If a murder went unsolved a cow had to be sacrificed. The purpose was to ensure that the community took the matter seriously. There is a great tendency to look the other way. Sometimes murders will go unsolved, but we must never adopt a "shrug of the shoulders" attitude to these matters.
Then we get rules on marrying captive women. Now our first reaction to this may well be to react in horror and think this is just a matter of male dominance. However, we need to look at the context. A little thoughts shows that the woman is actually being treated with respect, certainly with far more respect than was the general way of things in war. First, the woman was to be given time to grieve. Then she could not just be case aside as worthless. In war women are often treated as mere sex objects - consider what happened in Germany when Russia defeated her.
Next we have rules on what happens if a man has two wives. The rules ensure that a son is not mistreated because of favouritism. Now the rules are not supporting having several wives, merely accepting that it would happen.
A rebellious son was to be dealt with seriously. It was a matter to be dealt with publicly.
No comments:
Post a Comment