With all the still-popular gender stereotypes (all of which are necessarily, universally false for the same reasons), societal double standards, and complementarian misconceptions of the Bible, many of William Luck's errors regarding the Biblical ethics of divorce are to be expected from those in academia. He mistakenly regards what the Bible says is required of a spouse, of significant relevance to the issue of permissible divorce, to be heavily tied to whether someone is a man or a woman. See here [1] for the words of his I am primarily reacting to. However, he goes further than many, to the point of holding to asinine bullshit such as that a wife does not have an obligation to not slander her husband, though a husband has an obligation to not slander his wife, simply because Deuteronomy 22 does not specifically say a wife must not defame her husband.
Luck, even so, does acknowledge that acts of physical harshness could be committed by wives against husbands and that this is relevant to the according to him gender-specific reasons why men are permitted to divorce their wives. Of course, if something is not immoral, no matter how harsh it is, it would not be abuse, so there could be no such thing as physical abuse of husbands that is not actually evil. One aspect of his ironic stupidity is that he write as if husbands and wives do not have mutual obligations to each other wherever the Bible does not specifically attribute them to both husbands and wives, but he also brings up abuse of husbands as if it would still be abuse and thus by nature immoral even if wives did not have an obligation to not physically harm their husbands or if it did not warrant divorce. A great deal of this series will emphasize how Biblical ethics, including in matters of violence, broader marital obligations, and divorce are certainly gender egalitarian.
Besides his particular mishandling of moral particulars, Luck also couches various statements in the phrasing of subjective satisfaction rather than objective logical necessity, a misplaced emphasis one way or another, for a rational (rationalistic) person is only "persuaded" to believe something by absolute logical proof as opposed to scholarly approval, hearsay, intuition, strong evidence, and so forth. He fails at conforming his worldview to the objective truths of reason at practically every turn, even articulating a basic thing like why he believes something as if personal persuasion is of any relevance. From his epistemological approach to his complementarian assumptions he thinks are taught by the Torah, Luck is thoroughly irrational despite getting some things about the abuse of husbands right. Here is the main section from the link of focus here:
"PROHIBITION OF HER ABUSE OF HIS BODY
Husband abuse of a physical sort is not directly mentioned in the Law. But it is indirectly. It is an implication of the same passages cited to prove that a woman’s husband may not abuse her (Exod. 21:26 f.). If slaves could be free of their master if beaten, what must we conclude of a master beaten by his servant? The Law might have justified death for the slave in those cases (cf. Exod. 21:15 for how the striking of authorities was treated), but we can be satisfied with no less a conclusion than that such abuse would have ended the master’s responsibility to provide for the dependent servant. The implications for this in marriage are obvious."
Surprisingly, he admits that wives are capable of physically abusing husbands and actually references Exodus 21:26-27, which conveys that a master/mistress must let a male or female slave go free if physically abused. It is true that if a male or female slave deserves to go free over abuse, so would husbands and wives. First, if people deserve to be released for abuse, spouses could not be an exception. Second, if a person cannot abuse their servant/slave and still figuratively hold onto them in a morally valid sense, a person cannot mistreat their spouse, who is not below them as their slave, and still have them as a marriage partner (unless they stay out of mercy). However, the way Luck thinks these verses relate to physical abuse of husbands by wives, verses which are relevant to spousal abuse and divorce, is only through a framework where husbands are like masters and wives are like servants on the basis of gender. Supposedly, a husband unjustly striking a wife (outside of self-defense, etc.) is like a master abusing his female slave, though the owner could be a mistress and the slave could be male, as directly acknowledged by the text. Supposedly, a wife unjustly striking a husband is akin to a slave abusing his or her master. There is no mutuality in this concept other than that husbands and wives both have an obligation not to physically abuse each other, with even the reasons why this is true differing.
What does Exodus 21:26-27 say? In the NIV, its wording is as follows:
Exodus 21:26-27—"'An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.'"
Instead of realizing the obvious fact that Exodus 21, both in verses 26-27 and in numerous other excerpts, puts forth a doctrine of rigid gender egalitarianism regarding victims of violence, Luck still tries to relate the principle of men and women deserving freedom from abuse to marriage in a gender-specific manner. He assumes that there must still be some difference at least in why men and women are allowed to go free in a context other than physical abuse of literal male and female slaves. In fact, the same behaviors are clearly declared to be mistreatment for the same reason no matter if men or women receive them, with no partiality based on the gender of either party (the offender or the victim).
Ironically, though, Luck's idea that a woman has done a greater wrong in physically abusing her husband than the other way around is what actually follows from certain tenets of complementarianism—yet this frequently goes unacknowledged. If violence was natural to men and submission to women, it would actually be the greater sin for the allegedly more submissive, weak partner to defy some supposed natural order by striking her superior in the marital hierarchy than it would be for the "naturally" aggressive partner to strike the alleged inferior in the hierarchy. This is not how many complementarians I have encountered speak or write. They instead deny that women can be physically abusive towards men in any serious way or, at best, perhaps trivialize it. And this is if they even consider such a thing at all, or consider it without fallaciously concluding it to be impossible.
