How Dare You Associate Me With Them

Advertisers are the evil geniuses of our times, and Dalrock has a great sample of it on his site. I strongly encourage you to head over there and check it out. Talking to the choir here since 75% of my traffic comes from him.

The progression is pitch-perfect. The first montage starts out with a woman saying sorry for being rude (interrupting the presenter; possibly her boss) then it’s women saying sorry for non-offenses. By the end of it they’re saying sorry for offenses against them: crossed-leg in her space, stolen blankets, etc.

In the second, shiny and strong montage they’re not eschewing “sorry”, but the first woman outright challenges the presenter/boss. They they begin to offend, and finally they get to the pay-dirt: “Sorry I’m not sorry.”

The overt message is “Don’t say sorry and have pretty hair”, but the real communication focused on building brand loyalty: “Girl, this is Pantene, and I just wanted to tell you it was awesome when you told him to fuck off. Stay strong! So blessed!” Obviously that is done to sell hair products, but it’s important for fathers and husbands to understand how this is done.

If you try to tell a wife who likes that commercial that the message is “Don’t say sorry and have pretty hair.” she’ll hear you saying she’s an idiot because that’s not the message she heard. She heard the dog whistle about their support of her. But if you say, “Check out how they are appealing to women’s sin nature by communicating their support for you to fight with me. Do you support that? On what grounds do you think it’s a good idea to buy Pantene and tell them that their campaign to cause strife in marriage is acceptable?”

Nobody–Christian or otherwise–wants to be associated with sin nature. They’ll call sin anything else instead of sin. You put sin in her face like that and there’s an excellent chance she’ll automatically back off from Pantene and its message. Even if she still gets mad at you she will do so on the basis of How Dare You Associate Me With Them. Unless your wife or daughter just hates your guts, hates her own guts, and is truly and utterly miserable: She really does not want to be that person.

If she does get mad at you (highly likely), that would be the time to say, “Should I do that to you? How about I stop being considerate. Maybe Pantene’s onto something: From now on, no more consideration.” Then abandon the TV for a bit. Later that night, while she’s watching a show, change the channel and say, “Sorry I’m not sorry. Your hair looks great, by the way.”

I recommend smiling through the whole ordeal. You’re on the side of truth, and you’re fighting for your woman’s soul. You have every reason to fight joyfully. Honest to God: I can’t help but laugh at those times. It’s just ridiculous when you think about it.

Where Your Allegiances…Lie

According to the satanic interpretation of Just War Theory: Rebellion is the only and evergreen ground for initiating violence. Since, by definition, an authority cannot rebel against its subordinates, it follows that the merest use of violence by an authority–even for discipleship and administered in love–is fundamentally unjust according to the satanic interpretation.

Keep this in mind whenever you find yourself supporting an overthrow of some kind. And if you have an unshakeable aversion to the use of violence by legitimate authority regardless of the circumstances, then you should know that part of yourself is in cahoots with the Devil.

If, on the other hand, you revel in the truth that Our Lord Christ will return with overwhelming and unstoppable violence, then you can know that part of you has been redeemed from the bondage of lies.

A Helpmeet Shootable

If you’re bored and looking for another way to measure the media’s purposeful evisceration of womanhood–particularly wifely submission–play a game of His Woman in Film. Here are the rules:

1. Whenever you watch a movie or TV show, grab your His Woman in Film game board.  If you don’t have one, grab some writing utensils and form three columns. Mark the first column Show Title, the second Hero’s Woman, and the third Villain’s Woman. Your game board should look like this:

Before I go any further: Already we’re looking at one of the main ways Hollywood and the networks debase marriage. If I had you use the headings Hero’s Wife and Villain’s Woman, then there would not be enough qualifying films to make any thing like a reliable survey. Heroes are usually only allowed wives who are either pushing up daisies, or collecting child support. But, let’s continue with the rules.

2. Write the name of the movie you’re about to watch in the left column.

3. Whenever the hero’s woman undermines, disobeys, argues, mistrusts, or contradicts with the hero: Put a hash mark in the Hero’s Woman column and in-line with the film’s title. Do the same for the Villain’s Woman.

