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2 [1] The fine of 50 silver pieces represents merely the payment for the pleasure of sexual relations. In addition, a seducer is obligated to pay for embarrassment and damages in addition to the fixed amount mentioned by the Torah.
A rapist, moreover, also pays for the pain [he caused the girl]. [A seducer is not required to make this payment,] because a girl who willingly engages in relations does not [suffer] pain. A girl who is raped does, as reflected by [Deuteronomy 22:29]: "because he violated her." [2] Thus, a seducer makes three payments: the fine, and compensation for embarrassment and damages. A rapist makes four payments: the fine, and compensation for embarrassment, pain and damages. [3] The fine is the same in all instances. Whether one has relations with the daughter of the High Priest, or the daughter of a convert or a bastard, the fine is 50 silver pieces. The amount paid for embarrassment, damages and pain is not uniform, however. Instead, the amount must be evaluated [by the court]. [4] How is this evaluation made? With regard to embarrassment, everything is dependent on the identity of the person who is embarrassed, and the identity of the person who embarrasses her. The embarrassment suffered by a girl of high repute from a family of known lineage cannot be compared to the embarrassment suffered by a poor, ignoble maiden. And the embarrassment suffered at the hands of an important person of great stature cannot be compared to that suffered at the hands of a base and empty fellow. [5] On this basis, the judges consider the stature of [the rapist or the seducer] and his victim. They evaluate how much a father and the girl's family would give to prevent [these relations] from taking place with this individual. This is the amount [the man] is obligated to pay. [6] Damages [are evaluated] according to [the girl's] beauty. We look at her as if she were a maid-servant being sold in the marketplace: what price would she fetch as a virgin, and what price would she fetch as a non-virgin. For a man would like to buy a virgin maid-servant to give him to his servant, whose welfare and satisfaction he desires. [The rapist or the seducer] should pay the difference in the price.
The compensation for pain is evaluated based on her youth and the size of her body, and his age and the size of his body. We evaluate how much a father would be willing to pay so that such [a daughter] would not suffer pain from such [a man], and [the rapist is obligated to] pay [this amount]. [7] A seducer must compensate [the girl's father] for the embarrassment and damages immediately. He is not, however, required to pay the fine unless he does not marry [the girl], as [Exodus 22:16] states: "If her father refuses to allow him to marry her, then he must pay...."
A rapist, by contrast, must make all four payments and marry her immediately. Therefore, whenever the woman desires to divorce or when she becomes widowed, she does not receive anything. [8] [The following laws apply when] two men entered into relations with her, one through vaginal intercourse and one through anal intercourse. If the man who had anal intercourse with her was first, he is liable for embarrassment and for damages. If he was second, he is liable only for embarrassment, because she has already suffered damages.
The one who engaged in vaginal intercourse, whether first or last, is liable for the fine and all other payments. Nevertheless, the embarrassment and damages to a girl who had never engaged in relations at all cannot be compared to the embarrassment and damages to a girl who has engaged in anal intercourse. [9] We have already mentioned the girls for whom a fine need not be paid: They are ten: A *bogeret*, a girl who dissolved her marriage via *mi'un*, one who was divorced, an *aylonit*, a mentally incompetent girl, a deaf mute, a convert, a girl who had been taken captive, a freed slave, and one who has a tarnished reputation. A fine must be paid for all other girls. [10] Whenever a fine is required to be paid for a girl, compensation is also required for embarrassment and damages, and if she was raped she must also be compensated for the pain.
