Exodus 21:7-11

THE RIGHTS OF FEMALE SLAVES

"If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master, who hath espoused her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; to sell her unto a foreign people he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he espouse her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three things unto her, then shall she go out for nothing without money."

We are surprised that Noth suggested a "contradiction" between Exodus 21:2 and Exodus 21:7, although he did not use that word. The difference he supposed might have been due to the "view that only a man is a person, while the woman on the other hand was a possession."[16] How can a "Christian" commentator ascribe such a reason to Almighty God? NO! Nothing like that is here. What is in view in the case of selling a woman was that she would be used as s second-class wife, or a concubine. It is easy to see that, to make such women to be "released on their own" would be to do them a grave injustice. This Bill of Rights for women-slaves guaranteed to them legal status as permanent members of the families to which they were indentured, and, in the case of their being given to a man's son, endowed them with the status of daughterhood! They also had the right of returning to their father's home in case their master took another wife and denied them the three basic rights of food, cohabitation, and clothing. In such a case, the woman was free without the return of the purchase money.

"Her duty of marriage ..." "This is but a single word in Hebrew, defined as `cohabitation.'"[17]

The class of persons protected by these God-given rights was that of secondary-wives, or concubines, as indicated by the double mention of "espoused" and the mention of the duty of marriage in Exodus 21:10. Another right implied here but not specifically mentioned was the right of children born to such unions to inherit through either the master or his son. It was precisely this that compelled Abraham to send Hagar away in order to prevent Ishmael from becoming an heir to Abraham's wealth above Isaac. "A slave wife could be unfairly treated if they fell into disfavour, and the price of such unfair treatment was that which gave her her freedom."[18]

All of these "rights" of slaves (Exodus 21:1-11) have led some to criticize God's allowance of slavery under any circumstances. However, "God allowed slavery upon exactly the same basis that He allowed divorce (Matthew 19:3-9), allowed the monarchy (1 Samuel 8:7-9), allowed a representative priesthood instead of the priesthood of all Israel (Exodus 19:6), allowed the building of the Temple (2 Samuel 7:5-17), and allowed slavery here! "People were going to traffic in slavery anyway, so the laws were established to give some kind of protection to the enslaved."[19]