Certainly, they do not align with the objective philosophical consistency of gender egalitarianism expressed in such verses as Exodus 21:26-27. If morality exists, the same actions would have to be sinful or righteous not on the basis of someone's gender, but based on the nature of the act itself. On this, the Bible agrees with what is already logically true. It is not that wives should not beat their husbands because this is specifically akin to a slave/servant assaulting their master or mistress or that husbands should not beat their wives because this is specifically like a master abusing his slave, but that husbands and wives should not beat or otherwise assault each other because the other party is a human who must not be treated in such a manner. And if either a husband or a wife fails to uphold these obligations, the victimized spouse can leave the marriage.
I also want to point out that Luck posits, as many do despite how he somehow admits additional factors that go overlooked by the masses (like how wives physically abusing husbands warrants divorce), that Biblically acceptable divorce is only over very particular, extreme sins like physical abuse. This is not what anything in the Torah says when God reveals miscellaneous exact details about Judeo-Christian ethics. Without the word divorce appearing, Deuteronomy 21:10-14 allows divorce if a spouse is not pleased with their partner enough to want to remain married. Only Deuteronomy 24:1-4 specifies that there must be a moral error in the other spouse for this personal displeasure to justify ending the marriage. To clarify, there is no single type of moral error in view. Ordinarily, any sin, or at least any sin that is not unintentional, entitles one's marriage partner to divorce!
Go read Deuteronomy 21:10-14 and 24:1-4 in full if you are not familiar with them. It is important that neither passage states divorce rights are different for men or women or says women cannot permissibly initiate divorce as some claim, which would already contradict Exodus 21:10-11, 26-27, and 1 Corinthians 7:15 at the very least. Each of these verses mention or require by extension that wives are at a minimum ethically free to divorce their husbands in the circumstances listed, specifically mentioning women. Nor do Deuteronomy 22:17-19 and 22:28-29, which mention cases where men lose their general divorce rights, quite say what some suppose, that husbands lose all ethical freedom to divorce no matter how they are treated if they have committed the actions described in each set of verses. In both instances, the man is said to have the obligation to never divorce her. But aside from the logical fact that no one could be morally required (if morality really does exist) to submit to abusive people in the midst of mistreatment, such as by never divorcing an abusive wife, and the fact that sexism is inherently invalid, does the Bible actually teach that men cannot divorce in Deuteronomy 22's scenarios even if they receive abuse?
Leviticus 24 simply says that injury (and only this precise class of assault) deserves eye for eye punishment, while Exodus 21 makes it clear that only permanent physical injury deserves such a penalty (Exodus 21:23-25); lesser injuries and assaults should instead be punished with monetary damages (21:18-19, 22), with some physical assaults deserving alternate punishments no matter the severity of the wound, if there is one (21:15, 26-27). There is no contradiction, but someone might think these two chapters are in conflict because of the precise wording. Conceptually, there is no logical disparity. There is also no contradiction between a person—a man in Deuteronomy 22's relevant case laws—losing their moral freedom to divorce over just any moral failure of their spouse and still having the right to divorce for abuse within the marriage, an inflexible human right. Exodus 21:26-27 already necessitates the latter. There is similarly no logical contradiction between a slave being obligated to serve their master "for life" if they choose this (Deuteronomy 15:16, NIV) and still being permitted to go free if abused.
The man or woman in Exodus 21:26-27 could have voluntarily made a vow to serve their master or mistress for the rest of their life (Exodus 21:5-6, Deuteronomy 15:16-17), something fairly similar to a marriage vow. Alternatively, he or she could have become a slave because they incurred restitution debt they cannot afford to pay (Exodus 22:3). Abuse still nullifies the slave's obligation to remain with the wicked master, no matter the reason for why they were a slave, even if their labor was to pay a debt required by justice or a result of a pledge of lifelong commitment. As for marriage, neither marital vows nor the sins for which the person in the case laws of Deuteronomy 22 (in the textual examples, a man, though a woman could also slander her husband, etc.) forfeited general divorce rights override the right of all men and women to go free from any abusive relationship. One does not even need to look to Exodus 21:26-27 with its explicit gender equality to see direct Biblical affirmation of how of course men are no exception to this; the book of Deuteronomy itself emphasizes this right to seek freedom from abuse, using the related example of a slave who has escaped from an abusive master/mistress (23:15-16).
