Sexual Assault Interactive Theatre: History of Sexual Violence

Writing this section proved to be a much more formidable task than it first appeared. I soon realized, with the helpful feedback of women who do not share my European background and heritage, that there are many histories to be told. That the roots and traditions of sexual assault have innumerable shapes. Cultural values impact what is handed clown and the unique ways women have experienced sexual assault across cultures. Today, in the United States, women who experience sexual assault have many things in common. Some things may be very different, depending on the person's age, class and ethnicity. It is impossible to do justice to this subject in such a short amount of space, so we will try to give some examples while acknowledging the inadequacy of this approach from the beginning. Doing this short piece has given me a renewed sense of loss for all that we do not know as women about our ancestors.

Understanding the history of sexual violence and the social and political functions that it serves can go a long way in helping us facilitate healing with individuals and inform our work in public education and systems change. This is particularly critical when working with people of non-European descent. By breaking the silence about the long history of systematic cultural genocide and the many abuses that occurred throughout history, we give permission to our clients to break silence about their abuse and we are able to maintain a clear understanding of the importance of systems and social change.

Throughout this manual you will see numerous examples of how sexual assault is not an isolated event that happens to a few individuals in a random, unpredictable way. Rather it is a logical, though completely intolerable, extension of a firmly entrenched misogynist worldview, either subscribed to or imposed upon millions of people over thousands of years. It is also important to look at how rape, an extreme form of sexism, functions to also reinforce other systems of oppression such as racism, classicism and heterosexism. Some of this history will be interwoven throughout this manual.

The ruling culture in power in the United States today has it's roots in the beliefs and practices of ancient western civilizations who worshipped a male deity, revered men as leaders and cast women in submissive and subordinate roles. To establish their values as primary and to expand their influence throughout the world, these ancient patriarchal societies systematically destroyed or colonized (and hence controlled) groups that held beliefs or practiced traditions in which women played a central role.

Much information has been completely lost to us. Entire nations of people have been killed directly or as a result of invasions and wars over many centuries. Many of these cultures of people relied on oral, not written, means of passing information to future generations. Some ancient records and artifacts have been found and preserved. Yet what we know of them we have been told through 'interpreters". historians or archaeologists, outsiders who "discovered" the information, often long after those living it died or were killed. The information we have access to, to learn about the history of sexual violence has been recorded and maintained by the ruling class. Those in power have always determined what is important to preserve and have defined the roles and rules by which everyone is forced to live.

Today, information about these earlier societies is all but inaccessible to us. Many ancient records of goddess worshipping or matrilineal cultures have been mostly destroyed and what exists is mostly in archaeological institutions inaccessible to the general public. At the same time, documents from the Bible to recent historical records tell us a story of life predicated on an imbalance of power between men and women in all aspects of life. There is so much information to support this that we have been led to believe that it is natural. "It's always been this way" is a common statement made to justify sexual violence.

People living in the United States come from a vast range of cultural backgrounds, and people are still coming to this country from many parts of the world. To make blanket statements about the cultural roots of sexual violence, therefore, becomes impossible. What we know of history has been preserved by those in power: they have decided what to save and what to destroy; what is important and what is not. Moreover, they have interpreted for us the meaning of what has been saved. Unfortunately, even this piece will reflect that bias in many ways because of the inaccessibility of other information.

Origin of rape
The English word "rape" is derived from the Latin "rapere" which means to steal, seize or carry away. This was a very old means by which a man "seized" or "stole" a wife in ancient western societies. In reality it constituted enforced marriage, since a man simply took whatever woman he wanted, raped her, and brought her into his tribe or nation. Rape was thus conducted under the guise of respectable behavior, rewarding the rapists for the misuse and abuse of women. To a certain extent, this attitude has not changed.

Women as property
In all the ancient civilizations of the west (and in many others) women were the property of their fathers and later in life of their husbands. Marriage was often a monetary transaction, with the suitor or his family paying the "bride-price" to the father/owner. While bridecapture still occurred, it went on with regard to other tribes or peoples who were enemies in war or conquered by a stronger people. When women were property, the right of ownership passed from the father to the husband in marriage. The woman literally belonged to her husband; damage to his property was a direct offense against the husband. If an unmarried woman was raped, her bride-price was lower, for she was "damaged goods." Thus in some ancient societies, rapists paid the traditional bride-price or some variation of it to the father, whose economic interest was harmed by the rape. Under these societies, the woman had few personal rights; her feelings and experiences were discounted.

The practice of treating women as property to uphold the class status of white males became a part of the history of this country through slavery. An African-American woman's body belonged to her master. She had no legal protection and no right to refuse. Women were exchanged or bought in slavery, where their sexual services were part of their labor and where their children were also the property of their masters. Slave children were expected to work as soon as they were able to. Class for white men was determined by the steady production of slaves and those who owned more slaves could dominate those who didn't. The forced exploitation of African-American women by white men was totally acceptable and sanctioned as a means by which white men gained power and economic and social status.