4. At the end of the film, total up the hash marks for each column, and compare to find the winner. Your game board should look something like this:

If you’re a fan of modern marriage: Congratulations! The Hero’s Woman won by a big, big margin. (It would have been wider, but Kirk Cameron’s character in “Fireproof” played both hero and villain.) The wives romantic interests of the heroes upheld the status quo, and used every opportunity to exert their empowerment to thwart the hero; thereby proving their worthiness as his equal in modern measures of courage and perseverance against The Man. She is The Helpmeet Shootable.

The significant others of the villains are equally instructive: Only bad women reliably submit to their men, and almost always to their own detriment. That’s part of how we are to know they are bad. However; because they are women and moxie is always within their grasp, Moderns should not lose hope. There’s always the breaking point at the climax of the film–a point of treachery that done does-in the dastardly dude–and the villain’s woman is redeemed to her noble and rightful place in the filmament. Or she doesn’t and dies a fool at the hands of her wicked master; thus cleansing all womanhood of wrongdoing.

I’m tempted to suggest that the rest of us fogies take a note from that other paragon of frustrating games, score by lowest number wins, and call the bad as good. But that doesn’t really address the problem, does it? That problem being: We’re grading ourselves according to a sociopathic standard. Doing bad is never good. We should start recognizing that by ceasing to say that it is.

Me So Holy: Evangelicals Love You Long Time

A touching story of modern Christian charity among those who need it most:

Belo Horizonte (Brazil) (AFP) – Brazilian pimps and a Christian evangelical group played a football match Saturday in World Cup host city Belo Horizonte, taking over a central street to raise awareness about sex worker managers’ rights.

Gathering just after Colombia played Greece in the southeastern city, the men set up an impromptu pitch using traffic cones for goalposts and played to the enthusiastic cheers of onlookers.

The pimps, calling themselves the Bootycall and Football Club — though in fact they played in the green and yellow uniforms of Brazil — teamed up with the visiting evangelicals from the United States to take on a local university team in a match with a message.

“Rights must be the same for everyone. We’re no different from anyone else just because we run dem hoes,” player Patrick Bonges told AFP.

“We are finally breaking that prejudice and stigma.”

His American teammate Jack Jenny said the game was about showing that “you just love people, you don’t judge, you don’t change people, you just love them.”

Pimps in Brazil have long complained of discrimination and called for the government to treat their profession like any other, including with programs to help older sex worker managers.

The match was organized by the Hand of the Pimp Association of Minas Gerais, the state where Belo Horizonte is located.

The association has also helped some of the city’s ballers prepare for the World Cup by offering free currency exchange, because a pimp has got to get his money in local denominations.

Hey Baby! You got girlfriend Brazil? Me so holy.

(H/T: Dalrock in this comment.)

Newsflash: The Adulteress is Dead

It has become a cliche that, if a Christian speaks of holding a woman to account for her adultery, then another Christian will chime in with the story of the adulteress who is brought before Jesus by the pharisees.[1]

1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

And with a flourish of contextless Scripture, the conversation is settled along these lines: Anyone who ignores a woman’s adultery[2] is like Jesus. Anyone who has the bad taste to bring it up is a dirty pharisee. I’d like to share with you some context; some light shining forth from the dark spaces between the lines. But before I do that, I want to clear away one bit of false yet commonly believed context.

It is often bawled by the second Christian that there obviously was a man who was caught in adultery with the woman, yet he is not brought before Jesus. This, the second Christian will say, proves that the pharisees were misogynist pigs, and, quid pro quo, wrong no matter what.

It’s more likely that the truth is that the woman was brought because no one likes to see a woman punished. If Jesus had done so it would have lowered his estimation in the eyes of the masses. Jesus was known for healing, gentleness, and forgiveness. Emotionally, the rightness or wrongness of the law is almost always beside the point to people. The crowds would have disdained it viscerally. That’s why the pharisees thought it was such a good trap: If he kills her, they could say how generous they have always been to overlook such poor creatures as this adulteress; not like that brute Jesus. If he lets her go, then they can say Jesus is not serious about God’s commands.

