Moments of Hypocrisy

I had just watched “To Kill A Tiger” an emotional documentary centered around a 13-year old girl who had been gang raped by three young adults in her community. The girl’s family had reported to the police and sought justice from the courts. The community started to pressure the girl’s father saying he should marry her off to one of the boys who had raped her to take away the “stain” from her and recover his right standing in society.

This was my first time encountering the “marry-your-rapist” notion. After two hours and a few tears shed, I finished the documentary and wrote a caption I intended to post on my WhatsApp story. The caption went thus “Any society that supports the marry-your-rapist notion should have a place worse than hell reserved for them”. Just before I hit the post icon, I typed the word marry your rapist in google and found that it was a law or concept that protected the honour of a rape victim. It still did not make sense to me. Who started this and how did it start? I kept at my research and quickly discovered that the notion was from the Holy Bible.

Deuteronomy Chapter 22 vs 28-29 reads “If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out, then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days.” in that moment, I froze thinking to myself, how can this ‘horrendous’ concept come from the bible. How is that even acceptable? I was uncomfortable and a bit shaken. I became reluctant to hit post on WhatsApp and in that moment, I questioned my religious beliefs and became a hypocrite. I decided to read the entire chapter but reading it twice did not make a difference. It was clear, if you raped a woman, you are to marry her and not divorce her all your days.

Moments after, I was drawn to verse 21 that spoke of proof of virginity and how seriously it was taken in those days and it started to make sense. If not being a virgin brought shame and dishonour to a woman and her family, then it appears fair that if her situation was occasioned from rape then the man who had done it should indeed take her and be responsible for her because no one else will marry her. I imagine that this is most likely a painful and seemingly unfair situation to the victim and I can only imagine how the girls who went through this and are still going through this must feel.

Praying for safety.

 

P.s- You can kill a tiger by yourself.