Rape during times of war
In most times and places, rape has been a weapon of war, or the prerogative of the victorious soldiers over a conquered people. Indeed. the city of Rome was founded and created with the rape of Sabine women. During the sack of Troy, women were raped by the victors. At other times in western history the massive use of rape occurred during war. In 1453, when Constantinople fell, the city's women and young girls were raped by Ottoman troops. During the Indian massacres by whites of this country, troops committed atrocities against Indian women. In 1864, at the Sand Creek massacre, Indian women were raped and sexually mutilated. In 1937, when Nanking fell to Japanese troops, the women of the city were raped. During the Viet Nam war, the rape of Vietnamese women by U.S. troops was common.

Today, rape is a criminal act of war under the international war laws. Despite this, [rape] continues to be an act of war.

Virgin rape
In ancient times, a virgin was often believed to possess religious powers by virtue of her chastity. Some thought that she possessed God-given powers to ward off evil spirits, cause fields to be fertile, and to ensure divine blessings on her community. Her chastity was often revered and protected for religious reasons, as well as for economic ones. Hence, among some ancient peoples, the rape of a virgin was both an economic loss and a possible risk of the wrath of the gods.

Babylonians and Assyrians considered raping a virgin to be particularly sinful. If the rapist was married, he was put to death. If he was unmarried, he paid the father three times her marriage price, and married his victim without any right to divorce her in his lifetime. The marriage of an unbetrothed rape victim to her assailant was also considered a fair punishment among the ancient Hebrews.

Rape and its punishment
Historically, the degrees of punishment meted out to the assailant depended on three factors- the social status of the victim and/or offender; the resistance or consent society judged in her; and, sometimes, the location of the rape. Many of these ancient guidelines still apply today.

Among the most well-known of these ancient laws are those found in Hebrew Bible or
Old Testament:

In such ancient laws it was the status of the girl or woman which was the primary concern in determining punishment. The assailant's punishment is said to be because he "dishonored another man's wife." Second, the location was important because of certain assumptions about her behavior and about the ability of the community to rescue her. The law assumed that a rape victim would cry out in a crowded area, and ignored victims who might be paralyzed with fear. The woman in such a case was presumed to consent and so was punished as an adulteress. If the woman were raped in the country, she was not guilty because no one could have heard her cries. (The location of the rape between city and countryside may seem strange to modern people, but, in fact, we often make similar distinctions about the location of the rape when we ask victims, "What were you doing there anyway?") The very meaning of the crime-along with its penalties -was closely attached to the community's assumptions about how rape was presumed to happen.

Rape was a capital crime not only in ancient Israel: It continued to be punishable by death in a variety of forms until the twentieth century. While the death penalty was no doubt a statement of the seriousness of the offense, it often made juries through the centuries hesitant to find assailants guilty.

Note that the differing status of the victim was related to her age. Thus, the woman in the opening sentences of Deuteronomy was presumably an adult. The girl who is "betrothed in marriage located in the city or the country" might well have been a young teenager (possibly 12 years old -one of the traditional ages of betrothal). The girl "not yet pledged in marriage" was likely to have been quite young indeed. It is interesting to note that none of these laws relate to the rape of a married woman. One contemporary feminist scholar suggests that it was because the Hebrew law defined rape as "bride-capture."' Since a married woman was already taken, no one would be presumed to rape her

However arbitrary or strange these laws of ancient Israel may appear to women today, they were no more strange than those of other ancient western societies. In ancient Rome, the honorable course for a rape victim-even one totally understood to be blameless -was to commit suicide.' Rape victims may have been expected to follow this prescription well into the Middle Ages. In ancient Greece, a male lover was considered to be far more heinous than a rapist, since the lover gained the confidence of the wife and thus access to the household goods.'

In early English law, the punishments for rape also depended on social position. If a man lay with a maiden belonging to the king, he was to pay 50 shillings. If the victim were a grinding slave, the amount was cut in half. Furthermore, it appears that victims were also penalized. In the 13th century at least, rape victims fell under the same rules as for anyone who had illicit sex:

The rule that the assailant was to marry his victim evidently became a means of upward mobility for certain landless men: They could rape an heiress, be forced to marry her, and thereby inherit the family property. 5

Many of us think of "chivalry" as synonymous with respect and veneration for women. In fact however, only certain women were to be respected and venerated. Poor women were not included. Andreas Capellanus (whose name in Latin means "Andrew the Chaplain"), author of The Art of Courtly Love, suggested that a knight or nobleman who wanted a peasant woman should rape her on the spot since chivalry and persuasion would be wasted on her. These class biases persisted all over European society. One study of sexual offenses in 14th century Venice found that noblemen comprised three percent to seven percent of the population but were responsible for 21 percent of its sex crimes ("clearly only a fraction of their criminality," says the researcher). Noble offenders received only fines never jail terms. Moreover, their fines that were lower than the average -especially if the offense was committed against a lower-class woman. 6

In later English Common Law, rape was defined as the unlawful carnal knowledge of a female over 10 years of age, by a man not her husband, by force and against her will or without her conscious permission or where permission was extorted by force or by fear of immediate bodily harm. Carnal knowledge of any female under 10 years of age was also considered unlawful. 7 (Child marriages did occur: Records exist in which children of four years of age were married to each other, largely in order to consolidate great estates or for other political and economic reasons.) The aforementioned definition of rape in English law included three elements: force, lack of consent and sexual intercourse.

