SEDUCTION. — In biblical language the term has various meanings. At times it denotes any action aimed at inducing others to error or fault; in this sense the devil is often called the “seducer,” and his work of inducing to evil, especially in the end times, is precisely qualified as seduction (cf. 2 Thess 2:10; 2 John 7, etc.). In particular, seduction refers to the act of inducing to idolatry (cf. Deut 7:4) and impurity (cf. Prov 5:20; cf. also Gen 34:1–31; 2 Sam 13).
The Old Testament deals with seduction in the latter sense in Exod 22:16–17 and Deut 22:23–29. In the first passage it is said that “if a man seduces a virgin not yet betrothed, he shall give the dowry and marry her; if the girl’s father refuses to give her, he shall pay a sum of money according to the dowry customarily received by virgins.” In the second passage it is said that in the case of the seduction of a betrothed virgin, if it occurs in a city, both she and the seducer “shall be stoned, because she did not cry out... the man because he humiliated the woman of his neighbor.” If this occurs in the countryside and with the use of violence, “the girl shall suffer no harm.” Only the death penalty remains for the seducer. If, however, the girl violated under such conditions is not betrothed, the seducer “shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver and shall have her as his wife, because he has humiliated her, and he may not divorce her for all the days of his life.” As can be seen, a distinction is always made between a betrothed and an unbethrothed virgin, between city and countryside, and there is always mention of force and thus of violence. When marriage follows, the possibility of divorce is excluded.
The prescriptions of the Old Testament significantly influenced canon law, which required that the seducer of a virgin, in addition to taking her as his wife, also provide her with a dowry, restricting the duty to provide a dowry only when she or her father did not consent to marriage (X, 5, 16). Practice, however, increasingly led to a disjunctive interpretation: either marry the young woman or provide the dowry: “hodie contra stuprautes virgines sine vi, non est in usu alia poena, quam ut illas ducant in uxores, vel concedenter dotent” (I. Clarus, *Practica criminalis de stupr.*, n. 3, in *Opera omnia*, II, Venice 1614). Yet such provisions proved more an incentive to seduction than a restraint: girls and parents saw in them a way to obtain a dowry or to achieve marriage. For this reason, some legislators established that the rapist be condemned to a penalty to be used for the benefit of the poor. Some even went so far as to remove all punishment and indeed the very action itself.
Current Italian legislation recognizes the crime of seduction “when there has been carnal union” (art. 326 of the Italian Penal Code) and stipulates that “whoever, by promise of marriage, seduces a woman under age, inducing her to error regarding his own status as a married person, shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to two years”; thus, the mere promise is not a crime; for this to exist, the woman must be underage and there must have been deception regarding the seducer’s marital status; therefore, no crime exists when the woman is of legal age and when the seducer is unmarried.
Current canon law does not contemplate a crime of seduction in the specific sense of Exodus and Deuteronomy or of the Italian Penal Code. Something akin to it is provided for in cann. 2353 and 2354, in which, however, emphasis is placed especially on the aspect of violence and abduction. Often, however, the *Codex Iuris Canonici* deals with crimes that, in a broader sense, could be called seduction: noteworthy in this regard is can. 904, concerning the solicitation to turpitude by a priest confessor (cf. *solicitatio ad turpia*).
From a moral standpoint, seduction is gravely reproved both for the fault the seducer intends to commit and for that to which he induces the person he seeks to seduce, and sometimes for the means by which he seeks to achieve seduction; it thus accumulates in itself the offense against the virtue to which the object of the seduction is opposed and the offense against the love of neighbor, to which one must seek to procure good even at the cost of one’s own sacrifice.
Given the configuration of the fault, seduction also entails the obligation of reparation. For this to be truly valid, however, there must have been actual damage; in practice, there must have been an obstacle to marriage, conception, or birth. A point that has long drawn the attention of scholars and still divides authors today is whether reparation must take place through marriage. In this regard, it is rightly observed that marriage, especially in its current marital and family structure, involves a significant coincidence in the way of seeing and conducting life; when this is lacking, instead of a good, it becomes an evil and a misfortune; in such a case, adding marriage to seduction would mean adding to one evil another, graver one.
Pastorally, therefore, caution and realism will be necessary, avoiding hasty, simplistic, and sentimental solutions. It goes without saying, from a pastoral perspective, that considerable prudence will be required before pronouncing on the existence of seduction and on its perpetrator.
For the meaning of seduction taken in the sense of temptation, see **TENTATION OF MAN**.
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