That leads into the second point of context: The pharisees did not believe in God’s commandments. One thing you’ll notice about the Jewish religious leaders is that–with one notable exception–they never get their hands dirty. If they believed in God’s law, and if they believed Jesus was just some backwater hillbilly with the gift of gab, then they would have stoned that woman. They didn’t. To them it was just politics; control tactics for maintaining their power and prestige. Jesus means it when He calls the pharisees and sadducees  hypocrites. Even when they wanted to get kill Jesus they had the Romans do it.

You may be wondering who was that notable exception. It was Saul of Tarsus; who presided over the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and many more persecutions of the first Christians. Saul was a true believer who was willing to stone people. So God chose Saul to be His missionary, changed his name to Paul, and then used Paul to change the world. Paul, like the Romans, was a man of action. And like Paul, Rome was quickly converted. Their salvation makes sense. It was Romans who performed the ultimate Passover sacrifice and painted a wooden post with the Lamb’s blood; albeit in ignorance.

The third point of context is that rebuke without condemnation–without punishment–is gentle and loving. It is no favor to the sinner to allow her to go on in sin. She needed to be told that she stood in danger of the penalty of death. We all do. When we respond to a non-threatening (i.e., no punishment to follow) statement of real sin by using Scripture as an excuse, then we are bearing false witness against our neighbor. The Christian who uses John 8:1-11 to quash any pronouncement of sin becomes a stumbling block to his neighbors; both witness and the sinner. That Christians is fundamentally misunderstanding the righteous nature of Jesus, of God. Jesus did not nullify His law; his judgment of adultery. He reserved it.

Which brings us to the last brushstrokes of context: His reservation of judgment came to an end and that adulteress is dead. Our Lord does not–cannot!–reserve His judgment forever, and no one is snatched from the hand of God. He is a holy and righteous God and that woman was–like everyone else and like all of us will be–put to death. She did not get off the hook for her sins, and He Who is Without Sin will cast the killing stone at sinners; which is all of us. That’s why we need to repent and be born again; so that after that death which satisfies our righteous God’s judgment we can be raised to new life with Christ. The second Christian is wrong to say that Jesus just lets her walk away forever.

[1] This is something I’ve intended to write for some time, yet kept forgetting.

[2] It’s an observation of mine that I’ve never heard this in reverse; I’ve never heard a male adulterer defended under the rubric of John 8. That’s a curious thing, as the sort of person most likely to use John 8 as a conversation-ending rebuttal is very often the same sort of person that clings to the idea of equality of the sexes.

From the Darkness of Abraham and Sarah

One of my early intentions with this blog was to keep it aligned with the blog’s name

Psalm 87

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
    incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
    I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known,
    that our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
    but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
    and the wonders that he has done.

by frequently writing about something that had jumped out at me from the spaces between verses in the Bible; things we can learn from the dark, but bring forth light.

Last night we watched the first two episodes of “The Bible” on Netflix. The acting, script, and directions is very good. I thought the stylizations kept with the spirit of the stories, that they were done tastefully, and they engaged my emotions.

The opening was clever, too. It’s Noah on the Ark, and he’s telling his family the creation story while they tend the animals, fix leaks, and generally fear for their lives. He explains to them why the Flood has come, but also that there is every reason to hope; that God has saved them in the Ark not only for themselves, but for a reason. They will live, and God will put them on dry land again. The Ark is temporary and life will come forth to rule the Earth again. All that is covered in five minutes of well-produced video.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that there was no sun for 40 days during the Flood, and there is a lot of darkness inside of an Ark, but light and life will come forth.

The rest of the first episode is about God establishing His covenant with Abraham–through Sarah–to give Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars. They show Lot being led astray by his wife, and Abraham’s intercessions on Lot’s part.

