“I pray you, my brethren, do not so wickedly.  Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing, forasmuch as they are come under the shadow of my roof.”

And this man was saved, though his action was surely more villainous than the wickedness of the Sodomites who were destroyed with brimstone and fire.  In Judges (19:  22-30) we read of a man offering his maiden daughter and his concubine to a mob to prevent an unnatural crime being committed against his guest:  “Seeing that this man is come into my house, do not this folly.”  This case is of extreme sociological importance as showing that notwithstanding the strict laws of Moses (Levit. 20:  10; Deut. 22:  13-30) on sexual crimes, the law of hospitality seems to have been held more sacred than a father’s regard for his daughter’s honor.  The story of Abraham shows, too, that he did not hold his wife’s honor in the same esteem as a modern Christian does: 

“And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, ’Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon; and it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife; and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.  Say, I pray thee, Thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee.”

And it happened as he had arranged.  She was taken into Pharaoh’s house and he was treated well for her sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and other presents.  When he went to sojourn in Gerar (Gen. 20:1-15) Abraham tried to repeat the same stratagem, taking refuge, when found out, in the double excuse that he was afraid he would be slain for his wife’s sake, and that she really was his sister, the daughter of his father, but not the daughter of his mother.  Isaac followed his father’s example in Gerar: 

“The man of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister:  for he feared to say, My wife; lest (said he) the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.”

Yet we were told that Isaac loved Rebekah.  Such is not Christian love.  The actions of Abraham and Isaac remind one of the Blackfoot Indian tale told on page 631 of this volume.  An American army officer would not only lay down his own life, but shoot his wife with his own pistol before he would allow her to fall into the enemy’s hands, because to him her honor is, of all things human, the most sacred.

UNCHIVALROUS SLAUGHTER OF WOMEN