julian
Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status” in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean
Society, J.G. Peristiany, ed. [Chicago, 1966], p. 49). The tactic of using pregnancy to
force a marriage disapproved of by the parents in Italy is discussed in Rudolph M. Bell,
Fate and Honor, Family and Village (Chicago, 1979), pp. 90, 93.
148 Code 1867 §§ 1698, 1704.
149 Ky Stat 1860 ch. 47 § 11; Code 1873 § 31.104.3.
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to marry his victim, and may not accurately reflect the situation in the
unknown quantum of unreported instances of rape and seduction, it is
still striking how often one or both parties involved in a case was too
young to have contracted a marriage against parental opposition.150
Indeed, it was not uncommon for the seduced girl to be fifteen or six-
teen years old.151 Moreover in a number of cases, it is mentioned either
that a parent was originally opposed to the match152 and/or that the
young couple had talked of going out of state in order to obtain a mar-
riage license.153

Where Has This Journey Taken Us?

To sum up our findings: given the fact that arranged marriages were
the rule in ancient Mesopotamia, the man whom a girl’s parents did
not approve of was in the same position as our unsuccessful English or
Turkish suitor; he could only change other people’s minds by taking
drastic action. The Sumerian laws are careful to avoid potential entrap-
ment by specifying that the parents did not know that their daughter
was wandering about in the street, thus giving the man the opportu-
nity of claiming ignorance of the fact that she was not a prostitute154
and/or that she was a free woman, rather than a slavegirl.155 Thus, in
order to be forced to marry the girl, the “rapist” had to have been act-
ing without the parent’s connivance and in the knowledge that a hasty
wedding was a likely result of his actions. It follows that a man who
desperately wished to marry a certain woman against the opposition of

150 In some cases, this is due to the wording of statutes which specified that the

seduced girl had to be under sixteen or twenty-one but that, in itself, suggests that the
problem of seduction was believed, by legislators, to apply particularly to girls who were
not old enough to make their own unfettered choice of a marriage partner.
151 See, for example Jones v State (1892) 90 Ga 619; Berkley v Commonwealth (1915)

164 Ky 192; Fuller v Commonwealth (1949) 190 Va 22.

152 As, for example, Hausenfluck v Commonwealth (1889) 85 Va 706 (girl’s father)

and Shaver v Commonwealth (1928) 151 Va 554, Hillman v Commonwealth (1930) 155
Va 1005 (the boy’s father).
153 Shaver v Commonwealth (1928) 151 Va 554; Fleenor v Commonwealth (1958)

200 Va 271.
154 See p. %STREET%.
155 If a man deflowered a virgin slave girl the Sumerian penalty was not forced mar-

riage but simply compensation to her master: “If a man deflowers the virgin slave girl
of another man using violence, he must pay five shekels of silver” (UN 8); cf. “If a man
deflowers another man’s slavegirl, he pays one third MA.NA of silver (twenty shekels)
and the slave girl continues to belong to her owner” (CE 31) and the actual case treated
in Finkelstein, JAOS 86: 359.
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her parents had a means of forcing the issue.156 Indeed, the Hittite laws
even went so far as to protect the abductor from having to pay com-
pensation if the parent’s attempts to thwart him resulted in deaths.157
To a modern sensibility, all of this seems a cruel disregard for the
woman’s feelings, but we must remember that a Mesopotamian girl,
unlike her modern American counterpart, married very young, and to
a man not of her own choosing. Compared to the normal expectations
of a Mesopotamian woman then, being “taken advantage of ” or abducted
might not have been such a bad thing.158 The mate her parents chose
for her might be someone whom she had never seen and who found
her unattractive or disagreeable. Moreover, as we noted in the English
and Turkish exampla as well as in our Enlil and Ninlil myth, the woman
might even take the initiative in such cases by putting herself deliber-
ately in harm’s way with no blame attaching to her for having done
so,159 provided that eventual marriage was what she had in mind.
In most cases, the loss of the woman’s virginity was probably sufficient
to convince the parents of the necessity of an immediate wedding, but
the law did give the girl’s father the option of collecting damages and
refusing the marriage,160 which allowed for a more appropriate punish-
ment of the odd case of actual rape.161 In the meantime, the presence