We see Abraham and Sarah age, and Sarah gives up her hope in God, as any barren wife would be tempted. They portray Sarah’s discouraged urging of Abraham to sleep with the slave Hagar; which discouraged Abraham does, and Hagar brings forth Ishmael. Years later, after a visit from God, His promise of descendants to Abraham through Sarah comes true when Isaac is born in Sarah’s dotage, and Hagar and Ishmael are sent away. I was heartbroken watching it..as well as the scene that followed. I leave that to my readers to discover.

Obviously they had to omit large chunks of Abraham and Sarah’s story to fit it into a 45 minute program. Some of the things they cut are what happens while Abraham and Sarah are traveling around. Sarah is beautiful, and twice when they enter foreign lands Abraham hands her over to be the wife of powerful men. She’s with those foreign men for days and days, but eventually is returned to Abraham with rebukes to him for not revealing Sarah was his wife!

There are many arks in the Bible, even if only two of them are called so by name: Noah’s Ark, and the Ark of the Covenant that held the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. Another of them, if you can accept it, is Sarah. Her womb was locked up; sealed, and protected because God knew that Abraham would have those times of faithlessness. Yet His will was to use Abraham and Sarah’s seed to bear His people.

That’s mankind’s story. The very wondrous and extraordinary protection which God gives us (because we are foolish!) is taken as a curse by we faithless. We mourn His protection, and we use it as an excuse to rebel. We tell ourselves that while we know we should be faithful, we’re “just being realistic”. It’s a lie. Realistic has no meaning if we don’t even understand what is really going on, and really at stake.

The Bewitching Rudeness of Magic!

Under my post Katy Perry Puts the Fun in Funeral, Elspeth asked if I would check out a song called Rude, by the band “Magic!”. I had forgotten, but yesterday she put in another request for me to crush it. Here are the remains.

Saturday morning jumped out of bed

The opening shot is a young man and a young woman frolicking on a bed in their sleepwear. They’re silly in that in-love kind of way. Now, I don’t want to give away anything too soon, but in just a bit the song will inform us those two are not married. It’s Saturday morning, their on his bed, and their in pajamas. They’re fornicating, and loving it. It’s presented as a happy and joyful time full of Magic!; just like the band’s name.

And put on my best suit

His best suit is sculpted crap. It’s a leather jacket, a raggedy tee shirt, black jeans, and what appear to be black ballet shoes. He’s not bearded, yet also unshaven. His hair hasn’t seen a comb in days; scissors for years. Best suits are supposed to reflect respect for the other person, and for the event. His best suit is carefully premeditated nonchalance to let everyone know he doesn’t give a damn about anybody else. Sociopathy is his best suit.

Got in my car and raced like a jet
All the way to you

We see that he’s a pack animal when he and his friends emerge from a run-down den of a house. There are multiple broken windows on the garage door; none even covered up, or even had the hanging debris taken down. It’s an important part of the house, too. It’s where he and his friends perform their music, which means there is a lot of expensive equipment that could get stolen, or ruined by water damage. His living place is sociopathic, state just as his clothes are. His car is an uncared-for junker, too.

In fact, now that we see fuller picture of his life: His best anything is the same as he does everything: nothing. The word “best” means absolutely nothing to this sociopath. Or, perhaps it better said that, to him, “Best” means whatever he wants it to mean. Some readers might be inclined think that I’m being unfair to a poor struggling artist who cannot afford much. Those readers are failing to grapple with the fact that he makes no effort to improve his situation. Poverty is not an excuse for a dirty car, empty broken windows, ratty clothes, poor hygiene, and pack of ne’er-do-wells when you’re going to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage. Money has very little to do with it. We don’t even do bride-prices anymore.

Knocked on your door with heart in my hand

To ask you a question
‘Cause I know that you’re an old-fashioned man, yeah

His recognition that her father has standards is important. It shows that (contrary to his assertion) the man has every intention to show disrespect to her father.

Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?
Say yes, say yes ’cause I need to know
You say I’ll never get your blessing ’til the day I die
Tough luck, my friend, but the answer is ‘No’

Which is exactly what the young man dared the father to say with his whole approach. It’s what he wanted.

