Do You Have A Daughter?

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MrZetterlund

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I was reading over some of the laws in Deuteronomy and I can’t help but find God’s, uh… concern for a woman’s virginity a little strange. Seriously, not being a virgin was like the worst thing ever in ancient Israel. “Stone her to death with stones. For she has done what is dishonorable in Israel, playing the harlot of her father’s house.” -It’s also strange that many believe this book was written by the hand of Moses. Orgies were a royal treatment back in Egypt.

I want to get deeper into the understanding of why a woman’s virginity is so valued. Are there any fathers here? How do you view the importance of your daughter’s virginity?
 
MrZetterlund said:
I was reading over some of the laws in Deuteronomy and I can’t help but find God’s, uh… concern for a woman’s virginity a little strange. Seriously, not being a virgin was like the worst thing ever in ancient Israel. “Stone her to death with stones. For she has done what is dishonorable in Israel, playing the harlot of her father’s house.” -It’s also strange that many believe this book was written by the hand of Moses. Orgies were a royal treatment back in Egypt.

I want to get deeper into the understanding of why a woman’s virginity is so valued. Are there any fathers here? How do you view the importance of your daughter’s virginity?
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No I don’t have a daughter. Hope that helps.
 
I have both a daughter and a son. I value their committment to honor marriage. If you are not married you should be a virgin.
 
I have two daughters and three sons. I’ll tell you why I value virginity in my daughters (though I also value it in my sons but that’s not the question you asked!). Daughters are more vulnerable to exploitation at the hands of men. They can get pregnant if they have sex! They are also are typically more emotional vulnerable when it comes to intimacy. I don’t want their hearts being broken. As a child born after the so called sexual revolution, I have seen at close hand the destruction and exploitation of women who do not value their virginity. I’ve had friends who’ve had abortions, babies out of wedlock, suffered from VD, and have had emotional breakdowns because of the disrespectful and dismissive way they have been treated by their lovers who they bodily gave themselves too.

Sex is a complicated and hard to control drive. My theory is that every society tries to come up with a way to control it, sensing and experiencing how dangerous it can be. Ancient Israel did this by highly valuing a girl’s virginity. This protected the girl and also made the young men want a virgin for a wife.

But I think there is something deeper here as well. The OT is all about faithfulness and betrayal. Having sex with someone other than your spouse is adultery. A woman who waits for her husband is faithful. Like Israel needed to be to God. To be unfaithful is to turn from God. I think of the Song of Songs. Israel poetically saw the virginity of a unmarried woman as someone trusting in God and trying to fulfill the covenant. The spiritual union with God is like a the young man who delights in his bride who loves him and has waited for him only.
 
The primary focus of punishment always seem to fall on the woman just does in the Islamic community. These are “honor killings”. No understanding. No forgiveness.

This is about patriarchal society control of their women. Do what I tell you or I’ll kill you. You can certainly extend this into genital mutilation and even into the modesty threads that pop up here daily.

As for my own daughter, I do want to protect her from harm both physical and emotional. At those times, she will need a hug, not a stoning.
 
To be truthful, one could get stoned to death for many reasons back in OT times. They took sin really seriously back then! While it is obvious that patriarchy has definite elements of oppression and abuse of women, the Ancient Israelites were also a step above their pagan counterparts. They condemned things like prostitution and orgies. It was a righteous duty to take care of widows. Patriarchy also has a good side! I know in modern times it is hard to wrap our minds around that one! But patriarchy ensures that women, who are physically weaker and more vulnerable especially when bearing children, are cared for and protected so that they can do their job of continuing the species. Today we have so many broken families, so many women under the poverty line trying to raise children alone. We have fathers who do not take responsibility for their actions. This is what happens when patriarchy breaks down. Of course many Muslims take this patriarchy to an extreme. And then abuse and oppression occur. You know what Lord Acton said! We can see it in the history of patriarchy.

The only genital mutilation that I know of in the OT is male circumcision, which again is reminder of Israel’s covenant with God.

Modesty is important for the dignity of women. It keeps them from being objectified by men. Of course that too can veer off into puritanism.

It is so frustrating to live in a less than ideal world!
 
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Paul:
The primary focus of punishment always seem to fall on the woman just does in the Islamic community. These are “honor killings”. No understanding. No forgiveness.
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Whoa, now. :eek: I’m not sure about that. Virgin women were the only ones spared when they sacked a city during their war with the cannonites. (No, they didn’t rape them.) The woman was held captive for a month to mourn because the Israelite humuliated her family and her, and afer that the commandment was let her go free and do not treat her as a servant or marry her. That’s still pretty harsh, but it was probably better than being slaughtered.

Women servants had it easier as well. Laws were invented to keep them from being overburdened or surpressed by a second owner.

Men were stoned to death for adultery, too, you know. :tsktsk:
 
I married a widow with 3 children (2 boys and a girl), and I value virginity so much that I can honestly say that by God’s good grace and mercy I can count the number of people I’ve had sex with in my entire life on one finger, and that’s with my wife. We just celebrated our 24th anniversary, and my daughter has celebrated her 16th (and my oldest granddaughter celebrated her 15th birthday - June was a very busy month for us!). I hope that I have instilled in all of my children (and I count them all as mine), the necessity to keep ones self for his/her mate, and to honor that commitment.

In regard to the command in the OT, I would point out that it hasn’t changed in the NT (just without the stoning part, fornication/adultery is still not allowed for Christians). There is a very deep emotional bond that is created, even if people choose not to acknowledge it. God originally destroyed the world by a flood due in part to sexual perversion (that wasn’t the only thing, but it was in there), and He also destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of sexual perversion. Also, since God promised a saviour would come and be the “seed of the woman”, there had to be a way to ensure that women would be protected from violation. What better way to keep people pure than to stone adulterers?

