Comentario sobre Deuteronómio 22:25

'ואם בשדה וגו, if this rape had taken place on an field, far from civilization and help; you might argue that there is not much difference between rape in this paragraph and that in the previous paragraph, as the fact that the Torah decrees the death penalty for her attacker makes it is clear that witnesses must have been at hand, otherwise how could her attacker have been brought to justice? We have to answer that there is a basic difference between a rape that takes place in an open field, of a woman who walked there without a chaperone, and rape in a city where a woman feels safe in walking the streets alone, unaccompanied. If the victim did not raise her voice in the city when attacked, where the chances are great that her cries will be heard, we must interpret this as tacit consent on her part, hence the more severe type of the death penalty. If that woman was attacked while walking alone in the field, and she had raised her voice and by chance her rape had been observed by witnesses who had heard her cries, and the attacker had been caught then he is brought to justice; he would be brought to justice even if she had not cried out, as we give her credit for having been afraid that if she cried out her attacker would also kill her. She is therefore not considered as having consented to her violation. The Torah does not justify her tacit compliance, but even if she told the witnesses not to interfere, she is not executed, as her compliance is presumed to have been influenced by fear for her life. The Torah even excuses her behaviour if when the witnesses arrived the rape was in full progress and her libido had been aroused by her attacker. Whenever there exists doubt about the victim of a rape having consented tacitly, no court will punish her. [Public opinion might. Ed.]