The "intent" of Shariah is to make things easy, if you can believe that. The Judges are supposed to err on side of caution, and when faced with a choice, always take the one that causes least hardship and pain. Shariah itself is not God's Laws. It's a legal framework created by jurists whose opinions were shaped by the times they were living in. It was never meant to be a static codex of law. The Jurists always used to re-interpret the "law" and religious meaning, starting from 6th century. They stopped around 9th century when they felt they had answer to every question (of their time). The Apostasy law for example, was shaped by the Muslims living during the time of Mongols. Ibn Taymiyyah was instrumental in organizing the Muslims to fight the Mongols, who nominally accepted Islam, by declaring them apostates.
The whole thing about women's testimony being equal to half of men; It's supposedly only applicable in business dealings like corporate finance. Even then, I've read that a Judge has the discretionary power to accept testimony from only one woman if he desires. I totally reject that contrived reasoning Kinitari posted about some lady talking about menstruation and mental issues. If that was the case, woman's testimony would never be accepted as equal to that of men in every condition. This is demonstrably false. The quickest example comes to mind is the Law of Ri'an, where a man's 4 testiomonies are equal to or negated by the woman's 4 testimonies. Regardless, the point still stands that in subset of civil law dealing with business and finance, two women may be required to provide testimony opposed to one man. Some conservative schools have extended this two witness rule across the entire legal system. One of the reasonings I've heard is that in a traditionally men dominated society where business and finance was overwhelmingly conducted by merchant class of men, women were not as prevalent in business dealings around 7th century arabia. That makes more sense than ridiculous claims about psychological conditions.
Similarly in the case of "stoning", the judge has the discretion to substitute that punishment, if it ever comes to that, with something else. I mention "if it ever comes to that", because 4 witnesses are absolutely required to see the act happen. And by the "act", I mean they need to witness the penetration itself. Either that or the person needs to confess. Even after confession, they should be tried to dissuade, since Muhammad himself tried to dissuade a lady 3 times after she said she committed adultery. Because of these conditions, there was only one reported stoning carried out in the 800 year history of Ottoman Empire Caliphate. On top of that, Muslims are told to "cover" the sins of others and not make them public, lest Allah makes their sins public.