Conversely, whenever a fine is not required to be paid for her, she is not entitled to compensation for embarrassment and damages if she is seduced or raped. Exceptions to this are a *bogeret*, a girl who had dissolved her marriage via *mi'un*, a mentally incompetent girl and a deaf mute. [If they are seduced, no payment is required at all.] [11] What is implied? If a man rapes a *bogeret* or a girl who had dissolved her marriage via *mi'un*, although a fine is not required to be paid, compensation is also required for embarrassment damages and pain. And a man who rapes a mentally incompetent girl or a deaf mute is required to make compensation for pain. One who seduces any of these girls is not liable at all. [12] A person is not ever liable to pay a fine because of his own admission. Instead, he is made liable by the testimony of witnesses. Therefore, [if a man] says: "I raped or seduced the daughter of so and so," he is not liable to pay a fine. He must, however, make restitution for the embarrassment and the damages [he caused].
Similarly, when a maiden files a legal claim against a man, saying "You raped me," or "You seduced me," and he denies the matter entirely, he is required to take a Rabbinic oath to support his claim, for if he admits his culpability, he would be liable for the embarrassment, the damages and the pain. [13] If a girl claims, "You raped me," and the man claims, "No, I seduced you," he is required to take an oath mandated by Scriptural law with regard to [the compensation for] the pain, and he must pay the damages and the embarrassment. [The oath is required] because he admitted a portion of the claim [made against him], as will be explained in [the section dealing with that subject]. [14] The three payments made because of seduction, and the four payments made because of rape are made to the girl's father, for all the monetary benefit that accrues during a girl's youth belongs to her father.
If her father is no longer alive [at the time of the rape or the seduction], [these payments are made] to her. [15] When a girl who was raped or seduced does not file a claim until [either] she reaches *bagrut*, she marries, or her father dies, she herself is entitled to the three or four payments [mentioned above].
If she appeared in court and filed a claim for payment, and then she reached *bagrut* or she married, the father is entitled to the payments. If the father dies after she files a claim for payment in court, the payments belong to her brothers, for they are her father's heirs. [The rationale is that] once she files a claim for payment in court, her father is considered to have acquired the payments. [16] When a girl was consecrated and then divorced, she is entitled to the fine, but only that. If she was raped or seduced, and afterwards, she becomes consecrated to another [man], her father is entitled to the fine and the damages, for consecration does not take a girl out of her father's domain [and nullify his rights over her]. [17] I maintain that [the intent of] the Torah's statement [Leviticus 19:29], "Do not defile your daughter to have her play the harlot," is that a father should not say: "Since the obligation of the Torah for a seducer or a rapist was solely that he should give the father money, I will hire my virgin daughter to someone to have relations with her for whatever price I desire, or I will allow him to have relations for her without charge. For a man has the right to forgo monetary rights to him to any person he desires." To counter such thoughts, it is written: "Do not defile your daughter."
The Torah obligates a rapist and a seducer to pay money rather than be punished by lashes when the matter happened by chance, without the knowledge of [the girl's] father, and she did not ready herself for [the relations]. For this is an extraordinary and uncommon matter.
If, however, a person leaves his virgin daughter accessible for anyone to engage in relations with her, this will cause the entire earth to be filled with sexual immorality. For [ultimately], a father will marry his daughter and a brother his sister, [for in a sexually permissive society] a [girl] may become pregnant and give birth without knowing who the child's father is.
When a person has his daughter act in this manner, she is considered to be a harlot, and both the man and the girl who engage in relations should be punished by lashes, as [Deuteronomy 23:18] states: "There shall not be a harlot."
[In such an instance,] the man is not required to pay a fine, for the Torah prescribed a fine only in the instance of seduction or rape. When a girl prepares herself [for relations] either on her initiative or on that of her father, she is a harlot. And the prohibition against harlotry applies both with regard to a virgin and a non-virgin.
For this reason our Sages stated that a girl who was reputed to have conducted herself immodestly while young is not entitled to a fine, as we have explained, for we can assume that she willingly opened herself to this experience.
Version: Mishneh Torah, trans. by Eliyahu Touger. Jerusalem, Moznaim Pub. c1986-c2007
Source: https://www.nli.org.il/he/books/NNL_ALEPH001020101/NLI
License: CC-BY-NC