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Women in
Judaism
The
Scarecrow Press, Inc. Metuchen,
N.J. 1976
Library
Of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, Swidler, Leonard J, Women in
Judaism. Includes index. 1. Women in Judaism. I. Title. BM729. W6S9 296
75-46561 ISBN 0-8108-0904-4. Copyright © 1976 by Leonard Swidler.
Printed in the United States of America
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“He who has no wife dwells
without good, without help, without joy, without blessing, and without
atonement.”
--Genesis
Rabbah 18, 2
A woman
is “a pitcher full of filth with its mouth full of blood, yet all run
after her.” --Talmud,
b. Shabbath 152a
“The
difference in the relations of men and women to each other makes a
constant difference between the Rabbis and ourselves. It is always
cropping up. Modern apologists tend to ignore or evade it. They quote a
few sentences such as ‘Who is rich? He who has a good wife’; or they
tell of a few exceptional women such as Beruria. It is quite true that
wife and mother played a very important part in Rabbinic life; it is
true the Rabbis were almost always monogamists; it is true that they
honored their mothers profoundly, and usually honored and cared for
their wives. But that is only one side of the story.... Women were, on
the whole, regarded as inferior to men in mind, in function and in
status.”
C. G. Montefiore, A Rabbinic Anthology
(Philadelphia, 1960), pp. xviii-xix
CONTENTS
I. PURPOSE AND SETTING
1.
Rationale of the Study
2. Status
of Women in the Ancient Fertile Crescent and the Greco-Roman World
a.
Ancient Fertile Crescent
b. The
Greek World
c. The
Roman World
3.
Ancient Hebrew Background
II. ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN IN WISDOM AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHICAL LITERATURE
1. Wisdom
Literature
2.
Pseudepigraphical Literature
III. ATTITUDE OF MAJOR JEWISH GROUPS TOWARD WOMEN
1.
Pharisees
2.
Sadducees
3.
Essenes--Qumran
4.
Therapeutae
5.
Elephantine Women
6. The
Rabbis
a.
Positive Evaluations of Women
b.
Negative Evaluations of Women
IV. WOMEN IN RELATION TO CULT AND TORAH
1. Women
Fulfilling Torah
2.
Segregation in Temple and Synagogue
3. No
Men, No Minyan
4. Women
Reading Torah
5. Women
Studying Torah
a.
Beruria: The Exception That Proves the Rule
b. Imma
Shalom: No Exception
c. Other
Non-exceptions
6. Women
Distract from Torah
V. WOMEN IN SOCIETY
1.
Women’s Education
1. Women
Bearing Witness
2. Women,
Children, and Slaves
3. Women
Appearing in Public
4.
Women’s Head and Face Covering
5.
Conversation with Women
6.
Women’s Absence from Meals
VI. WOMEN AND SEX
1. Women
as Sex Objects
2. Impure
Menstruous Women
3.
Married Women
4.
Polygyny
5.
Adultery
6.
Divorce
VII. CONCLUSION
NOTES
INDEX
CHAPTER I
PURPOSE AND SETTING
1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
This
study attempts to answer the question: What was the status of women in
the period of formative Judaism; that is, where did women stand in the
social scale in comparison to others, namely, men? Were they thought of
as having the same rights and responsibilities as men, and if not, how,
and why, were they different, and with what results? By formative
Judaism is meant the time span from about the second century before the
Common Era (B. C. E. ) to the fifth century of the Common Era (C. E. ),
and the geographical area first of all in Palestine and secondly in
Babylonia. This was the time and locus of the formation of what emerged
as mainline Judaism. Of the various Jewish “sects” teeming in the first
decades of the Common Era, such as Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes,
Zealots, and Christians, only the first and the last persisted in an
organized fashion, coming down to us as Judaism and Christianity. I hope
also to study the status of women in formative Christianity, but that
will be a subsequent volume, which of course could not be attempted
until this study was completed.
The
reason for undertaking such a study is not unlike the motive of the
teller of the story of Adam and Eve, namely, how can we explain the
contemporary relationships between men and women? Our attempt to answer
the question, instead of using mythic means, will use the historical-
critical method. Naturally all serious history attempts to be as
“objective” as possible, i. e., to “tell it like it was” (“wie es
eigentlich gewesen”), as much as that is possible within inevitable
human limitations. Like most historiography, this study is prompted by a
question that is important in contemporary life; in this case, the place
of women in human society and their relationship to men. Surely this is
a fundamental question and one worthy of being put to our past. Any
attempt at responsible history will seek to avoid tendentiousness and
hold the conclusions to what the evidence will bear. Concerning the
present subject on the one hand the positive evaluations of women in
formative Judaism will have to be sought out and recorded. But, given
the subject matter, it will be particularly important to guard against
the sort of apologetic that became especially prevalent since the
Enlightenment and the rise of the subsequent feminist movements: the
tendency to claim that Judaism, and Christianity, have really valued
women very highly and even made them “equal” to men, a claim that an
earlier day would have rejected. Josephus stated quite clearly that “The
woman, says the Law, is in all things inferior to the man,”1
and his contemporary, Paul of Tarsus, echoed the same idea: “Let a woman
learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or
to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.”2
A second
tactic which embarrassed modern Jewish and Christian, scholars have
adopted has been to grant, grudgingly, that women were treated
“differently” from men, but to insist either that this did not mean that
they were thereby any less valued, or that in any case it was “better”
that they be thus “differently” treated. Of course, treating two groups
of human beings differently does not automatically mean in logic
that one group is valued more or less than the other, but empirically,
when groups of mature human adults with millions upon millions of
members and a highly systematized social differentiation of major
proportions are in question, then there is more than ample prima
facie evidence that a higher and lower valuation of the groups is
involved. To argue oppositely merely on the grounds of logic or some
references to structurally superficial evidence, without a thorough
analysis of the structure of the society involved, and its
presuppositions and inevitable results, is to argue speciously. This was
the sort of argumentation that stated in America that it was a good
thing for Black slaves to be treated “differently,” that they were in
fact happier so, and referred to some statements and actions of “happy”
Black slaves and the paternal attitude of some benign slave holders. The
same approach led to the second line of defense after the abolishment of
slavery; namely, that Blacks were to have “different” schools, etc. from
Whites, but of course they would be equal! The United States Supreme
Court finally dismissed that line of argument as the rationalization of
the White group in power oppressing the Black group not in power. Such a
manner of arguing was not honest; it did not seek to describe reality “wie
es eigentlich gewesen.” To so argue in the matter of the status of
women would be similarly dishonest.
At the
same time this study cannot be an attempt to argue that the past under
scrutiny necessarily could, or should, have been different than it was,
or that the values of contemporary society are necessarily better than
those of the past. Rather, as initially stated, it can only be an
attempt to answer as accurately as possible on the basis of evidence,
the question proposed by the author--which naturally is prompted by a
contemporary concern. As a historical study, this work can only stand or
fall, in whole or in part, on the basis of the gathering and analysis
of, and argumentation from, the evidence available. However, distinct
from that study, but based on it, the author, not so much as historian
but as a concerned human scholar, who is also committed to religion,
institutional and otherwise, should also be able to offer an evaluation,
indicating something of the study’s significance for contemporary
society. That I expect to do in a concluding chapter.
The main
documentary sources for this study are the following: the later books of
the Hebrew Bible (mainly the Wisdom literature); the apocrypha, that is,
the additional books found in the Jewish translation of the Scriptures
into Greek (the Septuagint); the pseudepigrapha, i. e., Jewish writings
around the beginning of the Common Era which were not taken into the
scriptural canon; the Dead Sea scrolls; the works of Josephus, a Jewish
historian of the first century C. E.; the writings of Philo, the great
first century C. E. Jewish philosopher and religious thinker; and the
rabbinic writings. These latter include primarily the Mishnah, a
collection of the sayings, discussions and decisions of early rabbis,
called Tannaim, on how to live according to the Torah (codified around
200 C. E. ); the Babylonian Talmud, commentary of later rabbis, called
Amoraim, on the Mishnah (codified in Babylonia in the fifth century C.
E. ); to a lesser extent the smaller Palestinian Talmud (codified in the
fourth century C. E. in Palestine), the Tosephta, Mechilta, Sifre, and
Sifra Scripture commentaries (mostly all additional materials from the
Tannaim), and the early midrash--i. e., rabbinic stories, etc.
illustrating the Torah--mainly the Genesis Rabbah (codified in the
fourth century C. E. ).
2 STATUS
OF WOMEN IN THE ANCIENT FERTILE CRESCENT
AND THE
GRECO-ROMAN WORLD
To
understand any human event it must be seen in its historical context,
for every human event is the product of the interplay of the forces of
the past and the responses of the forces of the present. We can no more
understand a human event outside of its historical context than we can
grasp the concept of the sound of a single hand clapping--Zen Buddhism
notwithstanding. The importance of the historical context is even
further heightened when the human event being investigated is a
person’s, or a society’s, attitude concerning the status of the most
broadly distributed class of persons in a society, namely, the status of
women in society. Hence, to approach properly the subject of this
investigation-the status of women in formative Judaism--it is essential
to seek to learn the attitude toward women prevalent in the surrounding
milieux as this Jewish society developed.
a.
Ancient Fertile Crescent
By way of
remote background it should be noted that the status of women in the
ancient Near Eastern world was generally that of an inferior.3
Of the perhaps most ancient of those civilizations, the Sumerian, it has
been said that it was male-dominated: men ran the government, managed
the economy, administered the courts and schools, manipulated the
theology and ritual, and therefore women generally were treated as
second-class citizens without power, prestige, or status.4
However, as the eminent Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer has pointed out,
there are some indications that this was predominantly true only of
later Sumerian society, i. e., from about 2000 B. C. E. on. In the
earlier period the Sumerian woman may well have been man’s equal
socially and economically, at least among the ruling class. Further, in
the area of religion, the female deity was worshiped from earliest times
to the very end of Sumer’s existence. In spite of some manipulative
favoritism on the part of the male theologians, God in Sumer never
became all-male.
Among
other things, Kramer points out that polyandry apparently existed in
Sumer previous to 2400 B. C. E., for one of the Urukagina “reform”
documents of that period reads: “The women of former days used to take
two husbands, (but) the women of today (if they attempted this) were
stoned with stones (upon which was inscribed their evil) intent.” Kramer
pointed out that, judging from this rather strident boast, some women in
pre-Urukagina days practiced polyandry, and got away with it--which
hardly smacks of a male-dominated society. In this early period of the
twenty-fourth century some women also owned and controlled vast amounts
of property, enjoyed some laws which in effect enjoined something like
equal pay for equal work, and were able to hold top rank among the
literati of the land, and be spiritual leaders of paramount importance.5
By the
year 2000 B.C. E., and onward, the role of women deteriorated
considerably and on the whole the male ruled. For example, marriage was
then theoretically monogamous, but the husband was permitted one or more
concubines, while the wife had to remain faithful to her one and only
spouse.6
Continuing in this trend, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (1728-1636
B.C. E.) and similar laws legislated, for example, that men were free to
repudiate their wives for any or no reason7,
though the woman was able to divorce the husband only for very serious
cause;8
indeed, even if in such a case a wife e were “a gadabout,” her life was
forfeit: “If she was not careful, but was a gadabout, thus neglecting
her house (and) humiliating her husband, they shall throw that woman
into the water.9“
Polygyny was accepted, but not polyandry; hence adultery was solely a
crime against the husband10.
However, it should be noted that the oriental woman enjoyed, on the
other hand, a very large legal capacity. In the presence of the man
(father or husband) the oriental woman was silent and passive; but if
the man disappeared--and not only by death or by absence in the
technical sense, but even by a temporary absence--the woman became a
fully capable person.11
Such
general disability of women was not uniformly the case in the other
massively important cultural milieu in the ancient fertile crescent,
including Palestine, i. e., in Egypt. In fact, during half the history
of ancient Egypt, the age of the pyramids (2778 B.C.E. and following) to
the end of the Hellenistic period (30 B. C. E. ), women enjoyed a high
status. For example, during the third, fourth, and into the fifty
dynasties (2778-2423 B. C. E. ), when the highest level of culture of
the Old Kingdom was reached, daughters had the same inheritance rights
as sons, marriages were strictly monogamous (with the exception of
royalty) and tended to be love matches; in fact, it can be said that in
the Old Kingdom the wife was the equal of the husband in rights,
although her place in society was not identical with that of her
husband.12
With the decline of the Old Kingdom (2270 B. C. E.). centralized control
also waned and feudalism arose, which brought in its wake the decline of
individual rights and the rise of corporate rights in private law; this
meant that women lost their equality of rights and were subordinated to
men, usually fathers or husbands. At any rate, this was true among the
nobility (where polygyny then also became widespread) and on the land;
in the cities, commerce continued to be based on individualism in
private law (i. e., urban property remained free and alienable), and the
equality of the sexes persisted as under the classic law of the Old
Kingdom. In the cities the woman had an independent legal personality.13
The
situation was reversed again during the New Empire (1580-1085 B. C.
E.--18th,.19th, and 20th dynasties) and women again generally enjoyed
equality of status, particularly during the 18th dynasty (1580-1341 B.
C. E.). Centralization was restored in the monarchy and individualism
triumphed in private law, and consequently during the 18th dynasty women
recovered their entire independence and their own legal personalities.
