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Ask the Rabbi: answers from Project Genesis rabbis
What does Jewish law say about rape and seduction?
The Torah specifies fines for a man who rapes or seduces a woman, and he must also marry her; see Ex.22:16-17 and Deut. 22:28-29. But Rabbinical courts are no longer qualified to enforce these laws.
If a man rapes a woman he must pay a fine and marry her. I may be wrong about this, but rape has been found to be a very traumatic ordeal (both physically and emotionally), and many women spend the rest of their lives trying to recover from such horror. Also, many rapists are repeat offenders. How does paying a fine and marrying the victim serve as both punishment to the offender and justice for the offended?
This is actually a very complicated question, but I want to give an answer that is very simple. Think about it like this: If a man (G-d forbid) rapes a woman, he thinks that he will never have to see her again. However, if he has to marry her, he is extremely unlikely to want to spend the rest of his life connected to a woman that he knows hates him. This very fact will deter him in the first place. While every society has crazy people and psychopaths, Judaism tries to make the sin much less likely to happen in the first place, instead of worrying about it after the fact.
Just an interesting perspective to think about,
Rabbi Litt