"If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife" (Exodus 22:16)
"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the harlot, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9)
"Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body." (1 Corinthians 6:18)
"Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband." (1 Corinthians 7:2)
"For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God" (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5)
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Galatians 5:19-25)
Let those who have ears, hear.
Exodus 22:16 - 17, "If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins."
Deuteronomy 22:28 - 29, "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days."
This Exodus passage is one of the few passages that deal directly with the issue of premarital sex. There are a couple of important points concerning this passage. First, neither the man or woman is rebuked or punished for any sin (compare with Deut. 22). The man is required to seek marriage but
can be refused by the father and often was. If the father refused the marriage, the man paid a fine for devaluing his property. The key here is that there is no punishment for the man and woman having sex. The punishment is for the change in value of the woman as bride. The term "virgin's dowry" implies that there was a special dowry (probably of greater compensation) for her virgin status and since she is no longer a virgin, the father is still payed the dowry as compensation regardless of whether she marries the guy or not. Also note that there is no law concerning the pre-marital sexuality of men or unbetrothed non-virgin women.
The passage in Deut. refers to a rape not consensual pre-marital sex. In order to remedy this crime, the man must take the woman into his household and care for her. He cannot divorce her. The rape of a married or engaged woman carried the death penalty. The rape of a virgin who is not engaged carries a lesser penalty. And while the penalty may seem unjust by our culture's standpoint, the penalty was probably very just for that culture.
In Deut. 22 there is a clear example of what happens to a woman who has had sex prior to her marriage but deceives her parents and husband into believing that she was a virgin and accepted money ("playing the harlot in her father's house") for her virgin status. Although the severe penalty for such a deception is stoning, the husband can show love, forgiveness and mercy. The issue is again her value, virgins carried value in that culture, non virgins didn't.
Very important, to sell a daughter they would get more money if she was a virgin, non-virgin were cheaper to buy. If a man bought a daughter at a virgin price and she was not (after he had sex with her and the bedding was not bloody), then he could return her to the father and get his money back. See, it had nothing to do with premarital sex, it was her status, if she lacked virgin status the husband could simply give her back even though he had sex with her. Sadly, we know many women can lose their hymen without sex, imagine some of those poor girls back then trying to explain they didn't have sex, but didn't bleed on her wedding night.
Also, in these times, many women were caught in battle, their husband were killed, etc..These were usually non virgins married to soldiers and considered captive women. These men that captured non virgins had to allow them to go through a mourning process, then they could have sex with them. The intent was to make them a wife or concubine, but biblical law states if they weren't satisfied with her for any reason, they didn't have to marry her and could let her go. Law also stated if they didn't marry them, they couldn't make slaves out of them, they had to set them free.
"Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body." (1 Corinthians 6:18)
"Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband." (1 Corinthians 7:2)
Yes, but Paul was clear and listed the sins of sexual immorality, he said nothing of premarital sex. Sexual morality "pornia", Paul gave clear statements on what defined it.
1) Sex during women's menstruation.
2) Adultery
3) Pagan sex goddess prostitution.
4) Pederasty
5)Incest
6)Beastality
Why would Paul call out sexual immorality in direct terms and say nothing of premarital sex? The answer is jews and gentile already had laws dealing with property rights regarding premarital sex, we know both had laws allowing premarital sex regarding non virgins.
What we do see though is a slow theme in process, the apostles, not by law, but by moral code started giving women status, they set the ground work to change culture, but women remained property to the father or husband for hundreds of years to come. However, many laws that punished women unfairly were done away with.
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