They again took up the social role they had had, at the side of their
husbands, in the Old Kingdom.14
(It was during this period that the Hebrew people traditionally are said
to have lived in and left Egypt.) Once again in 1085 B. C. E. the
Egyptian empire disintegrated into a feudal pattern, with its stress on
corporate rights in private law and the consequent subordination of
women to men.
With the
beginning of the 26th dynasty (663-525 B. C. E.) and its centralized
monarchy a definitive change in favor of equality for women in ancient
Egypt took place. Women possessed a situation of legal independence and
from then on disposed of themselves freely. Absolute equality of spouses
was established in marriage. Strictly monogamous, the conjugal union was
based on the mutual consent of the partners and imposed on the spouses
identical obligations: the infidelity of the husband as well as that of
the wife permitted the injured spouse to obtain a divorce at her or his
own profit.15
Thus, as Jacques Pirenne put it, “we have arrived at the epoch of total
legal emancipation of the woman. That absolute legal equality between
the woman and the man continued to the arrival of the Ptolemies in
Egypt.”16
Pirenne
provides a very precise overview of the history of the status of women
in ancient Egypt from the beginning, excluding the Hellenistic and Roman
periods. Women in ancient Egypt were considered legally the equal of men
in the epochs of individualism. They were, on the contrary, treated as
minors and’ placed under tutelage in feudal-seignorial epochs, during
the course of which those social groups founded on the solidarity of
authority and hierarchy were restored. Pirenne argued that although that
conclusion could, in varying degrees, well be extended and adapted to
all civilizations, none, at least in antiquity, accorded to women an
independence equal to that which they knew in Egypt. Greek civilization
itself, which one nevertheless generally admits was the most
individualistic in antiquity, was far from granting women the
independence which they knew in Egypt during the periods of its apogee.
There is
there a very important element which perhaps ought to stimulate
historians of law as well as moralists to study, in comparison with
Greek individualism, Egyptian individualism which, before our period,
alone issued in the complete legal emancipation of the woman.17
b. The
Greek World
Let us
now turn our attention to those cultural forces, Hellenism and Romanism,
which largely formed the immediate context within which so much of
formative Judaism developed.
Some
scholars argue that the almost omnipresent patriarchy perceived from the
beginning of humanity’s written records was preceded by a very long,
beneficent period of matriarchy.18
This thesis, which is lent at least some support by the findings of the
Sumerologist Kramer (discussed above) and the Etruscanologist Heurgon
(discussed below), is, however, disputed. In any case, as a very careful
historian, Vern L. Bulloughl, noted in general, scholars have argued
that women in the Homeric poems, which probably were put into final form
in the ninth century B. C. E., had a higher position and were better
regarded than later in Greek society. However, by the time of Hesiod in
the eighth century B. C. E., male dominance was no longer in doubt, and
in Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. E. the “golden age” of
Pericles, the status of women seemed to have reached some kind of nadir
in Western history.19
In this
period of “classical” Greece there was also a large difference between
the status of women in Athens and in Sparta. Of the two largest Greek
city states, Sparta provided women with by far the greater freedom, i.
e., scope for human development, and equality with men. In Sparta women
wore clothes which did not restrict their movement (e. g., their robes
were open on the side)20,
and took part in sports (e. g., see the Vatican girl racer, a statue
originally from the time of the Persian wars), in politics,21
and in the owning and running of businesses and farms; in fact., women
owned almost forty per cent of all the real estate of Sparta,22
which in itself also tended to increase and sustain the high estimation
of women in Sparta.
Though
Athens was only a short distance away from Sparta and though the two
spoke basically the same language, the styles of life of the two city
states were dramatically different--and so was the status of women in
each. In Athens women did not participate in politics; in fact they were
largely shut out of social life as well. Among the works attributed to
Demosthenes we find the statement of one fourth-century Athenian: “We
have hetaerae for our pleasure (hedone), concubines for
the daily needs of the body (therapeia), and wives so we may have
legitimate children and a faithful steward of our houses.”23
Only the hetaerae (“companions”) were educated and entered into
male society. They were like courtesans who were to provide men with
interesting conversation and entertainment as well as venereal
pleasure--in short, social intercourse and sexual intercourse. Marriage
was usually monogamous in that there was only one legitimate wife at a
time. However, she normally did not mix with the husband’s male friends,
but was largely the bearer and rearer of legitimate offspring and the
administrator of the household--to which she was largely confined. In
Athens the wife “lived entirely or almost entirely as in a harem.”24
Leipoldt
has some very enlightening remarks about how Athens developed the
harem-like condition for its women:
Athens,
especially through its export business and commerce, became a rich city.
There were men who no longer worked (the rabbis have a very instructive
definition: a settlement is to be designated a city when there are to be
found in it at least ten men who do not pursue a profession Megilla 1,
3), and all necessity for the women to work outside the home
disappears--why else have slaves? Whoever has such trains them to take
over all toilsome work (ponos). Some wives will at first find
that pleasant and a reason to carry their heads higher. But now there
awakens the feeling among the men that the women are their personal
possessions, useless, but ornamental pieces, which one can best preserve
by keeping them at home (the notion of envy probably says too little
here). Thus is the path to the harem entered upon.25
An
important point that is alluded to here is that within the same culture
women tend to be more restricted in cities than in villages or in rural
areas (distinct of course from the lot of women of the landed nobility
in a feudal society, as in Egypt, where even women in cities tended to
retain a certain legal liberty, as noted above). The present writer
experienced this personally within the Arab Muslim culture in the fall
of 1972 when visiting the Muslim city of Hebron (south of Jerusalem) and
a number of Muslim villages nearby. In the villages the women always
wore a head covering, but never veiled their faces; in Hebron, however,
many of the women in the streets went about with face veils. Something
of the same thing occurred in the movement of populations to urban areas
in nineteenth and twentieth century America; pioneer and rural women had
a whole range of indispensable roles to play in their families and
societies, including a key economic one, and consequently led a human
life relatively as full as their husbands’. But when it was no longer
necessary to share in the fighting of Indians, or in working to help
provide food, clothing, and other necessities, they tended to become the
“ornamental pieces” mentioned above; the wives of most professional men
did not take a job, and so there later developed the mysterious malaise
among suburban women which Betty Friedan called the “feminine mystique.”
Thus,
economical and technological progress gradually released more and more
women from hard physical labor into being “ornamental pieces,” but this
same progress also tended to equalize men and women in that the male’s
physical strength became less and less important--a tiny woman with a
machine-gun was as deadly as any muscular male with the same. More and
more in a technologically advancing society, knowledge and experience
became the important things--and women could gain these as well as men.
Hence, although women are at first lowered in importance vis-a-vis men
as a civilization “advances,” if this advance continues sufficiently it
bears within it the seeds of a growing movement of women’s liberation.
This can, of course, be seen in the development of the feminist and
women’s liberation movements of nineteenth and twentieth century America
and Europe. But the same thing also happened in the Hellenistic and
Roman world, as we shall see in somewhat more detail later.
The
phenomenon of ancient women--and modern women--becoming “ornamental
pieces” was carefully analyzed by the twentieth-century sociologist
Thorsten Veblen, who in the process coined the concepts “conspicuous
leisure” and “conspicuous consumption.” When men earned more than they
really could use they would tend to use their superfluous wealth in a
public way that would call attention to it--like lighting a cigar with a
ten-dollar bill. The wives of these men, of course, became veritable
clothes models, for by the extravagance of a woman’s attire people could
see something of her man’s wealth--vicarious conspicuous consumption.
Likewise, the women of wealthy men, or men who had pretensions of
wealth, usually did not work, again to show publicly that the husband
had so much money that the wife need not work--vicarious
conspicuous leisure. Thus, the woman contributed little to the family or
society, became just an ornamental piece, a conspicuous consumer of
commodities for the sake of showing the husband’s wealth.
As wealth
massively increased in Athens it was no wonder that such women had no
significant part in the world of decision-making, that men came to think
of them as their possessions which they needed to protect from
thieves--in a restricted., harem-like existence.26
Shortly
after the time of the great philosophers of classical Greece--that is,
from the end of the fourth century B. C. E. on--an extraordinary change
in the general societal feeling took place, at first in Greece and then
elsewhere in the Hellenistic world; a sensitivity developed for other
persons, particularly the previously overlooked, and for animate and
inanimate reality all around. It was a cultural phenomenon something
like the Romantic Movement which burst upon the Western world at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. This change, which continued to
develop with the passage of time and spread throughout the Mediterranean
and Near East through Hellenistic military and cultural expansion, was
expressed in many ways, including painting, poetry, the emotions, and
concern for animals, slaves, children--and women.
An
appreciation of landscapes is usually something that children do not
possess; it comes only with the development of more intense human
emotions. Just as such an appreciation was often reflected in the
paintings of the Romantics and afterward, so too in Hellenistic and
Roman paintings the beauty of the countryside was highlighted--which was
not done in earlier Greek art--for example, in extraordinary wall
paintings in Pompeii.27
This more highly developed emotion and sensitivity was also reflected in
the much more frequent reports of expressions of joy or sorrow and of
crying than was earlier the case.28
There was
also an increase in fondness for animals. For example, those in the
Greek world who did not possess a dog were thought poor,29
and yet domestic dogs were almost unknown in the East in pre-Hellenistic
times; they were introduced through Greek influence, as can partly be
seen in the stories of Tobit and the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter
Jesus healed.30
This Hellenistic fondness for animals was also expressed in poems
dedicated to pets that had died. It is perhaps significant that it was a
woman, Anyte of Tegea in Arcadia (around 300 B. C. E.), who firmly set
the custom in Greek culture. Couplets by her, some in the form of grave
inscriptions, exist on a hunting dog, a locust, a dolphin, a war-horse,
and a rooster. Leipoldt says of her work: “These are really works of
art: brief texts in chosen language, without exaggeration, full of
genuine love for the animals--and each of the little poems is
differently constructed.”31
Another scholar has gathered together over fifty such examples from
antiquity,32
including the Latin: Catullus’ poem on the dead sparrow of his daughter
is perhaps the best known example.
Even more
important is the fact that this new sensitivity was also extended to
“inferior” human beings. Slaves were more often viewed as other humans
with various talents., feelings, etc., and were consequently more
humanly appreciated; e. g., they often were given grave stones. Children
received a greater appreciation, especially small children.33
(Again one is reminded of similar developments in early
nineteenth-century Europe under the leadership of children’s education
pioneers like Pestalozzi.) This “discovery” of children can be seen in
the Greek plastic arts: in the earlier period children were obviously
not thought important enough to observe carefully; only after the time
of Alexander the Great were the sculpted figures of children properly
proportioned. The figure of Eros on the east frieze of the Parthenon and
on vase paintings is that of a half adult; later it becomes a real
infant.
The
question naturally arises: Why the development of this new sensitivity
toward the end of the fourth century B. C. E.? The causes of such a
complex historical development can only be proportionately complex, but
a few “causes” do lie close to the surface. The new sensitivity became
apparent a generation after Alexander exploded the Greek world of city
states into the vast imperial world of Hellenism. Energies that most
Greek citizens had formerly devoted to politics could now be turned to
themselves, persons, and things around them, all of which they had not
had much time or energy to really observe or appreciate before. Also,
most humans cannot live merely as a single unit in a massive impersonal
organization; they must also have satisfying personal relations; they
must live in a personal community, or communities. That was possible as
a citizen in a city-state such as Athens or Corinth, but not in an
empire. Hence, not only was there now time and energy available to
devote to new relations, but there was also a need to find a more human
community (witness the incredible popularity of the mystery religions at
this time; indeed, the massive spread first of Judaism--perhaps ten per
cent of the population of the Roman empire at the beginning of the
Common Era!--and then of Christianity are still further evidence).
Whatever other “causes” of this historical event are put forth, these
two will at least have to be reckoned in.
In
ancient Greek society, as in many others, women were often categorized
with the other “inferior” beings, slaves and children--usually to place
some restrictions on them. Quite naturally, the development of the new
sensitivity which raised the status of slaves and children also led to
the raising of the status of women. In fact one can speak of a gradually
developing women’s liberation movement in Hellenism. It did not move as
rapidly or as dramatically as the one in the nineteenth century of
Western civilization, but it was clearly there and made enormous
advances from the time of Alexander to Constantine. In fact, already in
the fifth century, in Periclean Athens, there were at least the
beginnings of a movement, particularly in the areas of philosophy and
politics, as is attested to by the plays satirizing gynocracy and, just
a little later, by Aristophanes’ play on the first “Women’s Strike for
Peace,” Lysistrata.34
In speaking of a Greek women’s liberation, however, it is well to keep
in mind what was succinctly stated by Klaus Thraede: “One does well,
when concerned with the development of a freer situation [for women],
which nevertheless did take place in Hellenistic times, to distinguish
between Asia Minor and Athens and Sparta as well as between city and
land.”35
One might add to this the need at times to distinguish between early and
late Hellenism and, perhaps more importantly, between social classes.
Likewise, one must keep in mind the advanced state of the liberation of
women in Etruria, as well as Egypt, which persisted in the Hellenistic
periodic36
and also doubtless spread these ideas throughout the ancient world
through the medium of Hellenistic culture.