Why you gotta be so rude?
Don’t you know I’m human too?
Why you gotta be so rude?
I’m gonna marry her anyway

Marry that girl
Marry her anyway
Marry that girl
Yeah, no matter what you say
Marry that girl
And we’ll be a family
Why you gotta be so
Rude

During the chorus the sociopath dances around like an eight-year old girl while his loser friends jam out. What is cute in a preteen girl is revolting in a young man.

When I call his friends losers, I mean it in two senses. Obviously according to the standards I’ve used in this post they are losers, but they are also the stooges of the sociopath. They are single. He is not. They are in the background. He is not. He has a car. They do not. They look like doofuses. He does not. When he returns from his challenge in faux dejection, the stooges give him a group-hug. It’s supposed to be spontaneous and cute, but it comes across as contrived and gay.

From there it’s basically a repeat. He keeps acting like a sociopath while daring her father to marry them, and the father never changed his mind. Meanwhile, the girls listening out there in radio land are bewitched into preferring sociopaths as “true loves”; which they are already inclined to do by their sin nature. and chicks love it. Young women love the idea of telling Dad off and having a “really good reason” to do so; wishing for a legitimate reason to assert their independence.

The rest of the lyrics are unnecessary to parse, but there are some scenes worth it. In one, the father invites over a Beta respectable young man for the woman to consider, but she can’t stop texting the sociopath long enough to get to know him. Texting at the table is rude and sociopathic, but is again presented as being “true to love”. At one point the father offers a toast, and the daughter refuses to participate; instead offering a derisive curl of the lip. That’s also rude, by the way.

There’s another scene where we see the father trying to talk to the daughter like an adult. Well, she won’t stand for that. In the middle of his exercise in patience she flounces off in a huff, goes up to her room, puts on some skanky outfit, and runs out the door; presumably to fornicate with the sociopath some more. The Magic! of rudeness.

Then there’s the obligatory mocking of our parent’s weddings by dressing “ironically” in a ill-fitted tux and sock hat with an improperly tied bow-tie. She’s in a white wedding gown that shows off a huge slutterfly tattoo on her shoulder. The father, unmoved, turns him down again and the wedding party happily dances off without the parents; a celebration of a mission accomplished.

It is anathema for the sociopath to ask the father what he can do to win approval. If he did, the daughter would probably lose interest as she purposefully chose to date a sociopath. The whole song is an inversion of truth: It is the sociopath who is rude, and trying to destroy love. It’s not a song about how much a young man loves a young woman. It’s a fantasy of telling fathers to go to Hell smuggled into a song about “the power of true love” and abusing the sanctity of marriage and family to do it.

Tah-dah! Magic!

 

Red Weddings in Canaan

Elspeth gave a party to encourage wives to be loyal to their husbands. During that, someone told a joke about loving their husband’s strength. This caused some emotional terrorists to start planting rape bombs; specifically “marital rape”. The idea of marital rape is an IED in our culture that is used to scare women into rebelling against their husbands. The impact of the charge of “marital rape” is to create a prisoner’s dilemma between a husband and wife; the exact inverse of the prescription in 1 Corinthians 7 for the husband to surrender his body to his wife’s sexuality and the wife to her husband’s.

The main bomb-maker left, but not before G.I. Evangelical Joe showed up to make the world safe from terrorists by giving into their demands.

[W]hile the Bible does not say anything directly about marital rape in the Torah, it also does not say anything about abortion, and for the same reason; they were crimes mostly unthinkable to the Hebrews.Along the same lines, few states had bans on offing people in a VW microbus until Jack Kervorkian came along. Nobody thought there was a need.

