The Bible Suggests Premarital Sex Between Consenting Adults is Fine — Prove Me Wrong
While the Bible makes it clear that premarital sex involving an unmarried virgin is condemned, things get far murkier when the woman in question is a widow. Once a woman no longer belonged to her father’s household or had her husband’s protection, the rules and cultural expectations clearly changed. The story of Ruth and Boaz is one of the most telling examples of this.
In the story, Naomi, an older widow with no male protector, decides her only hope for security is through her widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth. Ruth is young, attractive, and hard-working, but as a Moabite, she’s an outsider in Israelite society. She catches the eye of Boaz, a wealthy and influential man, while gleaning in his fields. (Gleaning — picking up what was left after the crop was harvested — was an act of desperation reserved for the poorest of the poor, widows, and orphans.) Boaz is kind to her, but nothing comes of it initially. Naomi, seeing her opportunity, gives Ruth some extraordinary instructions that, when read plainly, leave little room for misunderstanding.
Naomi tells Ruth to wash, put on perfume, and get dolled up in her finest clothes. Ruth is then instructed to go to the threshing floor after the harvest feast, where Boaz and the other men will be celebrating. Naomi explicitly tells Ruth to wait until Boaz is drunk and has laid down to sleep. Then — and this is crucial — she tells Ruth to go to where Boaz is lying, uncover his feet, lie down, and, in Naomi’s words, “do as he says.”
Let’s break this down. Naomi is essentially telling Ruth to make herself as attractive as possible and wait for Boaz to be in a vulnerable, inebriated state before climbing into bed with him. In a culture where unmarried virgins couldn’t even walk around unaccompanied without risking their reputations, sending a widow alone at night to an all-male gathering with instructions to get into a man’s bed is bold, to say the least. There is no other way to interpret Naomi’s plan than as a deliberate attempt to create an intimate and private encounter between Ruth and Boaz.
The exact instructions Naomi gives Ruth are recorded in Ruth 3:3–4. Many modern translations render Naomi’s final instruction as “he will tell you what to do.” However, the original Hebrew phrase — v’hu yagid lach et asher ta’asin — is better translated as “do as he says.” This phrasing is not neutral. It implies complete submission to Boaz’s wishes, whatever they might be. Naomi is not leaving anything to chance; she is sending Ruth to act decisively, and the cultural and textual clues suggest that she expected Ruth to use every tool at her disposal, including her sexuality, to secure Boaz’s favor.
The setting of the threshing floor further supports this interpretation. Threshing floors were not just places of work; they were associated with post-harvest celebrations, drinking, and, often, debauchery. Boaz, as a wealthy landowner, would have been hosting and indulging in the festivities. Naomi’s instructions to wait until Boaz was full of food and wine make it clear she was timing Ruth’s approach for when Boaz was most relaxed and open to persuasion. This isn’t a romantic proposal under the stars — it’s a calculated, strategic move.
The act of uncovering Boaz’s “feet” is another critical detail. The Hebrew word used here, regel, literally means feet, but it is also used euphemistically in the Bible to refer to male genitalia. While some argue that Ruth simply uncovered Boaz’s actual feet to wake him up, the euphemistic possibilities are hard to ignore, especially in the context of an intimate, nocturnal encounter. By uncovering Boaz, Ruth was creating a situation that could not be misinterpreted — she was making herself entirely vulnerable and placing the next move squarely in his hands.
When Boaz wakes up and finds Ruth at his “feet,” he is startled but not outraged. Ruth doesn’t waste any time. She tells Boaz, “Spread the corner of your garment over me, for you are a kinsman-redeemer.” This phrase, often softened into a symbolic request for marriage, is loaded with physical and relational meaning. To “spread one’s garment” over someone was a culturally recognized metaphor for claiming and protecting them, often with marital and sexual overtones. Ruth is essentially asking Boaz to take her right then and there.
Boaz’s reaction is revealing. He praises Ruth for her loyalty and for not pursuing younger men, but he also immediately agrees to her request. Importantly, he invites her to stay the night and insists on secrecy. He tells her to leave before dawn so that no one will know she was there. If this encounter had been purely symbolic, why would secrecy matter? The need for discretion strongly suggests that what happened on the threshing floor was more than just talking.
The cultural context further supports this interpretation. Widows in ancient Israel occupied a precarious position. Without a husband or father to provide for them, they were vulnerable to exploitation and often had to rely on their own resourcefulness to survive. Naomi knew this and devised a plan that would give Ruth the best possible chance at securing her future. The threshing floor was an unconventional setting for such a plan, but it provided the privacy and opportunity for Ruth to make her case — and her vulnerability — clear to Boaz.
The story of Ruth and Boaz is not one of sanitized courtship or accidental romance. It is a story of calculated risk and human vulnerability. Ruth, a young widow, did exactly as Naomi instructed. She prepared herself, approached Boaz in a private and intimate setting, uncovered him, and made herself completely vulnerable. The Hebrew text, the cultural context, and the human dynamics all point to a night of physical consummation, not just symbolic gestures.
What’s more, the Bible doesn’t condemn this. The union between Ruth and Boaz is celebrated. Contrast this with King David’s affair with Bathsheba. David’s actions — taking another man’s wife and arranging her husband’s death — are explicitly condemned. Bathsheba’s status as a married woman made the act a sin. But had she been a widow, there would have been no issue. The lack of condemnation in Ruth’s story speaks volumes. Widows occupied a unique space in ancient society, and the rules surrounding them reflected the complexities of survival, vulnerability, and intimacy.
The Bible is full of stories that reflect the complexities of human relationships, and this is one of them. Ruth and Boaz’s tryst on the threshing floor and the bibles lack of condemnation makes it clear, widows are fair game. Prove me wrong.