In terms
of “causes” of the spread of this women’s liberation movement in the
Hellenistic world, one must calculate, in addition to what has been
discussed above about the new sensitivity and about Egypt, the important
influence of the queens, princesses, and other royal women of
Hellenistic courts.37
The court of Philip II was not marked by great elegance and refinement,
but to it belonged Olympias, and where such an imperious and self-willed
woman reigned, her sex must have enjoyed a freedom and consideration not
possible in Athens. It was, however, on the model of the Macedonian
court that the officers of Alexander ordered their households, and when
Eastern customs were considered, they were the customs of the Persian
and Egyptian monarchies, where the queen and the queen-mother were
always potent personages. Hence they could but strengthen Macedonian
tendencies to accord women social and political importance. “The
influence of a court is always far-reaching, and in this case it
accelerated a movement, of which the Greek courtesans had been hitherto
the leaders, for the emancipation of women.”38
William
Ferguson added a further insight into the spread of Hellenistic women’s
liberation when he described how an Athenian girl installed in a new
home in Elephantine or in Antioch was dependent upon her own resources
to a much greater degree than one who remained at home surrounded by her
kinsmen and within easy reach of her natural guardian. She had to be
given freedom of access to the courts and personal right to hold
property, without which she would have been entirely at the mercy of her
husband. In other words, her parents were bound to see that privileges
were guaranteed to her in the marriage contract which they would not
think of demanding for their daughters who married their neighbors’
sons. The instability of life, the enormous increase of opportunity to
move from one place to another, made new safeguards for the wife and
mother advisable. The consequence was that everywhere in the Hellenistic
world the old rules of society were being abandoned, and new ones,
dealing with woman’s liberties, were being formed to take their place.
There had
been no such occasion for the creation of a new social regime since the
seventh century B. C. E. In Athens, as for that matter in the cities of
old Greece generally, these causes of social change were not directly
operative. A royal family did not exist there; the city was not
dependent for its prosperity upon its attractiveness to immigrants;
there was no new contact with foreign races. Hence it is the influence
of the hetaerae upon the structure of Athenian society, and the
reaction of the new world upon the old, that must be considered and, if
possible, measured at this point-“...the emancipation of women made
slow, if any, progress in Athens. It was, in fact, an unfriendly
territory for the social innovations of Hellenism.”39
The above
mentioned “cautions” having been noted, a rather impressive list of
indications of a gradually developing women’s liberation movement in the
Hellenistic world can be put forward. Even the form of address to a
woman that grew up in this period is an indication of her increase in
status: as it became customary in late Greek times to address men as
“Lord” (kyrie), it became equally customary to address women as
“Lady” (kyria); the custom split out of the Greek language area
into Latin as well, where men and women tended more and more to be
addressed as dominus and domina.40
To this
one can add the fact that in growing contrast to the earlier frequent
social restriction of the Greek married woman, in Hellenistic times the
wife was quite likely to turn up at social gatherings, at symposia;41
and women went on long journeys.42
Whereas earlier it was customary for Spartan women to participate in
sports, including the Olympics, women’s involvement in this area
advanced in late Hellenistic times to the point where there were women
professional athletes, as, for example, the three daughters--Tryphosa,
Hedea, and Dionysia--of Hermesianax of Tralles, who engaged in foot and
chariot races in the years 47 to 41 B.C. E.43
Many women pursued music as a profession,44
but not many became actresses or dancers (at least not “socially
acceptable” women),45
although we hear of women who traveled about Greece giving recitations,
such as Aristodana of Smyrna who was accompanied by her brother as a
manager.46
Asia Minor was known for its women physicians,47
though according to Pliny the Elder much of the information about these
women physicians was deliberately suppressed.48
On the level of skilled artisans, women often pursued a craft similar to
their husbands’, e. g., a woman goldsmith and a man armorer.49
The
position of women within marriage is, of course, an important key to the
status of women in society in general. We have noted something of the
atypical freedom and equality Spartan women enjoyed in classical times,
and something of the extremely limited position of other Greek married
women (being shut out of politics and social life and having to run
competition with the hetaerae and the concubines-that is, mostly
slave women who were always totally at the disposal of the husband,
sexually and otherwise).50
The Greek wife of classical time did nevertheless retain her right over
her dowry, even if a divorce occurred; and she as well as the husband
could initiate a divorce-quite a different situation than existed in the
Jewish world, where only the husband could initiate a divorce; but that
will be discussed in detail later.
In the
Hellenistic period the status of women in marriage advanced quite
dramatically, allowing, of course, for wide variation according to the
location and the dominant local legal tradition. Marriage was monogamous
in classical Greek times and it continued to be so in an even more
intense fashion in the Hellenistic period, e.g., the restriction on
concubines-as reflected in a late fourth century (311 B. C. E.) marriage
contract, presumably drawn up according to the Greek law dominant on the
island of Cos (off the coast of Asia Minor). Part of it runs as follows:
Contract
of marriage of Heracleides and Demetria. Heracleides takes for his
legitimate wife Demetria of Cos. He receives her from her father Leptine
of Cos and from her mother Philotis. He is free. She is free.... It is
not permitted to Heracleides to take another woman, for that would be an
injury to Demetria, nor may he have children by another woman, nor do
anything injurious to Demetria under any pretext. If Heracleides be
found performing any such deed, Demetria shall denounce him before three
men they will both choose. Heracleides will return to Demetria, the
dowry of 1000 drachmas, which she contributed, and he will pay an
additional 1000 drachmas in Alexandrian silver as an additional fine.51
Here the
husband is not only committed to monogamy and to marital fidelity (as is
the wife, elsewhere in the contract) but is even subject to a double
penalty if he violates that commitment. The contract also clearly
assumes an equal right for both spouses to initiate a divorce on the
grounds of infidelity. (It is also interesting that the bride is given
away by the mother as well as the father.) It should be noted that this
advance in the status of the married woman took place at a time and
place where the forces at work were probably Greek. The later Egyptian
influence could only further raise the status of women, which can be
seen in, among other things, the fact that in Hellenistic Egypt the
wife, as well as the husband, could initiate a divorce when and as she
wished.52
Klaus
Thraede speaks of Hellenism’s linking of the goal of women’s liberation
with equality in marriage: “In a more progressive civilization equal
rights for both women and men is a condition for married harmony (the
Stoics formulate it the same way also). Hellenism discovered that
because the value and individuality of the woman is fulfilled in
marriage, monogamy is required.”53
Women in
Hellenistic times also exercised extensive rights in the economic
sphere. A woman could inherit a personal patrimony--equally along with
sons!--buy, own, and sell property and goods, and will them to others.54
Indeed, in Hellenistic times there were wealthy Greek women, some of
whom were greatly honored for their philanthropy.55
Thraede sums the matter up when he says:
The
emancipation of the woman in private law was decisive for the
development which began already in the classical period: the
equalization in inheritance and property rights as well as the de facto
independence in marriage and divorce.56
In
classical Greek times a woman usually could undertake a public act--i.
e., one involving property or marriage--only with the cooperation or
approval of a kyrios (lord), who usually was the father, then the
husband. This institution, reflective of ancient familial solidarity,
continued into Hellenistic times.57
The custom, however, was resisted in Hellenistic Egypt, and was
eventually eliminated.58
For some time then, the Hellenistic woman exercised her quite large
public capacity with a kyrios under Greek law and without a
kyrios under Egyptian law. However, even outside Egypt the
institution of the kyrios declined to a mere formality59
and finally was eliminated in Roman times, i. e., after the Antonine
constitution of 212 C. E.60
Nevertheless., even in the third century B. C. E. many women initiated a
wide range of legal actions, civil, penal, and administrative--without
a kyrios.61
Not only Egyptian women did so, but even Greek. “This capacity is
without a doubt an innovation in regard to women living under Greek law
when compared to the institutions of classical times.”62
It is also an “innovation” when compared to the situation in
contemporary Judaism, where women were not able even to bear legal
witness.63
From one
perspective the dramatic difference in the status of women in classical
Athenian society and Hellenistic society reflects the difference in the
societal structures: the former was patriarchally collective and the
latter was individualistic. Parenthetically, it should be noted that
Jewish society was built only on the patriarchal collective model:
“Talmudic family structure is based upon the biblical patriarchal
system, which for its part is the continuation of the custom of the
tribal age. Preference is given to males, within the family as well as
in society. A person’s status is determined by his descent and for this
purpose the paternal rather than the maternal relationship is decisive.”64
On the other hand, Hellenistic law of persons and family assumed a
definitely individualistic shape.65
Furthermore, behind the legal, though not necessarily social
independence of women, there was the fundamental fact that a new type of
family, which rested entirely on blood relationship, had replaced the
classical oikos. This new family was based purely on personal
ties and, consequently, there was no patriarchal family organization at
all. Various restrictive practices atrophied in a gradual change of
custom that was inherent in the logic of a social development which did
away with the concept of a family in which women were subject to the
head of the “house.” “The husband had no conjugal power over his wife.”66
In an
advanced civilization the key to advanced status is education; by itself
it will not accomplish everything, but without it usually little will be
possible. Whereas in classical Athens usually only the hetaerae
had any kind of an education, education for young girls became ever
broader and more widespread throughout the Hellenistic period, and one
result was that more and more wives as well as husbands were educated.67
In fact, in Hellenistic Egypt there were more women who could sign their
names than men,68
“and thus Hellenistic literature, particularly the novel, was written
for a feminine public.”69
Another result of the broader Hellenistic education of women was the
appearance of a flood of Hellenistic women poets.70
It is
perhaps most of all in that discipline of the spirit for which the
Greeks are most renowned, philosophy, that one can see the striving for
women’s liberation. We hear from an ancient biographer of Pythagoras
that already in the seventh century B. C. E. there were many women
students of Pythagoras.71
The comedy writer Alexis even wrote a piece entitled “The Women
Pythagorians” (Pythagoridzousa).72
The comment on the “woman question” by one of the women philosophers of
the Pythagorean school, Theano, who was either the wife or daughter of
Pythagoras, is still extant. Within the context of the primitive
assumption that sexual intercourse makes a person “unclean,” she was
asked: “In how many days after intercourse with a man will a woman be
clean?” Her reply: “If it is her own husband, she is immediately clean;
if it is with a stranger, never.”73
Continuing this tradition, the sophists and Socrates (470-399 B. C. E.)
raised criticisms of the subordinate position of women in society.74
In his
writing about the ideal state Plato (427-347 B. C. E.) made a rather
extraordinary breakthrough concerning the status of women; he argued in
favor of equality for women with men--indeed, equality was in the
nature of things. He wrote:
Are we of
the opinion that the female watchdogs must perform their guard duty just
as the male watchdogs? Do they have to go on the hunt and do everything
with the rest? Or do the female dogs remain at home, incapable because
they must bring offspring into the world and nourish them, whereas the
male dogs do all the work and take care of everything involved in
shepherding?
Everything must be done together! Only we assign lighter tasks to the
former and heavier ones to the latter. Is it possible, however, to
assign to any beings the same kind of tasks if the same education and
training are not available to all alike? Impossible. Therefore, if we
wish to engage the women in the same work as the men, they must also be
allowed to learn the same things. The men receive intellectual and
physical education. Thus, the women must also learn and appropriately
employ these two disciplines and the art of warfare.... They must take
part in war and everything involved in guard duty.75
However,
although educated women thus were seen by Plato as equally a boon for
the state as men, he nevertheless wished to curtail the development of
too much freedom for women by legally limiting their lifestyles.76
(It should also be noted that we do know of at least two women
philosophical disciples of Plato.)77
Like his
teacher Plato, Aristotle (384-322 B. C. E.) also paid lip service to the
desirability of the freedom of women in a democracy,78
but at the same time he argued that too much freedom for women was a
political evil79
and that women should take a subordinate position.80
However, we know that one of Aristotle’s followers, Theophrastus (d. 287
B. C. E.), had both a woman disciple, Pamphile (some of whose writing is
extant), and a woman opponent, unfortunately anonymous. Thereafter to
some extent the Cynics also spoke out in favor of equal rights for
women, and women played a prominent role in the school of Epicurus
(343-270 B. C. E.), not only as disciples but even as favorite teachers.81
The
philosophical school which did most to promote the improved status of
women was that of the Stoics. These grassroots philosophers stressed the
worth of the individual woman, the need for her education (consequently
there were many women followers of Stoicism), strict monogamy and a
notion of marriage as a spiritual community of two equals.82
“In the woman question the Stoics of later times are much more
influential because they concern themselves above all with the proper
living of everyday life.”83
The Roman knight C. Musonius Rufus, a contemporary of the apostle Paul,
discusses at length whether women should also pursue philosophy and
whether daughters should be brought up the same as sons; he answers yes
to both questions. The dependence on Plato’s Republic is
everywhere apparent in the essay. Even the male and female dogs are
reported on in similar fashion. What is decisive is that both sexes have
the same relationship to virtue and must be correspondingly educated.
Indeed, both receive the same spiritual capabilities (the same logos)
from the gods. Furthermore, it is specifically the profession of
housewife that the woman can correctly fulfill only when she is a
philosopher. These thoughts of Musonius have a great significance for
intellectual history, for they influence later thinkers, as can be seen,
for example, in Plutarch and Clement of Alexander. In fact, we know of a
third century C. E. Syrian princess with the Arabian name of Zenobia who
lived according to the precepts of Musonius.84
What
makes the teachings of the Stoics especially important in the spread of
the liberation of women in the centuries just before and after the
beginning of the Common Era is not only that they keenly stressed
woman’s personal value and equality with men, but also that they were so
widely spread abroad even on the grass-roots level. Many educated people
were counted among the adherents of Stoicism, but so too were many
others who had never heard a professional Stoic teacher, for many of
their ideas and sayings became standard elements of traditional
education. However, there were many Stoic popular speakers who went
about like circuit preachers, speaking in homely language about their
ideas of life. They thus penetrated all classes, even that of the
slaves.85
“But all this was not only the result of stoical stumping; the masses
were especially prepared to receive the teachings of the Stoa because
they helped the oppressed to preserve at least the feeling of inner
freedom.”86
Not every
aspect of every teacher, let alone adherent, of Stoicism reached the
full height of complete equality between men and women in its
expression,87
nor, doubtless, did every professed disciple always practice fully what
he preached. Still, Stoicism and the other forces discussed above surely
spread ideas of women’s liberation far and wide throughout the
Hellenistic world and massively influenced many people to live by them.