The idea that the Israelites found abortion unthinkable is to put them on an imaginary pedestal of immense proportions. These are the people who will on-again-off-again sacrifice their  live-born babies on altars of Molech and other pagan gods. While we recognize that modern abortion is precisely the same in spirit, those Israelites were literally and manifestly worshipping foreign gods; sacrificing birthed, nursing, loved infants in full knowledge of their deeds. From this faulty start of romanticizing the Israelites he continues:

But it does not follow that forcing one’s wife was acceptable. It’s simply history, which is descriptive, not prescriptive–as Michigan residents who campaigned to stop assisted suicide would tell you, no?

For a place in the Torah that indicates the Hebrew attitude towards marital rape, let’s consider Deut. 21:10-14, which describes the treatment of captive women who are sexually desired by their captors.

It was, of course, the custom of invading pagans to rape all the young women when they conquered a city–she got to be a sex slave at best, a prostitute or dead if she were not as lucky. When she was no longer attractive, she would be sold into an even more humiliating slavery unless she found someone to protect her by some miracle.

Not the Israelites–a man got to provide for a pagan woman for a month, letting her mourn and getting to know her (perhaps gaining consent to the marriage) before he married her. He could not treat her as a slave, or sell her as one, and….

….even slaves were not to be treated ruthlessly. Now if a gentile woman merits this protection, what about a woman of Israel?

See what I’m getting at here? And this is why Peter (1 Peter 3:7) and Paul (Col. 3:19) tell the largely Gentile church…..more or less how to treat their wives like the Jews had been told to do.

The first error of the commenter I just quoted is that his idea of Peter’s encouragement for husband’s to be kind (1 Peter 3:7) and Paul’s warning for husbands not to be harsh (Colossians 3:19) is to base his judgment of what is kind or harsh solely on his own preferences. He doesn’t seem to take into account that he might be a bit effeminate; as we often see among modern American Evangelicals.

What follows this paragraph is most of my responding comment. This post is already long and it’s only getting started, but if are cruisin’ for a bruisin’ you can read the whole thing here.

I don’t think you’ve read that right at all. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 says:

10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, 12 and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. 13 And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14 But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

First of all: The whole chapter of Deut. 21 (not that it was originally in chapters) is about taking responsibility for those around you, while remaining innocent yourself. The preceding verses (v. 1-9) concern how the town nearest a found murdered body is responsible for making atonement for that murder, while also proclaiming their own innocence (if they are).

The section immediately after the captives (v. 15-17) talks about giving the firstborn his due regardless of a father’s favor for the son or the mother. Like the people in the city near the victim, the father does not get a choice about who is nearest himself (i.e., his firstborn): He must still honor him.

The next section (v. 18-21) is about how to deal with a rebellious son who refuses to repent by having all the men of the whole town take responsibility for killing the rebellious son and ridding their town of evil.

The last section (v. 22-23) about not leaving up a man hung on a tree. It puts the responsibility for a criminal to avoid God’s curse on the heads of the innocents and executioners near the dead criminal; who is responsible for his own death. It is also a foreshadowing of Christ’s crucifixion, and Joseph of Arimathea’s coming righteousness.

Keep that idea of imposed and imposing responsibility in mind. The context here (v. 10-14) of the taking of wives from female captives is: Accepting full responsibility even under duress, adverse conditions, mental anguish, and outside your control, and how to do that while maintaining innocence. So let’s look at v. 10-14 again.

10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, 12 and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. 13 And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month.

Here’s the picture: Battle-hardened men who are sick of death, pitiless towards the enemy, unfazed by tears, away from their wives and no marital prospects from home in sight are going to be tempted to take a woman. They will justify it by

1. That’s what the enemy would do.
2. By rights these women ought to be dead with their kinsmen.[1]

God, being the creator and fan of marriage that He is, says:

“Ok, but slow your roll. You have a right to take a wife, but be sure you want to exercise your right because there’s no going back.

Here’s a good test to see if you really want her, or if you’re just trying satisfy some temporary urges: Bring her into your home–the home of her family’s slaughterers. This is going to upset her wildly. Take a good look at that. Also: Make sure you’re not beguiled by her beauty or ornamentation. Shave off her lovely hair, cut those pretty nails, and get rid of the snazzy clothes she was wearing and put on some of the clothes of her family’s killers. Take another good, long look at her now: bald and grungy; weeping so that she slobbers and snots all over her prisoner’s garb. Do this for a full month.

