diff --git a/lib/hoe.rb b/lib/hoe.rb
index 9059426..472c0ae 100644
--- a/lib/hoe.rb
+++ b/lib/hoe.rb
@@ -676,6 +676,8 @@ def intuit_values input
                .map(&:last)
                .each_slice(2)
                .to_h { |k, v|
+                 raise "No body for %p section" % [k[0].strip] \
+                   unless v
                  kp = k.map { |s|
                    s.strip.chomp(":").sub(/(?:=+|#+)\s*/, '').downcase
                  }.join("\n")
diff --git a/test/test_hoe.rb b/test/test_hoe.rb
index 7b996cd..4b81642 100644
--- a/test/test_hoe.rb
+++ b/test/test_hoe.rb
@@ -171,6 +171,20 @@ def test_initialize_intuit_ambiguous
     end
   end
 
+  def test_initialize_intuit__empty
+    Dir.mktmpdir do |path|
+      Dir.chdir path do
+        File.write "README.rdoc", "= blah\n"
+
+        e = assert_raises RuntimeError do
+          hoe
+        end
+
+        assert_equal "No body for \"= blah\" section", e.message
+      end
+    end
+  end
+
   def test_file_read_utf
     Tempfile.open "BOM" do |io|
       io.write "\xEF\xBB\xBFBOM"