ABSTRACT
The Pentateuchallaws also rule on sexual intercourse with a girl still living in her father's house, at which time she is expected to be chaste. According to Exod 22:15-16, if a man seduced an unbetrothed girl he had to marry her; he has engendered an obligation that he cannot refuse, and must, moreover, offer the customary brideprice. Her father had the option to refuse her to him, in which case the seducer must pay a full virgin's brideprice. The assumption in this rule is that the father has the full determination of his daughter's sexuality, a situation also assumed in the two horrible tales of the abuse of this right, Lot's offering of his daughters to the men of Sodom (Genesis 18-19) and the man of Gibeah's offering of his daughter and the Levite's concubine to the men of Gibeah (Judges 19). These men were attempting to cope with an emergency situation in which they felt their lives at risk, but the narrative considers them within their rights to offer their daughters, and Lot, in particular, is considered the one righteous man in Sodom.