In
religion and cult, women in classical Greece experienced restrictions
that were broad, but by no means absolute. There were a number of
religious activities or places that they could not enter upon, as, for
example, the very important oracle of Delphi, the cult of Hercules; and
only maidens, not married women, usually could watch the sacred games at
Olympia. Women were also almost entirely absent from, or were kept in
the background of, state religion activities. Still, in some cults, such
as those of Artemis and Dionysius, women did play a significant role.88
The restrictions, however, along with a lesser education, encouraged the
popularity of superstition and magic among women; their normal human
need for religious expression naturally moved in the direction of the
occult when the more “legitimate” outlets were restricted. Strabo (63
B.C. E. -24 C. E.), e. g., unknowingly pointed toward this when he
complained that women were the originators of superstition (deisidaimonias
archegoi).89
The rabbi Hillel (70 B. C. E.-10 C. E.) also unknowingly pointed to the
same outcome of the religious restriction of women when he said: “Many
women, much magic.”90
It was
doubtless the same kind of pressure, plus the burgeoning liberation of
women in the Hellenistic period, that led to the extraordinary
popularity at that time of the Eastern cults and mystery religions,
particularly among women.91
Women not only took part in these religious cults, but often did so in
great numbers and often in leading and even priestly roles, as, for
example, in the Eleusian, the Dionysian and the Andanian mysteries
(indeed, it would seem it was just such placing of women on a level with
men in religion and cult that provoked a Christian polemic against the
equality of women by Cyril of Alexandria--376-444 C. E.).92
The cult of the goddess Isis, which came from Egypt but spread all over
the Hellenistic and Roman world, was at the beginning of its popularity
exclusively a women’s cult, and even after men were admitted it still
provided women with leading religious roles93
and justly had the reputation of being a vigorous promoter of women’s
equality and liberation.94
The extraordinary appeal to women of the Hellenistic world of Judaism
(reflected, for example, in Josephus’ remark that almost all of the
women of Damascus embraced Judaism!)95
and then Christianity (e. g., the first European convert to Christianity
was a woman, Lydia of Philippi)96
also must be at least partly traced back to the same forces of
restriction, reaction and liberation discussed above--the latter was
also doubtless responsible for the fact that the status of women in
diaspora Judaism and Pauline Christianity was higher than it otherwise
would have been.97
c. The Roman World
Although
it was the Hellenistic cultural world that exercised the greatest
outside influence on Palestinian Judaism, the influence of Rome was also
present in its own way, i. e., mostly political, legal, and military,
from the time of Pompey’s conquest in 63 B.C. E. Hence, it is proper to
note briefly the condition of women among Romans.
Behind
the culture of Rome there stood the extraordinarily developed culture of
the Etruscans, stretching in space from Rome up to Pisa, and in time
from before the seventh into the third centuries B. C. E. Whether one
agrees with Jacques Heurgon or not when he says that “one must imagine,
at the outset, in Italy, as also in Minoan Crete, a civilization
dominated by the importance of Chthonian cults and by the pre-eminence
of women,”98
it must be granted that he offers ample documentation that the Etruscan
women “went out” a great deal. Everywhere women were at the forefront of
the scene, playing a considerable role and never blushing from shame, as
Livy says of one of them, when exposing themselves to masculine company.
In Etruria it was a recognized privilege for ladies of the most
respectable kind, and not just for courtesans as in Greece of the
contemporary classical period, to take part with men in banquets, where
they reclined as the men did. They attended dances, concerts, sports
events, and even presided, as a painting in Orvieto shows, perched on a
platform, over boxing matches, chariot races and acrobatic displays.99
Heurgon
notes that in addition to the documentary evidence of the high status of
women in Etruscan society, there is also decisive evidence from
archaeology, not just in paintings where we see Etruscan women
participating with men in numerous aspects of social life, not only in
the epitaphs where the matronymic often is given a prominent place, “but
in certain evidences, not sufficiently noted before, which are provided
by the contents and the disposition of the tombs.”100
A large number of the Etruscan tombs clearly set women in the
pre-eminent position: “It is as if, between 650 and 450, the Etruscans,
or at least those of Caere, had considered women to be of a superior
essence and more and more susceptible of divinization than men.”101
All the
evidence taken together allows Heurgon to attribute a privileged
position to the Etruscan woman in a society where “we see her mingling
with such brilliance in the business and the pleasures of men, her
character torn to pieces by envious outsiders but invested in her
country with an authority that was almost sovereign; artistic,
cultivated, interested in Hellenic refinements and the bringer of
civilization to her home; finally venerated in the tomb as an emanation
of divine power.”102
However,
we do not find in Etruscan society either a theoretical Mutterrecht
or an ideal gynaeocracy, but rather a stage in a long
development, an unstable equilibrium of antagonistic forces in evolution
which is given its full significance only if compared with Greece and
Rome. furthermore, “Etruscan civilization was an archaic civilization.
Its feminism, strange as it may seem to us, is not so much a recent
conquest as a distant survival threatened by Graeco-Roman pressures; it
recalls in many respects the Crete of Ariadne and the paintings of
Cnossos more than the Athens of Solon and Pericles.”103
Women, of
course, did not enjoy such a high status in contemporary Greece, nor did
they in early Rome. But by the third century B. C. E. Rome moved to
improve the property rights of women. Somewhat later in the republic,
doubtless due to the influence of Etruscan culture and the growing
pressure of the women’s liberation movement in Hellenism, the condition
of women improved to the point where a woman could in general marry and
divorce on her own initiative and even choose her own name.104
In speaking of the improvement of women’s legal position in the late
republic, Thraede wrote: “Toward the end of the republican period the
goal was to some extent attained”; he then referred to the capability of
women to bear legal witness.105
During the same period the image of leading women appeared on coins--for
the first time.106
The Roman
Cornelius Nepos (d. 32 B.C. E.) even felt that the advanced status of
Roman women was something to boast about (in doing so he perhaps painted
the situation of the Greek women as too uniformly bleak--so as to
enhance the contrast with that of Roman women):
What
Roman would find it annoying to be accompanied by his wife to a banquet?
Or what housewife does not take the first place in her house or go about
in public? Quite different in Greece. There the wife is not brought to a
banquet, except when relatives are involved; and she occupies only the
inner part of the house, the so-called Gynaikonitis, where only
close relatives can enter.107
The
status of women continued to improve dramatically under the empire.
Indeed, the political activity of women of the senatorial class
developed so vigorously that we find on the walls of Pompeii the names
of women running for office, a definite advance over Egyptian and Greek
women, who had few political rights; women were sent on imperial
missions to pro-consuls; the possibility of a woman consul was even
discussed.108
Women were everywhere involved in business and in social life-i. e.,
theaters, sport events, concerts, parties, traveling-with or without
their husbands. They took part in a whole range of athletics, and even
bore arms and went into battle: “A still more marked sign of the
advanced emancipation is the conquest of the world of professions by the
women of the empire.”109
In family
affairs one would have to speak of “a veritable equality of the sexes in
daily life.”110
The woman’s consent was necessary for marriage;111
“the woman had no obligation to obey; the husband had no right to
correct her.... legally the husband had no right of power over his wife
... from the point of view of money, the regime was one of equality and
of separation.”112
“The equality of the spouses was in effect total, whether concerning the
full liberty of divorce in classical law, the limiting causes of that
liberty in the late empire, or the sanctions of an unjustified divorce.”113
Republican Rome, acting originally under the influence of Etruscan
culture, took up the impulse of women’s liberation from Hellenism and
carried it forward to where the empire also made it its own and
continued to promote it ever further throughout the first several
centuries of the Common Era.
In sum:
The status of women in the ancient world of the fertile crescent after
the early Sumerian period was quite uniformly low except in Egypt, where
it was early and often quite high. In the classical Greco-Roman world
the condition of women was varied, but often quite restricted, with the
clear exception of Etruscan culture. It nevertheless improved
particularly during the Hellenistic period, so vigorously and
continually that one must speak of a women’s liberation movement which
had a massive and manifold liberating impact on the lot of women--not
everywhere and in every class and at every period equally effective, of
course. This improving impulse was picked up and carried forward by
Rome. In fact, I believe we can accept as a general rule the statement
of Oepke114
that “the general rule in this matter is that the further west we go the
greater is the freedom of woman. In detail., however, there are the
greatest possible variations,” and add to it that in general there is
also a progression in the freedom for women according to time as well.
Thus, as the women of Rome tended to be freer than those of Greece, who
were more liberated than women of the oriental world, so also the women
of the time of the Roman empire had greater freedom than those of the
time of the Roman republic, and their sisters in the Hellenistic world
and period were less restricted than those of Greece at the time of the
Athenian empire. Due account must be taken, of course, of the
unsympathetic vagaries of all human history, and the fact that in so
many ways the liberation of women was long since preceded in ancient
Sumer, in Egypt, and later also in Etruria.
It is in
this context and under this surrounding and pervading influence of the
Greco-Roman (Egyptian) world that Judaism developed.
3. ANCIENT HEBREW BACKGROUND
Although
it would be very helpful to a study of the status of women in formative
Judaism to first do a thorough study of the status of women in
pre-exilic Hebrew society, it is, fortunately, not essential.
Nevertheless, it is very important to highlight at least one significant
fact from that earlier period that will shed a good deal of light on the
status of women in the post-exilic, formative period of Judaism: namely,
that there are in the Bible two traditions about women.115
These two
traditions about women depict her first-i. e., before the Fall-as the
equal of man, if indeed not the perfection of humanity, and
secondly-after the Fall-as subject to man, under the curse. This
bifurcation is clearly seen in the Yahwist story of creation in Genesis
2, which is the older scriptural tradition. Contrary to much later, and
often superficial., interpretation of this story, a careful analysis
reveals that the Yahwist writer did not think of woman as lesser because
she was created after Adam. Quite the contrary. The pertinent passage
reads:
Yahweh
God said, ‘It is not good that the man [ha adam, “the earthling,”
from adam, “earth”] should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.’
So from the soil [adam] Yahweh God fashioned all the wild beasts
and all the birds of heaven. These he brought to the man to see what he
would call them; each one was to bear the name the man would give it.
The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of heaven and all
the wild beasts. But no helpmate suitable for man was found for him. So
Yahweh God made the man fall into a deep sleep. And while he slept, he
took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh. Yahweh God built the rib
he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. The
man exclaimed: ‘This at last is bone from my bones, and flesh from my
flesh! This is to be called woman, for this was taken from man.’ This is
why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife,
and they become one body. Now both of them were naked, the man and his
wife, but they felt no shame in front of each other. (Genesis 2: 18-25)
Here,
first of all, the creation of woman was set in contrast to that of the
animals, which preceded. The latter were to have been understood by, and
placed under, the authority of the man--they were not to have been
worshipped, even symbolically, as they were in Canaanite and Egyptian
cults. But the main point of the text was man’s relationship to woman.
Clearly woman’s creation was also essentially related to man, since his
solitude was the occasion for her creation. But was she to be seen as
simply an afterthought, a companion slightly higher than the animals?
Such an understanding would hardly square with the tone of the story
wherein Yahweh was depicted as knowing well what he was doing and as
having done everything purposefully. Yahweh was not a hesitant potter
who tried one thing after another in hopes of final success; rather, he
was the Almighty, whose actions carried lessons of major importance.
