They shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the young lady, because he has given a bad name to a virgin of Israel. She shall be his wife. He may not put her away all his days.
The man who defames his bride must remain married to her and may never divorce her
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלוֹ־תִהְיֶה לְאִשָּׁה לֹא־יוּכַל לְשַׁלְּחָהּ כָּל־יָמָיו
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו דין מוציא שם רע כלומר שצונו להלקותו ושתהא אשתו לו לפי שבא בה גם כן ולו תהיה לאשה. וכבר התבאר בגמרא מכות (שם) בזה הלאו גם כן כמו שהתבאר באונס, רוצה לומר שלאו זה קדמו עשה. וכבר התבארו דיני מצוה זו בשלישי ורביעי מכתובות. (כי תצא, נשים הלכות נערה בתולה):
That is that He commanded us the law of the one who puts out a bad name - meaning to say, that He commanded us to give him lashes and that she be his wife. For also with her does, "and she shall be his wife" (Deuteronomy 22:19), appear. And it has already also been explained in the Gemara, Makkot (Makkot 15a), regarding this negative commandment, like it was explained about rape - meaning to say, that this negative commandment is preceded by a positive commandment. And the laws of this commandment have already been explained in the third and fourth [chapters] of Ketubot. (See Parashat Ki Tetzei; Mishneh Torah, Virgin Maiden.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a case law — "if X, then Y"
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
No applicability flags are recorded for this commandment.
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
- A monetary penalty
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding, with modification
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- Karaite Binding in principle
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 11QTa (Temple Scroll) 65:7-66:1 reinterpreted it
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifre Deuteronomy §237 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- Spec. 3.79-82 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.246-248 reinterpreted it
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 24:4-5 carried a parallel
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- middle assyrian laws false accusation against a married woman's fidelity; corporal punishment and fine for accuser Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §18 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi false accusation of unchastity against priestess or wife; public shaming (head half-shaved) Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §127 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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Article 16
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
CEDAW Article 16 requires equal rights of spouses with respect to dissolution of marriage; the compulsory marriage imposed on the defamed bride, combined with the no-divorce restriction, denies her the right to dissolve the union on equal terms with her husband, even though the rabbinic refinement gives her the practical exit that the biblical text does not.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The commandment uses compulsory and irrevocable marriage as the primary remedy for a man's false accusation against his wife, treating the marriage institution itself as punitive property-disposal rather than as a relationship of equal persons, with the woman bearing the practical burden of the law's remedial mechanism.