Those who 'steal' intercourse, either through rape or through seduction, are compelled to pay a fine. This is not an automatic monetary obligation, for Torah law does not demand this payment. And these fines, like all fines, are collected through the court system and not through 'vigilante justice'.
On this topic, a new Mishna begins our daf. It teaches us that a man who admits that he seduced a woman is liable to pay for humiliation and degradation but not the additional fine. Likewise, when a man steals something and admits his crime, he must pay the principal for the item stolen but he does not pay the double, four and fivefold payments to cover the sale and slaughter of those items sold. The Mishna then describes the case of an ox that gores a person or a person's property. If he admits that his ox was destructive, he pays the basic fine. But he does not pay more than that. The principle is stated: One who pays more that what was damaged pays fines. He does not pay based on his admission, but on the testimony of others.
Most of the remainder of our daf presents us with a sequence of comparisons between these different cases. How do the rabbis determine humiliation when it comes to seduction? when it comes to rape? What about when it regards stolen items, or the goring of a slave by one's ox? Who is the person humiliated by the claim of seduction or rape, anyway? How might an innocuous killing by an ox compare with the an ox whose owner was forewarned three times? And does degradation only refer to the ill treatment of a corpse?
The Gemara works toward clarifying payment based on admission versus payment based on testimony. One point of note is that the expression 'monetary payment' is used to describe the full payment of damages. A 'fine' is used to describe the required payment that is either more or less than the amount of damage caused. When a person pays a fine, it is based on the testimony of witnesses only.
There are a number of arguments set forth regarding animals who cause damage to the property of others. It would seem that both dogs and cats were somewhat domesticated; if they were not actually house pets, they were used for herding, hunting, mousing, and other forms of personal protection. We are told in our notes about restrictions on dogs: violent dogs are to be chained at night and to be freed at night. Particularly violent dogs are to be chained at all times. I have to wonder about the treatment of these 'service animals'; the size of the chains and the manner in which they were treated. We do know that animals were fed before people according to Torah law.
Our daf ends as we begin Perek IV with a new Mishna. It teaches that if a young woman was seduced, she is entitled to the fine for seduction and to the additional compensation for degradation, humiliation (and pain, if she was raped). If she goes to court to sue the offender for this crime and she is a minor or still under her father's authority, the money goes to her father. If her father has died, the money goes to her brothers, her father's heirs. If she is married or otherwise independent of her father's authority when she stands in front of the judges, the money goes directly to her. However, her the money that she earns and items that she lost and then found go to her father if he is alive or to her brothers if her father has died. Those monies are the property of her father.
Certainly we will see much debate regarding this Mishna in tomorrow's daf.
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