One particular prescription in Deuteronomy 25, found in verses 11-12, involves the only command to cut off a part of someone's body outside of the Lex Talionis laws. This actually feeds into several misconceptions of Biblical laws in terms of how allegedly brutal they are supposed to be and in terms of the nature of the crime itself. One textual misunderstanding is the idea that the verses are an extension of Lex Talionis, which is easily refuted, and another misunderstanding is that the crime the woman commits is automatically sexual or, according to some other people, automatically nonsexual. Clarifying each of these actually leads to important facts about Biblical ethics.
Deuteronomy 25:11-12 completely refutes the idea that the Biblical Lex Talionis applies outside of an extremely narrow range of unjust physical injuries of a permanent nature, just as the punishments for rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), perjury (Deuteronomy 19:15-19), assault against one's parents (Exodus 21:15), minor assault (Exodus 21:18-19 and 21), and kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) already show. Were this not the case, then Deuteronomy 25:11-12 would say that the offending woman should have her genitalia seized, not that her hand should be cut off. Her punishment is not to do to her what she did to her victim; that is only applicable in very specific cases of severe physical assault.
While the text does not specifically describe an assault that is necessarily sexual in nature, as genitalia, like the rest of the body, are not sexual even though they can be used in sexual ways amd therefore touching them is not inherently sexual, it is entirely possible that a woman could assault a man by grabbing his penis or scrotum with intentions of sexual degradation in mind. The only reason this would strike some people as bizarre or improbable is the influence of fallacious gender stereotypes. Deuteronomy 25 makes it clear that this is to be taken very seriously whether or not there is evidence that the motives of the woman (or man, if the gender of either the perpetrator or the victim were changed) had any sexual elements.
In either case, there are definite ramifications for the Biblical stance on sexual assault that falls short of rape, the ultimate manifestation of sexual assault. If a woman is to have a hand removed for grabbing a man's genitals even to help her husband during a fight (and logical extension would also mean this is the just punishment for a man who grabs a woman's genitalia either to save someone in a fight or to sexually assault) she would certainly deserve to lose her hand if she sexually assaulted a man by seizing his genitalia against his will, whether the act was a spontaneous assault or a planned one. This penalty would apply in scenarios other than the very specific one mentioned in Deuteronomy 25:11-12.
The passage, if it is ever mentioned at all by Christians, is usually either pointed to as a supposed example of cruelty prescribed by the Bible (as if subjective and cultural perceptions would determine this anyway) or as something humorous. If a man grabbed a woman in this way, the broad societal response would probably be quite different, and the passage at least takes assault of men's genitalia by women seriously. It is also very relevant to how Biblical morality addresses sexual assault even though the specific assault in the case law scenario is not automatically sexual in nature. This, along with how it proves that Lex Talionis was never meant to even extend over all cases of physical assault, are by far some of the more important ramifications.
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