Rather than seeing woman’s creation as the lowest in a series of
creation attempts that started on a triumphant note with the forming of
Adam and proceeded on a descending scale to that of Eden, plants,
rivers, animals, and, finally, woman, we should view it as a creation
that evolved from Adam to woman, with the intermediate creations serving
to establish the stage for the higher creation that was attained with
the modeling of woman.116
George
Tavard spells out this understanding of the Yahwist’s description of the
prelapsarian state of woman as humanity’s (i. e., adam, man in
the generic sense) perfection: as far as humankind as a whole is
concerned, there is only one creation, that of adam. The next
step is not a second process of creation, but rather a step within the
total process., a further development of what began with the fashioning
of Adam. We should therefore understand woman not as an addition
to the humankind that already was in the person of Adam; rather,
Adam himself (in that part of him which was his rib) is built up
into woman. Adam becomes a person, aware of himself, reaching
consciousness as humankind with the disclosure of woman. For woman also
is humankind. She is not other than adam; but she is adam
as bringing to perfection what had first been imperfect. She is
humankind as fully aware of its status, as the goal and perfection of
man. Thus, woman is not made to be Adam’s helpmate just because
he is lonely; she is created as the perfecting element, to the
revelation of which he aspired when he refused companionship with the
animal world. In one way, Ishah was made for mankind., as
she was to bring it perfection, to be its perfection. In another, mankind
was made for Ishah, the less perfect, the uncompleted, the
undifferentiated being preparatory of the more perfect, the fullness,
the being-in- relation. In the oneness of man and woman, it is woman who
brings perfection.117
Thus in
Genesis 2 the Yahwist pictured the state of woman as it was in the
beginning, before the Fall. But he knew from experience that that was
not the state of woman in contemporary society. Present reality was the
opposite of that in Eden. The curse of woman evoked a reversal of the
order of the universe attained in Eden. While woman in innocence was
creation’s acme, woman in experience, following her initiation to
sexuality, would be dominated by her sexual “desire for her husband,”
indeed, by her husband himself, and by pregnancy’s pains. “The higher
aspect of mankind becomes enslaved, and the ruder aspect, the man, takes
over leadership.”118
Thus,
seen in the light of the earlier analysis of the events in the Garden,
this story of the curse provides the key to the entire meaning of the
Yahwist tradition about the origins of humanity. The author, of course,
belonged to postl-apsarian history, to the order of the curse. Yet he
was convinced that it was not always thus. And the poet reconstructed a
pre-lapsarian state which was the exact reversal of everyday life as he
experienced it. When throughout centuries the Hebrews heard these
stories and later read them, it was recalled to them that they were
experiencing the ambiguity of living East of Eden, while they yet longed
to return to Paradise. They were thus fed by two conflicting traditions,
the post-lapsarian, which governed their daily lives and the structure
of society, and the dream of the pre-lapsarian, which they hoped to
return to at the end of their cycle in life--eventually to be called the
messianic era.
Tavard
summarizes this explanation when he says that we are thereby invited to
read the whole Hebrew biblical tradition in this light: “There were two
traditions about woman. The one corresponded to the order of society, in
which woman, though protected by many laws, was inferior to man. The
other echoed the legends of the origins as recorded in the Yahwist text:
originally, woman was the higher and better part of mankind.”119
These two
traditions do indeed continue to run from Hebrew society to beyond the
Exile into inchoative and maturely formed Judaism (and into Christianity
as well), but, as the subsequent study will clearly show., the
pre-lapsarian tradition will tend to fade, be distorted, and even be
suppressed at times. But it recurs, as, for example., with the prophets,
who see Israel as the espoused of the Lord; with the wisdom literature
where Wisdom is pictured as the primordial woman antecedent to the
creation of the world; with some poetry, like the Song of Songs, where
the love depicted is humanist and egalitarian (this erotic humanism was
later rejected by Ben Sira, e.g., 9: 8), and even when it was
interpreted, beginning with Rabbi Akiba, first century C. E
allegorically, whereby the union of love between man and woman became a
symbol of the relationship between God and his bride Israel; indeed,
with the understanding of Israel as humanity, humanity as loved by God.,
for here humanity itself is feminine vis-a-vis God. It continues to
recur throughout later Jewish history, as with the medieval Kabbalah,
where the feminine is projected into the divinity. But most important,
this pre-lapsarian tradition of woman as man’s equal, indeed, his
completion, is there at the source, waiting to renew the tradition.
CHAPTER II
ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN IN WISDOM
AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHICAL LITERATURE
1. WISDOM LITERATURE
Most of
the Wisdom literature was written after the return of the Jewish people
from the exile (587-537 B. C. E.); a small portion of it--the central
section of the Book of Proverbs, e.g.--was pre-exilic. In the Wisdom
literature we find the two traditions about women reflected. First, it
must be noted that these books, which include some most disparaging
remarks about women, also project the feminine into a personification of
divine Wisdom. In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom is described as the
highest and first creature of God, identical with the Law, and this
Wisdom (Hokmah)is a woman. In Ben Sira, Wisdom, Sophia, is
also a feminine creature, though an eternal one, that is, identified as
the spirit of the Lord and the glory of Yahweh. In the Book of the
Wisdom of Solomon the personification of the feminine Sophia
attains its acme; she is no longer a creature, but an eternal emanation
from God: “She is a breath of the Power of God, pure emanation of the
Glory of the Almighty” (7:25). Wisdom takes part in all the powers of
God. She is divine, yet not God, who, as in all biblical texts, remains
the Unknowable One. Wisdom is what humans can know of God’s glory, that
of God which can be communicated to humans. Said differently, Wisdom is
the “good and evil” which the Ishah of Genesis 2 desired to know
but never learned. It is the image of Ishah as transformed by the
true knowledge of benediction and malediction, the divine antitype of
Ishah. “It shows what Ishah would have been had she waited
for God’s self-unveiling instead of attempting to grasp the secrets of
God by herself.”1
It should
also be noted that although it is doubtless accurate to see the
persistence of the prelapsarian, more positive tradition about woman in
this personification of Divine Wisdom as the feminine Hokmah or
Sophia, such a projection can also often become a device to
further shunt a suppressed individual or group out of the path of power;
it can serve as a sop of tokenism, a safety valve which drains off
potential rebellion. Placing someone, or some group, on a pedestal
clearly takes that person or group out of the real order of affairs
where decisions are made; it is like “kicking someone upstairs” to get
her out of the way. Thus, even the persistence of the positive tradition
about woman is ambiguous, though, to be sure, its positive power does
persist.
Almost
parenthetically, it would also be proper at this point to discuss in a
little detail the image of woman and of female-male relations projected
in the Song of Songs, since it is classified with the wisdom books in
the Septuagint and the Vulgate., though not in the Massoretic Hebrew
Bible.
The book
as we have it probably comes from the third century B. C. E., though
much of the material is considerably older. It is simply love poetry of
a woman and a man for each other with no particular “religious” content.
Perhaps it was attributed to Solomon, who obviously was not the true
author, because he had the reputation of being a great lover. Perhaps
the reason it was included in the canon of sacred Scriptures was because
it was interpreted allegorically, that is, as reflecting the love of
Yahweh for Israel, as some rabbis supposedly argued at Jamnia around 100
C. E., although that does not tell us why it was already included in the
Septuagint (third-second century B. C. E.). In any case, it is love
poetry, and it reflects an image of woman and female-male relations that
fits in the more positive, pre-lapsarian Hebrew tradition.
To begin
with, attention focuses immediately on the woman: the book begins and
closes with the woman speaking. Furthermore, the woman initiates most of
the action and has most of the dialogue; she is active in love-making
(e. g., “On my bed, at night, I sought him whom my heart loves,” 3:1).
Mother is referred to seven times in the Song, whereas father is not
referred to at all. The mothers of both the woman and the man are
mentioned: she is called the “darling of her mother” (6:9); of
the man reference is made to “where your mother conceived you”
(8:5); King Solomon is said to wear the crown “with which his mother
crowned him” (3:11); the woman’s brothers are mentioned once as “my
mother’s sons” (1:6); in two places the woman takes the initiative
by taking the man “into my mother’s house” (3:4. 8:2) for
love-making.
One
scholar notes that in light of the stress on woman’s role as wife and
mother in Hebrew society, it is remarkable that the Song is not
interested in these ways of identifying a woman. The Song does not tell
us whether the lovers are married or not; marriage is not an issue here.
Moreover, “the woman is not a mother, and there are no references
to her procreative abilities or interest in childbearing.”2
Some of
the most interesting work on the meaning of the Song of Songs has been
done by Phyllis Trible, who, among other things, sees the Song as, if
not in intent, then at least in fact, a midrash on the Adam and Eve
story, a sort of theme and variations. She concludes by saying:
In many
ways, then, Song of Songs is a midrash on Genesis 2-3. By variations and
reversals it creatively actualizes major motifs and themes of the
primeval myth. Female and male are born to mutuality and love. They are
naked without shame; they are equal without duplication. They live in
gardens where nature joins in celebrating their oneness. Neither couple
fits the rhetoric of a male-dominated culture. As equals they confront
life and death. But the first couple lose their oneness through
disobedience. Consequently, the woman’s desire becomes the man’s
dominion. The second couple affirm their oneness through eroticism.
Consequently, the man’s desire becomes the woman’s delight. Whatever
else it may be, Canticles is a commentary on Genesis 2-3. Paradise Lost
is Paradise Regained.3
Thus, we
have in the Song of Songs an image of woman that is positive,
egalitarian, pre-lapsarian. However, excepting the Song of Songs and the
feminine personification of Hagia Sophia in general it is
accurate to say the Wisdom literature exhibits an attitude that is quite
antithetic towards women. Even the oldest of the material, the book of
Proverbs (probably put in its present form in the third or fourth
century B. C. E.), is filled with negative sentiments toward women.4
Perhaps
part of the reason for this negative attitude toward women is that this
literature was written by and for men, although this fact by itself
surely would not necessitate the negative stance. Moreover, the
negative fact that no such (extant) biblical literature was written by
and for women (with the possible exception of the Song of Songs) also
speaks loudly of the lesser status of women in the later biblical
period. Even the books of Esther and Judith do not really offer a
counterpoint to this dominant male theme. (See Chapter III-1,
Pharisees.)
If there
is a sexual transgression it is usually assumed that the woman was the
cause of it, whether she was an alien woman or a neighbor’s wife:
“Keeping you also from the alien woman, from the stranger,5
with her wheedling words ... towards death her house is declining, down
to the Shades her paths go. Of those who go to her not one returns, they
never regain the paths of life” (Prov. 2: 1619). Shortly afterward the
thought is repeated:
Take no
notice of the loose-living woman, for the lips of this alien drip with
honey, her words are smoother than oil, but their outcome is as bitter
as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her
steps lead down to Sheol; far from following the path of life, her ways
are undirected, irresponsible ... set your course as far from her as
possible, go nowhere near the door of her house, or you will surrender
your honour to others, your years to one who has no pity, and strangers
will batten on your property, your labors going to some alien house,
and, at your ending, when body and flesh are consumed, you will groan
(Prov. 5:2-11).
Again it
is presumed that the woman is the source of the evil, and especially the
alien woman, who will alienate the innocent male’s honor, years,
property, labors, and even consume his body and flesh.
Then
follow a group of rather striking metaphors that first project the
native woman (or lawful wife) not only as a more prudent choice but also
clearly as the property of the male, existing for his “refreshment”:
“Drink the water from your own cistern, fresh water from your own well.
Do not let your fountains flow to waste elsewhere, nor your streams in
the public streets. Let them be for yourself alone, not for strangers at
the same time. And may your fountain head be blessed!” (Prov. 5: 15-18).
The following chapter again warns against evil women: “Preserving you
from the wicked woman, from the smooth tongue of the woman who is a
stranger” . .. and so on for the next eleven verses (Prov. 6: 24-35).6
But the author cannot yet leave the topic of the evil woman,
particularly the alien woman (this is all in the post-exilic prologue,
chapters 1-9), even repeating his earlier phrases: “To preserve you from
the alien woman, from the stranger, with her wheedling words.” Then come
twenty verses describing the ways of evil women vis-a-vis innocent men,
ending with the familiar dire warning: “Her house is the way to Sheol,
the descents to the courts of death” (Prov. 7: 5-27).7
Thus far this is the post-exilic material of the book of Proverbs.
The rest
of the material of Proverbs (with the exception of the final poem, 31:
10-31, which cannot be dated) is most probably much older, surely
pre-exilic, some going back perhaps to the time of Solomon (tenth
century). Sexual transgression, particularly with the alien woman, was
also warned against here, again in metaphors whose sexual symbolism is
hardly veiled: “The mouth of the alien woman is a deep pit, into it
falls the man whom Yahweh detests” (22:14). “A harlot is a deep pit, a
narrow well, the woman who is a stranger. Yes, like a robber she is on
the watch and many are the men she dupes” (23: 27-28). “This is how the
adulteress behaves: when she has eaten, she wipes her mouth clean and
says, ‘I have done nothing wrong’” (30:20). The rest of the ancient
sayings of Proverbs-save the general remarks about indiscreet women: “A
golden ring in the snout of a pig is a lovely woman who lacks
discretion” (11: 22), and the enervating effect of all women,
with language approaching a semen “cult”: “Do not spend all your energy
on women, nor your loins on these destroyers of kings” (31: 3)-all refer
to the non-virtuous wife, replete with repetitions and near-repetitions:
“A gracious woman brings honour to her husband, she who has no love for
justice is dishonour enthroned” (11: 16). “A good wife, her husband’s
crown, a shameless wife, a cancer in his bones” (12: 3). “A woman’s
scolding is like a dripping gutter” (19:13). “The steady dripping of a
gutter on a rainy day and a scolding woman are alike. Whoever can
restrain her, can restrain the wind, and with right hand grasp oil” (27:
15-16). “Better the corner of a loft to live in than a house shared with
a scolding woman” (21: 9 and 25: 24). “Better to live in a desert land
than with a scolding and irritable woman” (21: 19). The misery of living
with a husband with comparable faults is not mentioned.
There
are, however, several places where reference is made to honoring father
and mother, or not dishonoring them (e.g., 15: 20; 17: 25; 19: 26; 23:
25; 30: 11, 17)--though in a number of places honoring the father alone
is mentioned, but never the mother alone. Then finally comes the
capstone, of an unknown date, the oft-quoted paean of praise of the
perfect wife, in the form of an alphabetic poem, each verse beginning
with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
A perfect
wife-who can find her?
She is
far beyond the price of pearls.
Her
husband’s heart has confidence in her,
from her
he will derive no little profit.
Advantage
and not hurt she brings him
all the
days of her life.
She is
always busy with wool and with flax,
she does
her work with eager hands.
She is
like a merchant vessel
bringing
her food from far away.
