Rape Victims to Marry the Rapists?

I had been under the impression that Deuteronomy requires a rape victim to marry the rapist, but examining more closely I think this is wrong.

This is from Deuteronomy 22 (NIV), and the section starts:

13 If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” 15 then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. 16 Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels[b] of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.
20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

This is nothing to do with rape, but is about the importance of virginity for a woman. If she was not a virgin when she married, that was a terrible thing.

22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

These are not about rape - this is the point about the woman not crying out. This is a man and woman have consensual sex, in the first case the woman is married, in the second case not.

I think there is an assumption here that a woman would be betrothed from a young age, so there would be no cases where a woman was neither married nor betrothed.

25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

This is the case of rape, and it is clear that the man is to be executed.

28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels[c] of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

This is the troublesome verse. The NIV clearly says "rape", but that is not what it says in the Hebrew, which is much more vague. Given 25-27 say the rapist must be executed, it would be very odd that in this situation the rapist is hardly punished at all.

A better interpretation is that this is about a man and woman eloping. The man has taken the woman from her father (who in some sense owns her until she marries), rather than agreeing a bride-price with him. The woman is now "damaged", no longer being a virgin, so the law requires the man to "do the right thing" by marrying her, and is obliged to pay a bride-price to the father.

In view of this, I think it is wrong to claim that the Bible requires rape victims to marry the rapist.