156 This is, of course, assuming that the girl’s brother did not simply kill her, as in

the English ballad “Teftie’s Annie” and in many Mediterranean societies to this day. It
is interesting to note that this self-help “solution” to the “problem” of lost virginity is
not considered as an option. This does not, of course, mean that it would not have
been allowed to happen, but it does suggest that demanding an immediate marriage
with the culprit was the typical family reaction to the loss of their daughter’s virginity.
157 “If anyone elopes with a woman and (parental) allies go after them, if two or three

men die, there will be no compensation—you have become a wolf (if you try to do
this)” (HL 37).
158 Note, for medieval England, Brundage, “Rape and Seduction,” p. 146: “The

decretist commentators . . . came to see marriage subsequent to abduction as a means

by which girls might be allowed to marry men of whom their parents disapproved.
Hence, marriage subsequent to a technical rape might ironically allow a woman a greater
freedom of choice in her marriage than she could otherwise enjoy” and Post, “Ravishment,”
p. 153: “it is arguable that some couples used the procedure to offset family objections
to socially disparaging matches—a trick which has a striking modern parallel.”
159 Note that, in both “Blow the Winds, I-Ho” and the Enlil and Ninlil myth, the

maiden was skinny dipping in clear water.

160 See n. 76. Note that in “The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter” (Child, Ballads,

vol. 2: 457–477 [no. 110], mentioned in n. 125), the young man offers to buy the vic-
tim off with a purse of gold, which suggests that a similar solution to the problem was
envisaged in England.
161 In a way, this is an improvement over the general rule in our own system which,

after subjecting the victim to a great deal of public humiliation, does not compensate
her or her family and, in fact, prosecutes any woman who accepts money from her
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of a ruling providing for forced marriages provided what was probably

a necessary safety valve which preserved the principle of arranged mar-
riages by occasionally allowing “true love to take its course.”162

Conclusion
To answer our initial question: what Enlil did to Ninlil was not rape,
as that crime is understood today, but the “ruination” of an unmarried
girl. The logical solution to such a “problem” is for the deflowerer to
be forced to make good the damage which he has done. Therefore, we
should not question Ninlil’s judgment in pursuing Enlil, or that of her
society in demanding that he marry her. Through the mutually enlight-
ening study of ancient Mesopotamian literature and law and with the
aid of comparative law and literature, we have reached a verdict, and,
in the process, brought a previously unnoticed Mesopotamian custom
to light.

rapist rather than pressing charges against him. The problem is that taking compensa-
tion from a criminal in return for refusing to file a complaint deprives the state of the
opportunity to punish him. For a discussion of the offense of “compounding crime,”
see Rollin Perkins and Ronald Boyce, Criminal Law, 3rd. ed (Foundation Press: 1982),
pp. 577–582, 1090–1092.
162 Or untrue love, as the case may be. Given the perversities of man’s nature, it

must sometimes have happened that the assailant lost interest as soon as the object of
his romantic absorption was no longer a virgin and the threat of a loss of bachelor free-
doms loomed large. Indeed, it should be noted that in both the Enlil and Ninlil myth
and the “Royal Forester” ballad, the gallant lover most gallantly fled, with his ex-vic-
tim in hot pursuit. Mesopotamian “conventional wisdom” held that marriages contracted
in this way soon ended in divorce: “A young adolescent was treated as a wife; she was
overpowered for purposes of copulation(?); he carried her off to his house. He made her
enter his father’s house; he established her (marriage) contracts; he delivered her bride
price. He put her bride price on the table; he brought it in to her father. He had
deflowered her, (but it was as if ) he had not deflowered her; he hated her. He cut off
the hem of her garment; he weighed out her divorce money and bound it in her lap;
he made her go out of the house. In future days, a husband of her choosing may marry
her; he will not try to claim her back” (Benno Landsberger, Die Serie ana ittisu, MSL 1
(Rome, 1937), pp. 98–99: Tablet VII ii 36–iii 6 with corrections by B. Landsberger,
“Jungfräulichkeit: Ein Beitrag zum Thema ‘Beilager und Eheschliessung’” in Symbolae
Iuridicae et Historicae Martino David Dedicatae [Leiden, 1968], p. 47). Compare: “Not heed-
ing her plea, he overpowered her; he shamed her and had relations with her. Then
Amnon conceived an intense hatred for her, which far surpassed the love he had had
for her. ‘Get up and leave,’ he said to her. She replied, ‘No brother, because to drive
me out would be far worse than the first injury you have done me.’ He would not lis-
ten to her, but called the youth who was his attendant and said, ‘Put her outside, away
from me, and bar the door after her’” (2 Samuel 13.14–17).