English Common Law was powerfully consolidated by Sir Matthew Hale in the 1600s. His famous "cautionary rule" about rape was passed down through the centuries: "it must be remembered that [rape] is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho never so innocent." This completely unfair comment enjoyed vigorous judicial support through the centuries. Furthermore, Hale stated that husbands may not be charged with the rape of their wives. 8

Witchcraft and rape
During the late middle ages and early modern period many thousands of women were systematically persecuted, burned, tortured and killed in a crusade against witchcraft. Among the practices of this period are some we can only consider sexual torture. One sign of witchcraft was said to be the presence of a place on the body numb to all sensation. Needles, pins and other sharp objects were poked into the flesh of the accused to determine whether she felt pain. It is difficult to know how often such probing was done to breasts and genitals; but it seems clear that this tactic was used by the inquisition. In addition, some scholars today suggest that some of the behaviors and reactions of the accused witches closely mimic the symptoms of child sexual abuse. It may be that accused girls and young women were sexually abused by their jailers during the inquisition's process, or previously by family members.

Rape laws in New England
Early on in colonial New England, rape was a capital offense. The mandatory death penalty was also prescribed for sexual intercourse with a child under ten. The court was reluctant to enforce the death penalty and rapists were rarely executed. Rape laws varied greatly from colony to colony. In Rhode Island's early laws, rape was a capital crime; in 1718 it was removed from the list of crimes against nature. In 1797, it once again became a capital offense until 1838. Settlement of damages in the form of monetary payments remained common and as we might expect from the previous centuries such payments devolved on the husband or father of the victim, rather than upon the victim herself

Rape laws in the South
White women became an important symbol of the supremacy of southern white aristocracy both during and after slavery. High standards were developed for her conduct and protection. Those high standards did not apply to her white male brothers and husbands, however. White men openly and systematically raped black women during slavery often doing so in order to breed black slave children to be sold for profit away from their mothers and families. These abuses continued long after slavery was ended -as the Reconstruction period attempted to reinstate slavery in all but name. Ku Klux Klansmen and other lynch mobs also systematically used the rape of black women as a tactic of spreading arbitrary terror in the newly freed black communities of the South, and as a retribution against freed people attempting to assert their rights.

At the same time, the South became symbolically obsessed with the danger of black men toward white women. Black "rapists" were lynched on the slightest provocation both during slavery and during the Reconstruction era. Strong laws against intermarriage and rape were enacted to serve the needs of the ruling white strata of society. Criminal codes all over the South made rape a capital crime. Courts enforced these codes in blatantly discriminatory ways well into the 20th century, frequently assigning the death penalty to black men accused and convicted of raping white women, but rarely to assailants -white or black -who raped black women. When the Supreme Court determined that capital punishment for rape was inappropriate, the racist character of this history was important factor in the legal arguments. Myths about black men and black women from these eras of our history persist into the present.

Women's resistance to sexual violence
In discussing the history of sexual violence, it is incumbent upon us to include information about women's resistance to it. It was from the formation of the women's movement that we began to emancipate ourselves from male domination, to reclaim our histories, and to name our suffering as oppression and to name rape as a crime against women. In the past 20 years, with the start of the women's movement we have made a lot of progress. We have seen the creation of rape crisis centers-places where women who have been terrorized and raped can seek support. We have organized protests, demonstrations and speak-outs. We have lobbied for changes in the law to make them more appropriate to victim/survivors of sexual violence. We have demanded accountability from the courts. from the police and other systems. Despite all our efforts, however, rape is one of the most frequently committed crimes in this country. The level of violence against women is increasing. Notwithstanding, we have not failed. We have created a change in consciousness. We have made it clear that sexual violence is intolerable and that we will not be silenced. We have created a legacy for future generations of women.

END NOTES
1. Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women 's Issues in Halakhic Sources, especially chapter 10. "Rape," (N.Y.: Schocken, 1984).

2. Ian Donaldson, The Rape of Lucretia, (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1982).

3. Sarah Pomeroy, "Goddess, Whores, Wives, Slaves: Women in Antiquity or Whatever."

4. Carol Adams, Paula Bartley, Hilary Bourdillon and Cathy Loxton, eds., From Workshop to Warfare: The Lives of Medieval Women, (Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 38.

5. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Wills: Men Woman and Rape, (N.Y.: Bantam, 1974), especially the chapter "In the Beginning Was the Law."

6. Guido Ruggiero, "Sexual Criminality in the Early Renaissance: Venice, 1338-1358," Journal of Social History, 8 (Summer 1975) 18-37.

7. Cyril J. Smith, "History of Rape and Rape Laws.' Woman Lawyers Journal, 60 (1974), P. 191.

8. Matthew Hale, Historia Placitorum Coronae, (London: Mitt and Gosling, 1734), p 635.