This law in Deuteronomy 23 applies to both men and women for a variety of reasons despite the male wording in Hebrew and in certain translations, but in either case, a man is blatantly revealed to have the moral right to permanently separate himself from an abusive figure. The passage's greater subtlety in its connection to divorce does not diminish its relevance, including to why husbands and not wives alone can permissibly divorce for abuse, no matter if one partner or the other has done something that limits the right to divorce for a wider range of offenses. See below that Deuteronomy 23:15-16 says nothing to exclude women from the plain human right to divorce or otherwise flee from abuse, whether the abuser is a man or a woman. Either way, men are permitted to separate themselves from abusers as well according to Deuteronomy! Note that Deuteronomy does not specify that physical abuse alone entitles someone to flee. As for translations which use male language in reference to people of either gender as with Deuteronomy 23:15-16, also see that Exodus 21:26-27 exemplifies how the Bible sometimes references both men and women together while also using male words for both in translations like the King James Version.
Deuteronomy 23:15-16 (NIV)—"If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them."
Deuteronomy 23:15-16 (KJV)—"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in the place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."
Exodus 21:26-27 (KJV)—"And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
Before I come back to the relationship of Deuteronomy 23:15-16 to how men can still divorce abusive wives even in cases like that of Deuteronomy 22:17-19 and 28-29, here are some crucial, relevant truths. Although the original language (Hebrew) does reportedly use male wording, in light of logical extension, the Torah's doctrine of men and women equally bearing God's image (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2) and thus having identical rights and obligations (with anatomy-related exceptions like male circumcision), and the fact that male nouns/pronouns can and in the Bible do often explicitly encompass both men and women, a female slave has the same right to flee abuse as a male slave.
As if Exodus 21:26-27's gender egalitarianism does not already overlap with and clarify Deuteronomy 23:15-16! And abusive mistresses are no less guilty than abusive male masters. Women are certainly not Biblically (or logically) exempt from guilt. The behavior is the same, and Exodus clearly condemns examples of such behavior. All people are equally human and equally valuable—though individual behaviors can make one person morally superior or inferior to another, the baseline human value remains constant and has nothing to do with gender. What follows regarding who commits or receives acts of abuse is obvious to any rational person.
Again, language that superficially refers to "men" is often used in the Bible to speak of both men and women, including when both are mentioned alongside each other, as seen above. Many other examples of the text using male words before/after mentioning both men and women distinctly are scattered throughout the Torah's laws (such as Exodus 21:20-21, Leviticus 13:29-39, and Deuteronomy 15:12-18) and the broader Old Testament (as in Job 31:13-15, Isaiah 24:1-6, and Esther 4:10-11), especially prevalent in translations like the KJV and ESV. Thus, even in light of how male pronouns refer to both men and women within Exodus 21:26-27 itself apart from all other relevant facts, the "man" who abuses his slaves is not necessarily a literal man, as opposed to a woman.
Deuteronomy 23:15-16, because of how male language can include women and for the same other independent reasons, does not strictly apply to male slaves running away from male masters (it also does mot proclaim a double standard for men and women). There is no escape from the pure gender egalitarianism of such verses with all their ramifications! And since slaves can leave abusive masters, so too can husbands leave abusive wives via divorce even when divorce rights are restricted according to Deuteronomy 22. Wives are not to abuse husbands or husbands to abuse wives, with divorce always being a morally valid option in such situations according to the literal doctrines of the Torah; not even men in the situations of Deuteronomy 22:19 and 29 sin by finding refuge through divorce from wives who abuse them.
To his very limited credit, in the linked page, Luck does not pretend to my recollection like husbands have a moral duty to resign themselves to abuse in these scenarios, though he does not bring up Deuteronomy 22:19 and 29 in regards to the right of men to escape abuse either way. I wrote about the real relationship between these verses, Exodus 21:26-27, and Deuteronomy 23:15-16 here in part because complementarian fools besides Luck might easily misunderstand the divorce restrictions of Deuteronomy 22 for a just and upright form of sexism. I have observed this many times. More importantly, the truth about divorce and gender equality is important, even if no one misunderstood it. Also, I have never heard of anyone else recognizing all of these connections!
Spouses of either gender are morally free to divorce abusive partners by the strictest of genuinely Biblical standards, no matter what. One can find only a single chapter after Deuteronomy 22 an affirmation of how even a slave does not sin by running away from an abusive owner, quite literally no matter what vow of commitment or moral need for restitution might have led to them becoming a slave. A spouse is to their partner more than a slave is to their owner, so from this alone, it follows that a spouse can escape abuse through termination of his or her marriage. Exodus 21:26-27 simply articulates even more explicitly what logic and other parts of the Bible already require: that the same rights would apply to both men and women as humans, cutting in both directions against misandry and misogyny, and that, if there is such a thing as mistreatment, the person who abuses another human must let them go free unless they voluntarily choose to stay.
In the follow-up post, I will focus on why Luck is further in error due to how he thinks Exodus 21:26-27 and 21:15 relate as pertains to physical abuse of husbands by wives.
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