Hope this helps!
 
MrZetterlund said:
I was reading over some of the laws in Deuteronomy and I can’t help but find God’s, uh… concern for a woman’s virginity a little strange. Seriously, not being a virgin was like the worst thing ever in ancient Israel. “Stone her to death with stones. For she has done what is dishonorable in Israel, playing the harlot of her father’s house.” -It’s also strange that many believe this book was written by the hand of Moses. Orgies were a royal treatment back in Egypt.

I want to get deeper into the understanding of why a woman’s virginity is so valued. Are there any fathers here? How do you view the importance of your daughter’s virginity?
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Bad, yes.

Worst thing ever? Hardly.

Remember all the prophets of Baal slaughtered by Elijah? Remember when God wanted to destroy all the Israelites apart from Moses since they’d turned from Him and worshipped the Golden Calf? Remember all the heathen peoples the Israelites fought and were commanded by God to slaughter down to the last man woman and child?

Sounds like worshipping false gods is equally high on the list of Bad Things To Do.
 
LilyM said:
Bad, yes.

Worst thing ever? Hardly.

Remember all the prophets of Baal slaughtered by Elijah? Remember when God wanted to destroy all the Israelites apart from Moses since they’d turned from Him and worshipped the Golden Calf? Remember all the heathen peoples the Israelites fought and were commanded by God to slaughter down to the last man woman and child?

Sounds like worshipping false gods is equally high on the list of Bad Things To Do.
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Indeed. Infact, I bet it can be seen as not only spiritual adultery, but spiritual masterbation. Like the equivilant of a dog humping a pillow. It’s just not a proper substitute. 👍
Nita said:
I would highly recommend the book “Love & Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II). His insight about the meaning of sexual union between a man and woman is amazing.

amazon.com/Love-Responsibility-Pope-John-Paul/dp/0898704456
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Thank you. I heard his book, “theology of the body” was good, too. God bless. 👍
Cachonga said:
I married a widow with 3 children (2 boys and a girl), and I value virginity so much that I can honestly say that by God’s good grace and mercy I can count the number of people I’ve had sex with in my entire life on one finger, and that’s with my wife. We just celebrated our 24th anniversary, and my daughter has celebrated her 16th (and my oldest granddaughter celebrated her 15th birthday - June was a very busy month for us!). I hope that I have instilled in all of my children (and I count them all as mine), the necessity to keep ones self for his/her mate, and to honor that commitment.

In regard to the command in the OT, I would point out that it hasn’t changed in the NT (just without the stoning part, fornication/adultery is still not allowed for Christians). There is a very deep emotional bond that is created, even if people choose not to acknowledge it. God originally destroyed the world by a flood due in part to sexual perversion (that wasn’t the only thing, but it was in there), and He also destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of sexual perversion. Also, since God promised a saviour would come and be the “seed of the woman”, there had to be a way to ensure that women would be protected from violation. What better way to keep people pure than to stone adulterers?

Hope this helps!
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Cachonga, I just wanted to say thanks for your imput as well. God bless. 👍
 
MrZetterlund said:
I want to get deeper into the understanding of why a woman’s virginity is so valued.
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I hope you will allow me to insert my 2 cents. 🙂 I have sons, and I sure wish more girls were taught to value modesty, purity, chastitiy, and virginity! :mad: The way that some girls flaunt it and throw themselves at the guys, it is very hard for the guys to turn down. And yet I believe, generally speaking, females can control themselves more easily, and when they don’t, it is a losing battle trying to explain to our sons why modesty and virginity are important.

The Catechism explains the deeper spiritual and theological reasons for defending virginity.

On a worldly level, I would not want my daughter to get HPV and become infertile, or get herpes or AIDs, and I would not want her to get pregnant or to have an abortion. Now women are starting to speak out about the psychological repercussions of having abortion. Studies show that girls who have sex are more depressed and more suicidal. Studies show that couples who live together before marriage are setting themselves up for a higer rate of divorce. The family is the domestic church, and the building block of society.

From the Catechism:

Article 7 The Sacrament of Matrimony I. Marriage in God’s Plan
1603 “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws… God himself is the author of marriage.” The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity,88 some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. “The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.”
1618 Christ is the center of all Christian life. The bond with him takes precedence over all other bonds, familial or social…
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1620 Both the sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord himself. It is he who gives them meaning and grants them the grace which is indispensable for living them out in conformity with his will. Esteem of virginity for the sake of the kingdom and the Christian understanding of marriage are inseparable, and they reinforce each other:
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Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity. Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison with evil would not be truly good. the most excellent good is something even better than what is admitted to be good.
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I have both daughters and sons, and I would strongly recommend reading this passage in context.

First off, the main point of the passage is to provide a defense of a woman whose husband decides at some time after they are married that he wants to be rid of her (v. 13), and so trumps up an accusation of her having been given to him as a virgin when she was not, since that’s the only excuse for divorcing her. The implication of the text is that she is in fact not guilty and he’s just trying to get rid of her.

further, in context the whole passage has to do with the importance of maintaining purity, and being faithful - Israel’s being faithful to the Lord symbolized by spouses being faithful to each other (that’s why this is grouped with the bits about not interplanting crops or spinning different fibers together). (Compare the statements in chapter 17 about idolatry.)

Finally, compare Lev. 20 - where this penalty of stoning for adultery is first laid out, and is clearly connected with idolatry and child sacrifice. … . .
 
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