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Around the world, women continue to bear the brunt of laws punishing sexual misconduct. But does scripture really endorse such inequality? Elaine Storkey examines the passages at the heart of the debate
Earlier this year, Sudanese courts sentenced two women to death for adultery. One of them had been abandoned by her husband seven years earlier, before he returned to accuse her of being unfaithful. The other woman had borne her husband nine children, but he alleged their youngest was not his. Neither woman had legal representation and access to legal aid was restricted. Evidence for their guilt was minimal. Yet the women were sentenced to death by stoning, which fueled an international outcry. Eventually, the courts agreed to a review. The women are currently being detained in an overcrowded prison, which lacks basic necessities, pending their appeal.
Laws on adultery remain deeply contentious in many more countries than Sudan. In Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Nigeria and others, the legal consequences for marital infidelity are not applied equally to men and women. Male adulterers are likely to get complete legal immunity, minor fines or short detentions, whereas women face long imprisonment or the death penalty. Although these executions are scarcely carried out, disproportionate sentences for adultery are highly effective. According to human rights campaigners, they evoke fear in women and operate as social control.
In some places, legal trials are deemed unnecessary, as actual evidence is not required. The mere suspicion of a woman’s adultery is sufficient grounds for an ‘honour’ killing. Her illegal execution by male relatives has community support to restore family honour. In one notorious case in Pakistan, a pregnant woman was brought to be punished by the brother who had raped her. The men who carry out these murders face minimal consequences
Some years ago, I asked two Sudanese officers about the discriminatory codes against women. I was taken aback when they told me that their culture was no different from the UK, where men often beat their wives with impunity. They have a point. In our own nation, around 900 women have been killed by a partner or ex-partner during the last decade. Women’s refuges offer shelter to approximately 11,300 women fleeing domestic assault each year. And only a small proportion of violent cases reported to the police result in a conviction.
However, when these Sudanese men also claimed that the same Bible accepted by UK Christians encourages husbands to punish their wives, they were on much shakier ground. We find a stark disconnect with that view when we examine the texts
What the Bible says
The Hebrew scriptures were given to patriarchal cultures where marriage was arranged between families and subject to expectations of a bride’s virginity. Women had little choice in their future partner. The laws on adultery were largely to protect the integrity of family and inheritance lines, and a woman’s marital status was significant. Adultery was defined as sexual relations between any man and a woman married or betrothed to someone else. Punishment was severe; the penalty was death. Yet, the law stipulated that both the adulterous man and woman must die (Deuteronomy 22:22-23; Leviticus 20:10). If the man had sex with a married or betrothed woman where she could not call for help, it was rape not consensual intercourse, and the man alone was to be put to death (Deuteronomy 22:25). The rape of a single woman was not adultery but a different offence; one that required the man to marry the woman and pay financial compensation to her family, without possibility of divorce (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).
Biblical morality offers no justification for disparity in punishing adultery
These biblical texts – and many others – do not create a hierarchy of guilt based on gender. Sexual transgression was viewed as a joint violation of a sacred covenant and required identical judgement. Men were not given implicit immunity: men could even be executed and women freed where there was ambiguity about consent. Despite the ancient patriarchal social structure, the legal codes on adultery found in the Old Testament were far more egalitarian than what we see today in many of our courts. For, unlike in Sudan and elsewhere, patriarchy was not the dominant factor in the penal code; instead, the deeper moral and legal framework of biblical law undergirded it. That included the demand for clear justice and impartiality. Magistrates were commanded: “Do not pervert justice or show partiality” (Deuteronomy 16:19; 1:17; Leviticus 19:15; 2 Chronicles 19:7). Protection for the vulnerable was also instructed. “Uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4; Exodus 22:21; Leviticus 19:9; Deuteronomy 10:18; Psalm 82:3; Proverbs 31:8-9).
The Woman Taken in Adultery by Rembrandt (1644) highlights the hypocrisy of self-righteous men bringing the woman before Jesus to try and trap Him. While the men are all in darkness, the woman is bathed in light and wearing white, weeping and vulnerable as she awaits their decision
Based on equality
These directives are developed further in the New Testament, where retributive punishments are discarded and mutual protection encouraged. Peter urged men to confer respect on their wives because they are comparatively weaker; they are to honour them as co-heirs in Christ (1 Peter 3:7). Paul saw both wife and husband as having mutual authority over one another’s bodies (1 Corinthians 7:4). Jesus refused to reinforce the patriarchal system on divorce, arguing that Moses’ concession of a bill of divorce for wives was because he recognised the hard-heartedness of men (Matthew 19:8). And when, in John 8:1-11, the crowd brought Jesus a woman “taken in adultery” to be stoned, He exposed their hypocrisy: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” The Mosaic law had already been ignored here: the man involved in adultery was nowhere to be seen. Jesus persistently challenged the blaming of women and the weaponising of law against them. He established mercy and repentance as the route to righteousness.
Biblical morality offers no justification for disparity in punishing adultery. Although the Old Testament texts were given into a patriarchal context, the Bible’s moral framework requires equal punishment of both guilty partners. This has little in common with modern legal and cultural systems that disproportionately target and scapegoat women for sexual misconduct. Tragically, this widespread rejection of explicit biblical demands for justice and equality grossly abuses the vulnerable and creates terror. It leaves millions of women trapped in a human rights crisis.
Elaine StorkeyElaine Storkey is a philosopher, sociologist and theologian who has been called the UK’s leading Christian feminist. She has held posts at the Open University, King’s College, London, and the University of Oxford. She was formerly president of Tearfund, and has since been involved in monitoring aid, relief and advocacy work in countries of the Global South. Her books include Scars Across Humanity: Understanding and overcoming violence against women and Meeting God in Matthew (SPCK)
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