During that time, she’s probably not going to eat right; loose skin; bags under her eyes; maybe some sores from malnutrition or lying in one place for days on end. She’ll probably try to escape. That’s not going to endear her to your family. They’ll have to restrain her while she’s kicking and gouging and scratching (another good reason to get rid of those nails!) She’ll probably get wounded; a black eye; maybe a tooth knocked out. There’s a good chance she’ll try to hurt herself; even kill herself. If she does, those scars aren’t going to be pretty, and everyone will know how they got there. Some women will just go crazy, or she might lose the will to live and start soiling herself. Immense grief can do that.

But, at the end of that month, if you still want her then go ahead. Here’s how:

After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

You’re going to have to go in there and take her. There is a good chance some crying may be involved when you–longtime enemy and the killer of her family–try to put yourself into her. You’re gonna have to push through that. Luckily, her nails have only been growing for a month, but if she’s not too weak from poor nutrition, injuries gained while trying to escape, etc.–there’s a good chance you’re going to have to use some force. Nevertheless, if you do you can be her husband, and sheshall be your wife. You don’t have to ask her because she’s been delivered into your hand, and you’ve made a vow.

Now, I’m serious about that vow.

14 But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

You’re going to have to see this through for the rest of your life. She’s not a slave. She’s not a commodity. She’s not a concubine. She’s your wife; the whole bald-headed, baggy-eyed, poorly-dressed, soiled, and supremely resentful shooting’ match of a woman is one flesh with you. If that isn’t what you want, then don’t go into her. You’ve already put her through the wringer. Just let her go, man.

What we have is a set of verses that says a lot about what men should expect to forbear at times within a marriage: resentment, ugliness…generally some hard times and hard feelings. Those verses also practically prescribe what modern ears will hear as “marital rape”. It wasn’t rape, though. It was a form of wedding as set down in God’s word.

My sense is that, ultimately, the commenter is experiencing the American Problem; (I say that as a fellow American.) and specifically an American Evangelical Christian problem. Our penchant is to see the Israelites, God, and life generally through the lens of recent good-old days of American culture and history instead of looking plainly at what he called the descriptive history. (Good term, by the way.) When the Israelites are obedient, to us they resemble WWII-1950s Americans as shown in American propaganda: Tough on the bad men, winsome to the bad women, and positively permissive to the good women. That wasn’t even life in WWII-1950s American…much less bronze age Canaan.

How this American Problem manifests in the current sexual and marital culture is that guys who say the things he’s said stand aside and congratulate themselves when a man is thrown in prison for what is considered “marital rape”. Those same men will merely cluck their tongues when a wife cheats or divorces; perhaps mumbling something about praying for her while they mow her yard (paging Empathologism) during the ensuing “separation to allow for prayer and healing”. If they’re really “strong Christians” maybe they pray for that man who is being divorced to be broken, to see himself as broken, and pray for his own repentance. I think we can congratulate ourselves on that brokenness: Mission accomplished! But where’s the equality, man?

That last paragraph is important because it’s true-to-form even if it’s hypothetical. It happens all the time, and much more frequently than instances of so-called “marital rape”. And the reason that frequency is important is because we can see that not only is “marital rape” a bone-headed idea in the abstract, but in the concrete…how our modern and corrupted view of marital relations actually plays out. The false idea of “marital rape” is part and parcel of a larger propaganda scheme that intends to drive wives from husbands.

[1]Notice also that her mother is dead and will be mourned alongside the dead father; who presumably was killed by the Israelites. Despite what the commenter tried to sell: Women were not spared by default. In fact there are many places where God tells the Israelites to kill everyone. God Himself wipes out everyone in Sodom; man, woman, and child. The Flood killed everyone including babies. That doesn’t mean we can kill with impunity, but it does mean that even killing itself is not always immoral. The right and the intent matters, even when considering sexuality or killing.