She gets
up while it is still dark
giving
her household their food,
giving
orders to her serving girls.
She sets
her mind on a field, then she buys it;
with what
her hands have earned she plants a vineyard.
She puts
her back into her work
and shows
how strong her arms can be.
She finds
her labour well worth while;
her lamp
does not go out at night.
She sets
her hands to the distaff,
her
fingers grasp the spindle.
She holds
out her hand to the poor,
she opens
her arms to the needy.
Snow may
come, she has no fears for her household,
with all
her servants warmly clothed.
She makes
her own quilts,
she is
dressed in fine linen and purple.
Her
husband is respected at the city gates,
taking
his seat among the elders of the land.
She
weaves linen sheets and sells them,
she
supplies the merchant with sashes.
She is
clothed in strength and dignity,
she can
laugh at the days to come.
When she
opens her mouth, she does so wisely;
on her
tongue is kindly instruction.
She keeps
good watch on the conduct of her household,
no bread
of idleness for her.
Her sons
stand up and proclaim her blessed,
her
husband, too, sings her praises:
‘Many
women have done admirable things,
but you
surpass them all!’
Charm is
deceitful., and beauty empty;
the woman
who is wise is the one to praise.
Give her
a share in what her hands have worked for,
and let
her works tell her praises at the city gates.
(Proverbs 31: 10-31)
The
“virtuous” wife described here is truly an extraordinary human being.
However, the effectiveness of this poem as a testimony of post-exilic
Hebrew appreciation of womanhood is somewhat weakened by the fact that
the Hebrew gloss, incorporated and developed by the Greek into the final
two verses, “seems to show that the scribes understood this whole
passage allegorically as a description of Wisdom personified (cf.
8: 22 ff.). This would make it an apt conclusion to the book.”8
In regard to the appreciation of womanhood it is much more important to
note that, like the few scattered positive remarks about women earlier
in the book (the references, for example, to the good wife being the
husband’s crown, honoring one’s mother), they are really not about women
as such., about women as human beings, but only about women in their
relationship to men, i. e., as a man’s wife or a son’s mother. (Men are
not similarly treated solely in relational terms.) The book of Proverbs
knows almost nothing good about women except insofar as they are for the
advantage or profit of men;9
this is especially true of the poem on the perfect wife, which is always
referred to when an attempt is made to show that the Wisdom literature
was not always depreciative, but sometimes even appreciative of
womanhood.10
The husband “will derive no little profit from her. Advantage and not
hurt she brings him all the days of her life” (31:11-12). She works
uncommonly hard, exercising a great deal of business judgment and
responsibility; the result is not that she is given some religious or
civic responsibility or honorific title or position-rather her husband
is: “Her husband is respected at the city gates, taking his seat among
the elders of the land” (31:23). It is no wonder such a woman is
appreciated; she is the best model for the perfect servant. Indeed., the
impression given by this poem is that thanks to the diligence of the
wife, the husband is a man of leisure. The model of the perfect wife
held up by the rabbis11
is still seen today in Mea Shearim, an ultra-Orthodox sector of
Jerusalem. In return for her complete self-sacrifice she is given praise
by the men: “Her sons [children in RSV] stand up and proclaim her
blessed., her husband, too, sings her praises” (31:28), and by those
gathered at the city gates: “let her work tell her praises at the city
gates” (31:31). She is allowed to share in the fruits of her
labor: “Give her a share in what her hands have worked for”12
(31:31).
The rest
of the biblical Wisdom literature is all postexilic, coming down to
within a little more than a generation of the Common Era. Ecclesiastes
was written around the middle of the third century B. C. E.;
Ecclesiasticus, or Ben Sira, about the middle of the second century B.
C. E. ;13
and the Wisdom of Solomon, the middle of the first century B.C.E. Like
Proverbs before them, all three of these books are addressed solely to
men, apparently presuming that they alone needed to be instructed in
wisdom. Time and again phrases like “happy the man who...” or “wretched
the man who...” or “my son, do not...” occur throughout this literature,
and it is really the man, the male, that is in the author’s mind.
In the
latest of the books, the Wisdom of Solomon, outside of the feminine
personification of Wisdom discussed above, there is nothing at all of
significance about women.
Ecclesiastes is an unusually short book, twelve brief chapters, and also
has unusually little to say about women. Outside of a few metaphorical
references to women and an exhortation to marital fidelity (9: 9), the
only reference to women is an especially vitriolic and bitter one: “I
find woman more bitter than death; she is a snare, her heart a net, her
arms are chains” (7: 26). Here the remarks are not like the statements
praising women; that is, they are not directed toward them as
relationships, as mothers or wives of men. Rather the statements are
directed toward women as such: “I find woman,” not “my woman.” This
would seem to fulfill the definition of misogynism, of woman-hating. The
author then raises misogynism to the level of a religious virtue: “He
who is pleasing to God eludes her, but the sinner is her captive” (7:
27). Here there is no pretense of a virtuous rejection of woman as a
prostitute or adulteress; all women have been reduced to
essential evil. Of course, in general Ecclesiastes is very pessimistic,
as is reflected, among other places, in his remark that only one man in
a thousand is “better than the rest.” This is surely a relatively low
estimate of men; but his condemnation of women is absolute: “but
never a woman” (7: 29).
Ecclesiasticus, or Ben Sira, is a deuterocanonical book (also referred
to as one of the apocrypha, as is also the Wisdom of Solomon) of the
second century B.C. E.; it is therefore found in the Catholic Bible but
not the Hebrew or Protestant Bibles. However, it was quoted by the
rabbis (the New Testament Epistle of James borrows many expressions from
it, and, next to the Psalms, it is the “Old Testament” book most
frequently quoted in the Christian liturgy). The author, Ben Sira, lived
in Palestine at a time of expanding Hellenist influence, and opposed it
vigorously. As a defense he emphasized the Jewish tradition, the Law,
Torah. He was conscious and proud of the abilities of the man learned in
the Law, the scribe. Wisdom was the privilege of the scribe (39: 1 ff.),
whose supremacy in wisdom was described in the most enthusiastic terms.
However, the apogee of his enthusiasm was reached in the description of
Simon, the son of Onias, the high priest, who was described in all his
priestly array as he appeared in the temple at the great festivals. “Ben
Sira represents a phase of development in which the wise man has become
the scribe, the man learned in the Law of Moses.... In his attitude
toward the Law and its observance he seems to belong to that group which
later became the Sadducees rather than to the Pharisees.”14
Ben
Sira’s opposition to expanding Hellenism by emphasizing Jewish
particularity would automatically lead him to an anti-feminist position
on two counts: one, since a growing freedom and equality for women was a
part of Hellenism,15
a rejection of Hellenism would tend to include a rejection of this more
positive attitude toward women; two, the need to shelter Jewish women
from the malign influences of Hellenism (especially its feminism), would
tend to reinforce the restrictions on Jewish women-who could not be
fortified by the study of the Law. Moreover, this exclusion of women
from the study of Torah,16
coupled with Ben Sira’s exaltation of its study, would also incline him
toward an anti-woman attitude. In fact, in this regard, Ben Sira fits
perfectly the women-denigrating and even, at times, misogynist patterns
in other authors of Wisdom literature. The quality of woman-hating of
the century older and brief Ecclesiastes is easily matched by Ben Sira.
But in the quantity of misogynism the older author is far outstripped by
the later one.
Ben Sira
discusses women from various aspects: as mothers, daughters, wives,
sexual sinners, and as women as such. Only in the first category and
partly in the third are his statements in any way positive. There are
two brief passages reinforcing the commandment, “Honor thy father and
mother” (3:3-6; 7:27-28). But for Ben Sira the great value of mothers is
to bear sons; daughters are obviously undesirable: “The birth of a
daughter is a loss!” (22:3). The only concern for daughters, it would
seem, is to maintain their physical virginity and get them married, the
proper age for marriage for girls being twelve and half years old: “Have
you daughters? Take care of their bodies, but do not be over-indulgent.
Marry a daughter off, and your cares will vanish; but give her to a man
of sense.... A sensible daughter will obtain her husband, but a
shameless one is a grief to her father. An insolent daughter puts father
and mother to shame and will be disowned by both” (7:24-25 ... 22:4-5).
(In contrast to this is the care exhibited for sons: “A man who educates
his son will be the envy of his enemy” 30:3.)
For Ben
Sira daughters are, from one point of view, nothing but painful burdens;
from another view they are totally creatures of sex:
A
daughter is a deceptive treasure for her father, the worry she gives him
drives away his sleep: in her youth, in case she never marries; married,
in case she should be disliked; as a virgin, in case she should be
defiled and found with child in her father’s house; having a husband, in
case she goes astray; married, in case she should be barren. Your
daughter is headstrong? Keep a sharp look-out that she does not make you
the laughingstock of your enemies, the talk of the town, the object of
common gossip, and put you to public shame. (42:9-11)
There
does not seem to be overly much concern about the evils themselves or
the bad effects they will have on the daughter. Almost the only worry is
what will happen to the man, the father, as a result of the daughter’s
evil deeds. Again, the female’s existence seems to be summed up in her
relationship to a male.
Ben Sira
goes even further in his rejection of any kind of independence in a
female offspring, describing her as “headstrong,” heaping abuse on her
for her putative future behavior, again in language that has a very
transparent sex symbolism--and given the extraordinary restrictions in
girl’s and women’s contact with men and the very early non-love match
marriages, it was doubtless at times a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Keep a
headstrong daughter under firm control, or she will abuse any indulgence
she receives. Keep a strict watch on her shameless eye, do not be
surprised if she disgraces you. Like a thirsty traveler she will open
her mouth and drink any water she comes across; she will sit in front of
every peg, and open her quiver to any arrow” (26:10-12).17
Ben Sira
has a number of positive things to say about good wives, albeit such
goodness is often enough expressed clearly in terms of advantage or
profit to the husband: “Happy the man who keeps house with a sensible
wife” (25:8). “Happy the husband of a really good wife; the number of
his days will be doubled. A perfect wife is the joy of her husband, he
will live out the years of his life in peace. A good wife is the best of
portions, reserved for those who fear the Lord” (26:1-3). The “feminine”
qualities of submissiveness are then praised highly: “The grace of a
wife will charm her husband, her accomplishments will make him the
stronger. A silent wife is a gift from the Lord, no price can be put on
a well-trained character. A modest wife is a boon twice over, a chaste
character cannot be weighed on scales. Like the sun rising over the
mountains of the Lord is the beauty of a good wife in a well-kept
house... .” (26:13-16). Within this submissive context Ben Sira even
knows to praise physical beauty:
Like the
lamp shining on the sacred lamp-stand is a beautiful face on a
well-proportioned body. Like golden pillars on a silver base are shapely
legs on firm-set heels.... A woman’s beauty delights the beholder, a man
likes nothing better. If her tongue is kind and gentle, her husband has
no equal among the sons of men. The man who takes a wife has the makings
of a fortune, a helper that suits him, and a pillar to lean on.
(26:17-18; 36:22-24)
Not all
the remarks about wives, however, are positive. Some are vaguely
ominous, as: “Do not turn against a wise and good wife.... Have you a
wife to your liking? Do not turn her out; but if you dislike her, never
trust her” (7:19, 26). Some are rather threatening comparisons: “A
godless wife is assigned to a transgressor as his fortune, but a devout
wife given to the man who fears the Lord. A shameless wife takes
pleasure in disgracing herself, a modest wife is diffident even with her
husband. A headstrong wife is a shameless bitch, but one with a sense of
shame fears the Lord. A wife who respects her husband will be
acknowledged wise by all, but one who proudly despises him will be known
by all as wicked” (26:23-26).
In many
instances pure vitriol is poured on the wife (reminiscent of Proverbs
21:9, 19; 25:24; 27:15):
I would
sooner keep house with a lion or a dragon than keep house with a
spiteful wife. A wife’s spite changes the appearance of her husband and
makes him look like a bear. When her husband goes out to dinner with his
neighbours, he cannot help heaving bitter sighs....18
Low spirits, gloomy face, stricken heart: such the achievements of a
spiteful wife. Slack hands and sagging knees indicate a wife who makes
her husband wretched.... A bad wife is a badly fitting ox yoke, trying
to master her is like grasping a scorpion. A drunken wife will goad
anyone to fury, she makes no effort to hide her degradation. (25:16-18,
23; 26:7 -8)
Sometimes
the scorn comes in the form of “humor”: “As climbing up a sandhill is
for elderly feet, such is a garrulous wife for a quiet husband.... A
loud-mouthed, gossiping wife is like a trumpet sounding a charge, and
any man saddled with one spends his life in the turmoil of war” (25:20;
26:27). The wife as breadwinner is bitterly rejected: “Bad temper,
insolence and shame hold sway where the wife supports the husband”
(25:22).
