Wives, Daughters, and Donkeys

Liberal skeptics have chastised the Old Testament as damnably anti-female, and one of their claimed reasons for this opinion is that the 10th Commandment allegedly depersonalizes  a man's wife and daughter by equating them with his ox, his donkey, and his house (Exodus 20:17). The skeptics are helped along in their hostility by the occasional koo-koo Christian ministry that proclaims a man's wife or daughter his "property"!  I myself have heard and read such nonsense in a few places. They are the cracked rightward image of koo-koo leftist Christian groups. 

Of course, when you want the Bible to be wrong, it's easy to find alleged "errors" like this. The leftward fundamentalist never allows the possibility that there could be perfectly sane interpretations of puzzling Bible passages.

Being "under the care of" is not the same thing as "owning." Moses was clear in Genesis 1-3 -- the woman was made of the same essential stuff as the man, God made her in His image, and God gave her authority to help her husband manage the earth. Killing a woman got you the death-penalty under Moses' law, which penalty elevated women far above the animal world. Women under Moses' system of laws could buy and sell their own property. Women could sue and testify in court.

Skeptics should try to be fair readers and size up the Old Testament for what it actually does say, rather than ignoring everything that doesn't fit into their worldview.  And I would really like it if all the different koo-koos would quiet down, though that doesn't seem too likely, does it?