Ben Sira,
like Proverbs and other biblical writers before him, delivers
admonitions for the would-be wise man to be on the outlook against women
who will lead him astray sexually. Also like Proverbs (31:3) Ben Sira
issues dire warnings against the alien women in language that uses very
plain sexual metaphors and at times approaches a semen “cult”: “My son,
preserve the bloom of your youth and do not waste your strength on
strangers. Search the whole plain for a fertile field, sow your own seed
there, trusting in your own good stock. Thus your offspring will
survive, they will grow great, confident of their breeding. A woman for
hire is not worth spitting at, but a lawful wife is as strong as a
tower” (26:19-22). Moreover, every manner of woman is warned against:
prostitutes, married women, singing women, handsome women, virgins, and
just women:
Do not
give your soul to a woman, for her to trample on your strength. Do not
keep company with a harlot in case you get entangled in her snares. Do
not dally with a singing girl, in case you get caught by her wiles. Do
not stare at a virgin, in case you and she incur the same punishment. Do
not give your soul to whores, or you will ruin your inheritance. Keep
your eyes to yourself in the streets of a town, do not prowl about its
unfrequented quarters. Turn your eyes away from a handsome woman, do not
stare at the beauty that belongs to someone else. Woman’s beauty has led
many astray; it kindles desire like a flame. Do not have much
conversation with a married woman and do not conduct long discussions
with her19
(9:2-9).
The
beauty of any woman is seen as a danger: “Do not be taken in by a
woman’s beauty, never lose your head over a woman!, (25:21).
Ben Sira
does seem to move in the direction of placing a moral onus on the man
not to commit adultery, or indeed fornication or masturbation
(23:16-17).20
However, a comparison between the warning against the adulterer and
against the adulteress is instructive. Though Ben Sira goes beyond most
of his biblical predecessors in demanding “moral uprightness” in sexual
matters from husbands, there still is clearly a double standard
involved. Only a general threat of punishment “in view of the whole
town” is leveled against the man (actually only if the woman involved
was married could the man be punished legally, and that because he had
violated the rights of the other husband over his property, his wife).
The threat against the adulteress is overwhelming-adulteresses
apparently were still to be put to death regardless of the marital state
of the man they consorted with;21
even her children and her memory were to be punished and forever stained
(23:21-26).
It is not
just prostitutes, adulteresses, daughters in general and all but
submissive wives that receive invective from Ben Sira. Women in general
are bitterly abused by him with an intensity that surpasses previous
biblical misogynism. It would also seem that for Ben Sira all women are
nymphomaniacs,22
at least in a passive sense: “A woman will accept any husband, but some
daughters are better than others” (36:21). For Ben Sira it also seems
that all women were spiteful by nature: “Do not let water find a leak,
do not allow a spiteful woman free rein for her tongue. If she will not
do as you tell her, get rid of her.... For a moth comes out of clothes,
and woman’s spite out of woman” (25:25-26). He pushes the matter
further: “Any spite rather than the spite of a woman!” (25:13). And
still further: “A man’s spite is preferable to a woman’s kindness; women
give rise to shame and reproach” (42:13-14). indeed, to Ben Sira women
are the greatest evil in the world by far! “No wickedness comes anywhere
near the wickedness of a woman, may a sinner’s lot be hers!” (25:19).
Woman is not only the greatest of evils, but in fact the cause of all
evil: “Sin began with a woman, and thanks to her we all must die”
(25:24).
Note
should also be taken here of the attitude toward women reflected in
other Near Eastern wisdom literature. Such literature was widespread in
the ancient Near East, including especially Egypt. Since there was a
considerable mutual awareness of this wisdom literature,23
a great deal of similarity can be expected.24
It appears that the Egyptian wisdom literature was, like the Hebrew,
written by and for men; the image of women in it consequently is
likewise that of a relationship to men. The pertinent passages are as
follows:25
If thou
desirest to make friendship last in a home to which thou hast access as
master, as a brother, or as a friend, into any place where thou mightest
enter, beware of approaching the women. It does not go well with the
place where that is done. The face has no alertness by splitting. A
thousand men may be distracted from their [own] advantage. One is made a
fool by limbs of fayence, as she stands [there], become [all] carnelian.
A mere trifle, the likeness of a dream-and one attains death through
knowing her.... Do not do it-it is really an abomination-and thou shalt
be free from sickness of heart every day.
If thou
art a man of standing, thou shouldst found thy household and love thy
wife at home as is fitting. Fill her belly; clothe her back. Ointment is
the prescription for her body. Make her heart glad as long as thou
livest. She is a profitable field for her lord. Thou shouldst not
contend with her at law, and keep her far from gaining control.... Her
eye is her stormwind. Let her heart be soothed through what may accrue
to thee; it means keeping her long in thy house.
Take to
thyself a wife while thou art (still) a youth, that she may produce a
son for thee. Beget [him] for thyself while thou art (still) young.
Teach him to be a man.
Be on thy
guard against a woman from abroad, who is not known in her (own) town.
Do not stare at her when she passes by. Do not know her carnally: a deep
water, whose windings one knows not, a woman who is far away from her
husband. ‘I am sleek,’ she says to thee every day. She has no witnesses
when she waits to ensnare thee. It is a great crime (worthy) of death,
when one hears of it.
Thou
shouldst not supervise (too closely) thy wife in her (own) house, when
thou knowest that she is efficient. Do not say to her: ‘Where is it?
Fetch (it) for us!’ when she has put (it) in the (most) useful place.
Let thy eye have regard, while thou art silent that thou mayest
recognize her abilities. How happy it is when thy hand is with her! Many
are here who do not know what a man should do to stop dissension in his
house.... Every man who is settled in a house should hold the hasty
heart firm. Thou shouldst not pursue after a woman; do not let her steal
away thy heart.
The image
of woman in this Egyptian wisdom literature is that of a wife or mother
or harlot, i. e., she is always seen in relationship to a man. As in the
parallel Hebrew wisdom literature, men are warned to avoid adultery’ and
particularly to avoid the alien woman, and urged to take a good wife who
will produce sons, taking care to deal with their wives with care and
concern. But nothing like the outpouring of anger and misogynism on bad
wives and all manner of women which appears in the Hebrew wisdom
literature is to be found in this parallel Egyptian wisdom literature.
This is doubtless a reflection of the relatively high status women
enjoyed at various times in Egyptian history discussed above; at the
same time this literature likewise reflects the fact that women in Egypt
also experienced a relatively lower status for long periods of time, and
even in the “higher” periods never attained complete equality with men
in all areas of life.
In the
area of Babylon where, after the ancient Sumerian period, the status of
women was quite uniformly low, it is not surprising that we find a
warning both against harlots, very like that found in Proverbs 7:6-27:
Do not
marry a harlot whose husbands are six thousand.
An
Ishtar-woman vowed to a god,
A sacred
prostitute whose favors are unlimited,
Will not
lift you out of your trouble:
In your
quarrel she will slander you.
Reverence
and submissiveness are not with her.
Truly, if
she takes possession of the house, lead her out.
Toward
the path of a stranger she turns her mind.
Or the
house which she enters will be destroyed, her husband will not prosper.
26
Also the
one reference found in Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts
which focuses on woman as such rather than on woman as wife, mother, or
harlot, and which expresses a deep misogynism:
‘Servant,
obey me.’ Yes, my lord, yes. ‘A woman will I love.’ Yes, love, my lord,
love. The man who loves a woman forgets pain and trouble. ‘No servant, a
woman I shall not love.’ [Do not love, ] my lord, do not [love]. Woman
is a well, woman is a iron dagger-a sharp one!-which cuts a man’s neck.
27
It
appears that with the passage of time there was a clear movement in the
attitude of the authors of the Hebrew Wisdom literature toward women. In
the earlier materials from Proverbs the attitude was androcentric,
exploitative, often set in a broader framework of anti-foreign racism.
In the later literature, Ecclesiastes and Ben Sira, the attitude of the
authors, without necessarily abandoning those earlier qualities, shifts
toward an explicit misogynism, a hatred of women as such. Whether
or not this progressively more repressive stance vis-a-vis women in the
post-exilic biblical period was continued in the pseudepigraphical and
rabbinic literature will be investigated in the following pages.
(Whether the late post-exilic materials also represent a degeneration of
the Hebrew attitude toward women when compared with all the rest of the
pre-exilic biblical materials-as at first blush they would seem to do-is
a judgment that will have to await a careful analysis of the earlier
materials.)
It is
clear, however, that the two traditions about women, the pre-lapsarian,
positive one, and the post-lapsarian, negative one, are expressed in the
Wisdom literature: there is the humanistic, egalitarian male-female love
of the Song of Songs, the feminine personification of divine Wisdom
(despite its pedestal-pusher problematic), and the positive sayings
about women in relation to men-i. e., good daughters, good wives, good
mothers. Nevertheless, under the force of evidence, it must be concluded
that the pre-lapsarian tradition tends to fade and the post-lapsarian to
come to the fore, and that the attitude toward women expressed in the
biblical Wisdom literature is very strongly, even overwhelmingly,
negative, reaching at times the peaks of hatred. Such evidence cannot,
of course, automatically be taken by itself as absolute proof that the
general attitude of the Jewish population toward women was also so
strongly negative. But in conjunction with other evidence to be
discussed below it must at least be said that it tends in that
direction. At the same time it should be noted that aside from the
question of whether the Wisdom literature’s misogynism was reflective of
the population’s attitude toward women or not, because this literature
was widely read, studied, commented on, and quoted, it had a great
influence which consequently tended to make its misogynism in
fact reflective of reality.28
2. PSEUDEPIGRAPHA
Judaism
did not cease producing religious literature after the last canonical
book of the Bible was written (whether in the Hebrew or Septuagint
canon). In the period from the end of the second century B. C. E. to the
end of the first century C. E. a large number of religious writings
welled forth from Jewish pens; they are usually referred to as
pseudepigraphal (or apocryphal in Catholic tradition) writings, because
they were often attributed to an earlier writer to lend them a greater
authoritative quality.29
They were all written in about a century or so just before or after the
beginning of the Common Era and provide us with continuing evidence on
the status of women in the formative period of Judaism.30
The
Letter of Aristeas was composed between 130 and 70 B. C. E. by an
Alexandrian Jew. In only one place does the author speak about women,
and there in the traditional deprecatory manner: “Womankind are by
nature headstrong and energetic in the pursuit of their own desires, and
subject to sudden changes of opinion through fallacious reasoning, and
their nature is essentially weak” (vs. 25). Here another small, but very
solid, link in the chain of misogynism is forged.
Aristeas
makes another remark which, although it is not directly about women,
nevertheless provides a psychological insight helpful in understanding
how, side by side with the already broadly evidenced deep-seated
misogynism in ancient Jewish culture, there could also exist customs and
sayings praising the good wife as the husband’s crown, etc. Aristeas
states: “for it is a recognized principle that ... the human race loves
those who are willing to be in subjection to them” (vs. 257).31
Another
pertinent work, The Book of Adam and Eve, was probably composed in the
first century C. E. by a diaspora Jew, perhaps an Alexandrian.32
The already prevalent idea that sexual sin was the “mother of all
evils,”33
was continued in this work: “Lust is the beginning and root of every
sin.”34
In speaking of the action of the serpent in tempting Eve, the Book of
Adam and Eve said that the serpent “poured upon the fruit the poison of
his wickedness, which is lust, the root and beginning of every sin, and
he bent the branch on the earth and I took of the fruit and I ate.” (It
is interesting to note that a rabbi of the first century C. E., Johanan
ben Zackai, apparently expressed a similar idea so forcefully that it
was recalled at least three different times in the Babylonian Talmud. He
made the first woman, the symbol of all women, guilty of bestiality-the
devil did not pour his semen of sin, lust, on the fruit, but rather
injected it directly into Eve via sexual intercourse: “For Rabbi Johanan
stated: When the serpent copulated with Eve, he infused her with lust.”35
“Rabbi Johanan said: When the serpent came unto Eve he infused filthy
lust into her.”36
“For when the serpent came upon Eve he injected a lust into her.”37
Modern psychologists were not the first to see the serpent as a phallic
symbol.)
But here
a new dimension is added; in retelling the story of Adam and Eve, the
author makes it very clear that Eve, not Adam., was the primary sinner
in the garden of Eden: “And Eve said to Adam: Live thou, my lord,38
to thee life is granted, since thou hast committed neither the first nor
the second error. But I have erred and been led astray for I have not
kept the commandment of God; and now banish me from the light of thy
life and I will go to the sunsetting, and there will I be, until I die.”39
In another place Eve again confesses, rather magnanimously, to being the
primary cause of suffering and pain in the world: “And Eve wept and
said: ‘My lord Adam, rise up and give me half of thy trouble and I will
endure it; for it is on my account that this hath happened to thee, on
my account thou art beset with toils and troubles.’”40
A variant version has it: “And when Eve had seen him weeping, she also
began to weep herself, and said: ‘O Lord my God, hand over to me his
pain, for it is I who sinned.’ And Eve said to Adam: ‘My lord, give me a
part of thy pains, for this hath come to thee from fault of mine.’”41
Adam was less magnanimous; he made it very clear that he thought that
Eve was the cause of all his-and our-sin and suffering: “And Adam saith
to Eve: ‘Eve, what hast thou wrought in us? Thou hast brought upon us
great wrath which is death, (lording it over all our face).”42
A variant version is even more explicit in Adam’s condemnation of Eve:
“And Adam said to Eve: ‘What hast thou done? A great plague hast thou
brought upon us, transgression and sin for all our generations; and this
which thou hast done, tell thy children after my death, (for those who
rise from us shall toil and fail but they shall be wanting and curse us
and say, ‘All evil have our parents brought upon us, who were at the
beginning.’). When Eve heard these words, she began to weep and moan.”43
If it
were not already clear that Eve was thought of as the source of death,44
the author has Adam state the claim again quite bluntly: “And Adam said
to him [his son Seth]: ‘When God made us, me and your mother, through
whom also I die.. ..’”45
The same notion of Eve as the cause of death occurs even more blatantly
in another pseudepigraphal diaspora Jewish work, probably of the first
century C. E., The Book of the Secrets of Enoch: “And I put sleep into
him and he fell asleep. And I took from him a rib, and created him a
wife, that death should come to him by his wife.”46
According
to the author of the Book of Adam and Eve it is not only the sin,
suffering, and death of humanity that is to be laid at the feet of
woman, Eve, but also the whole revolt of the animal kingdom against man:
And Eve
saw her son, and a wild beast assailing him, and Eve wept and said: ‘Woe
is me; if I come to the day of the Resurrection, all those who have
sinned will curse me saying: Eve hath not kept the commandment of God.’
And she spake to the beast: ‘Thou wicked beast , fearest thou not to
fight with the image of God? How was thy mouth opened? How were thy
teeth made strong? How didst thou not call to mind thy subjection? For
long ago wast thou made subject to the image of God.’ Then the beast
cried out and said: ‘It is not our concern, Eve, thy greed and thy
wailing, but thine own for (it is) from thee that the rule of the beasts
hath arisen. How was thy mouth opened to eat of the tree concerning
which God enjoined thee not to eat of it? On this account, our nature
also hath been transformed.47
Two of
the most important and influential of the pseudepigraphal books were
probably written by Pharisees. These same two documents also dealt in
some detail with relations to women, and hence help set the tone for the
Pharisees’ attitude toward women that persisted to the end of the Second
Temple period (70 C. E.)-and afterward through the “successors” of the
Pharisees, the rabbis (to be discussed in detail below).
The
Book of Jubilees was written between 109 and 105 B. C. E.48
and in certain limited aspects is extremely important for the student of
religion. Without it we could of course have inferred from Ezra and
Nehemiah, the Priests’ Code, and the later chapters of Zechariah the
supreme position that the Torah had achieved in Judaism, but without
Jubilees we could hardly have imagined such an absolute supremacy of
the Law as is expressed there. “Jubilees represents the triumph
of the movement, which had been at work for the past three centuries or
more.”49
For the author of Jubilees the Torah was of eternal validity. It
was not the expression of the religious consciousness of one or a number
of sages, but the revelation in time of what was valid from the
beginning and for always. “The ideal of the faithful Jew was to be
realized in the fulfillment of the moral and ritual precepts of this
law: the latter were of no less importance than the former.”50
Hence what is portrayed here as part of the Torah or the background to
it is of the first importance, insofar as this book was read and had an
influence-which was widespread.51
The
matter that seemed to be uppermost in the mind of the author(s) of
Jubilees-and also the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs-in
their dealings with women was the avoidance of fornication, particularly
with foreign women. In their symbolic representation as the Canaanite
wives of Esau (The Book of Jubilees is cast in the form of a
retelling of the story of Genesis), such women are described as evil and
lustful-a combination of the extremely negative attitude toward foreign
women and the notion that every woman is a nymphomaniac: “For all their
deeds are fornication and lust, and there is no righteousness with them,
for (their deeds) are evil” (25:1).”
But this
attack on any kind of sexual contact, even, or rather, especially in
legal marriage with foreign women, reached an extraordinarily extreme
point later in the book. There it was stated, and repeatedly re-stated,
that it was a shameful sin for Jews and non-Jews to inter-marry; all
involved were to be killed, including the Jewish father who gave his
daughter in (mixed) marriage: “And if there is any man who wishes in
Israel to give his daughter or his sister to any man who is of the seed
of the Gentiles he shall surely die, and they shall stone him with
stones; for he hath wrought shame in Israel; and they shall burn the
woman with fire, because she has dishonoured the name of the house of
her father, and she shall be rooted out of Israel” (30:7). (That it
would be almost impossible for a thirteen year old girl to resist the
decision of her all-powerful father was apparently not considered
important by the author.) The author continued:
For
Israel is holy unto the Lord, and every man who has defiled (it) shall
surely die: they shall stone him with stones ... regarding all the seed
of Israel: for he who defileth (it) shall surely die., and he shall be
stoned with stones.... And do thou, Moses, command the children of
Israel and exhort them not to give their daughters to the Gentiles, and
not to take for their sons any of the daughters of the Gentiles, for
this is abominable before the Lord.... And it is a reproach to Israel,
to those who give, and to those that take the daughters of the Gentiles;
for this is unclean and abominable to Israel. And Israel will not be
free from this uncleanness if it has a wife of the daughters of the
Gentiles, or has given any of its daughters to a man who is of any of
the Gentiles. For there will be plague upon plague, and curse upon
curse, and every judgment and plague and curse will come upon him: if he
do this thing, or hide his eyes from those who commit uncleanness
(30:8-15).
Here the
effort to maintain the Israelite “seed” undefiled resulted in demands of
punishment far in excess of those recorded in Ezra, Nehemiah and the
Wisdom literature.52
It was
not just with foreign women that the observant Jew was to avoid sexual
intercourse, but all women (other than his wife). Through the figure of
Abraham it is advised that “we should keep ourselves from all
fornication and uncleanness (and renounce from amongst us all
fornication and uncleanness)” (20:3). In the immediate context the
charge is repeated again: “And guard yourselves from all fornication and
uncleanness” (20:6). It is also there recalled that the giants and
Sodomites “died on account of their fornication, and uncleanness, and
mutual corruption through fornication” (20:5). If there was any question
concerning the seriousness and fundamental quality of sexual intercourse
outside of wedlock (even “spiritual” fornication was forbidden: “Let
them not commit fornication with her after their eyes and their
hearts”-20:4), it was laid to rest a little later when it was stated
unambiguously that “there is no greater sin than the fornication which
they commit on earth” (33:20). The one who was to suffer most of all
from such sins was the woman: “And if any woman or maid commit
fornication amongst you, burn her with fire” (20:4). (There is no
mention here of any punishment whatsoever to be meted out to the man
involved.)53
Such a fundamental grounding of evil in sex and meting out of punishment
to women tended to imply and further a misogynist attitude in males-and
in females by way of self-hatred.
The
second important pseudepigraphal book perhaps written by a Pharisee,
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs., was composed at almost the
same time as the Book of Jubilees, that is, between 109 and 106
B. C. E.54
It too was greatly concerned with fornication as the “mother of all
evils” (5:3), but it exhibited a much more generous attitude toward the
Gentiles than did Jubilees; the author of the Testaments of
the Twelve Patriarchs held a basically universalistic view of
salvation: “And the twelve tribes shall be gathered together there, and
all the Gentiles, until the Most High shall send forth His salvation.”55
As a consequence there is none of the diatribe of Jubilees
against sexual contact with foreign women, though there is a slight
residue of the feminine xenophobic attitude in the Testament of Judah
(14:7).
However,
as noted, fornication was viewed with such a repeatedly expressed horror
that the author’s attitude approached that of an idée fixe: “For
a pit unto the soul is the sin of fornication, separating it from God,
and bringing it near to idols, because it deceiveth the mind and
understanding, and leadeth down young men into Hades before their time”
(Testament of Reuben 4:6). Here fornication was seen as a
fundamental sin, leading to death. The next verse says much the same:
“For many hath fornication destroyed; because, though a man be old or
noble, or rich or poor, he bringeth reproach upon himself with the sons
of men and derision with Beliar” (Testament of Reuben 4:7).56
Again the author said: “Beware, therefore, of fornication” (Testament
of Reuben 6:1). And still further: “For in fornication there is
neither understanding nor godliness, and all jealousy dwelleth in the
lust thereof,” (Testament of Reuben 6:4).
In the
author’s “rule of truth” the avoidance of fornication was primary:
“And now my son I will show the rule of the truth.... First, take heed
to thyself my son against all lust and uncleanness, and against all
fornication.”57
The author added elsewhere that fornication has grave, massive
consequences: “He that committeth fornication is not aware where he
suffers loss, and is not ashamed when put to dishonor. For even though a
man be a king and commit fornication” (Testament of Judah
15:1-2). This description of the consequences of fornication still did
not satisfy the author. He found it necessary a short while later to
spell out in great detail the effects he saw flowing from
fornication-and there seemed to be little missing:
Beware,
therefore, my children, of fornication...(for they) withdraw you from
the law of God, and blind the inclination of the soul, and teach
arrogance, and suffer not a man to have compassion upon his neighbor.
They rob his soul of all goodness, and oppress him with toils and
troubles, and drive away sleep from him, and devour his flesh. And he
hinders the sacrifices of God; and he remembers when he speaks, and
resents the words of godliness. For being a slave to the passions
contrary to the commandments of God and because they have blinded his
soul, he walketh in the day as in the night. (Testament of Judah
18:2-6).
Still
later the author again took up the specific question of fornication and
bluntly labeled it the fountainhead of all evil-sex is the source of
sin: “Beware, therefore, of fornication, for fornication is the mother
of all evils, separating from God, and bringing near to Beliar” (Testament
of Simeon 5:3). Indeed, as in the Wisdom literature,58
there was even a strong hint of a sort of “sacred semen”: “Defile not
thy seed with harlots; for thou art a holy seed, and holy is thy seed
like the holy place” (Testament of Simeon 5:17).
The
author moved a step further and urged not only the avoidance of illicit
sexual intercourse, but also “spiritual” fornication, that is, with the
eyes or mind:59
“Do you, therefore, my children, flee evil-doing and cleave to goodness.
For he that hath it looketh not on a woman with view to fornication and
he beholdeth no defilement” (Testament of Benjamin 8:1-2).60
In the Testament of Issachar the author claimed, “I never
committed fornication by the uplifting of my eyes” (7:2). This step of
urging the avoidance of sexual fantasy is, of course, psychologically
understandable, but the matter did not remain there. The conclusion of
the author was to see in the beauty of women a source of evil which at
all costs should be avoided: “And now, I command you, my children, not
to ... gaze upon the beauty of women” (Testament of Judah 17:1).
“Pay no heed to the face of a woman, nor associate with another man’s
wife, nor meddle with the affairs of womankind” (Testament of Reuben
3:10). Again: “Pay no heed, therefore, my children, to the beauty of
women, nor set your mind on their affairs” (Testament of Reuben
4:1). And still again: “And the spirits of deceit have no power against
him, for he looketh not on the beauty of women, lest he should pollute
his mind with corruption” (Testament of Issachar 4:4).
From this
attitude of the need to avoid women out of fear, it is but a brief step
to outright misogynism, of seeing women as such as evil; every
woman leads the essentially “good” man down to evil. The author takes
that step: “For women are evil, my children; and since they have no
power or strength over man, they use wiles by outward attractions, that
they may draw him to themselves. And whom they cannot bewitch by outward
attractions, him they overcome by craft” (Testament of Reuben
5:1-2). Somewhat as in Ben Sira, the author proceeded to describe how
women in general went about spreading their evil: “By means of their
adornment they instil the poison, and then through the accomplished act
they take them captive. For a woman cannot force a man openly, but by a
harlot’s bearing she beguiles him” (Testament of Reuben 5:3-4).
The “logical” conclusion is then drawn by the author, namely, that all
women should reject attractive clothing, jewelry and cosmetics: “Command
your wives and daughters, that they adorn not their heads and faces,”
and woe to the woman who nevertheless does, “because every woman who
useth these wiles hath been reserved for eternal punishment” (Testament
of Reuben 5:5). (At this point the author described how the women
allured the angels to their fall., that is, to fornication; they did so
by adornments and cosmetics.)61
In the end the principle, which was already seen in Ben Sira, was put
forth, namely, that every woman is a nymphomaniac. It was expressed in
the Testament of Reuben in the strongest possible form:
“Moreover, concerning them (women), the angel of the Lord told me, and
taught me, that women are overcome by the spirit of fornication more
than men, and in their heart they plot against men” (Testament of
Reuben 5:3).
Conclusion? “Guard your senses from every woman. And command the women
likewise not to associate with men” (Testament of Reuben 6:1-2).
Contact between men and women, “even though the ungodly deed be not
wrought,” was seen as “an irremediable disease” for the women and as a
“destruction of Beliar and an eternal reproach” for the men (Testament
of Reuben 6:3-4).
The
misogynism of the (Pharisee?) author of the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs seems rather complete.
62
This then
is basically all the pertinent material about women to be found in the
pseudepigraphical, or apocalyptic, literature-other than the Dead Sea
materials, which will be treated separately later. As can be seen, it is
all quite negative in its estimate of women (other than the neutral)
purely narrative portions); it does not even contain the few positive
evaluations of “good” wives found in some of the Wisdom literature. The
prel-apsarian, positive, tradition seems to be nowhere in evidence.
Thus, the developing misogynism was sustained, and even intensified.
The
question needs to be asked at this point why the status of women in
post-exilic Judaism, at least as far as this is reflected in the
literature of the period, appears to have declined, especially when
women in Hellenistic culture appeared to be improving their status
throughout a similar period. Perhaps what was suggested above (p. 38)
concerning Ben Sira’s anti-woman attitude is at the basis of the
increasingly repressive attitude taken toward women by Jewish writers
throughout the post-exilic period. Positively, there was the need to
stress the identity, the unity of the Jewish people; negatively, it was
important to ward off outside influences which could confuse and dilute
that identity and unity.
The need
to develop such in-group/out-group defenses in the early post-Exile
centuries, in view of the return of such a relatively small group of
Jews, is patent. The traditional stress within a patriarchal society,
like that of the Hebrews, on continuing the male line in general leads
to the sexual restriction of women far beyond that of men (e. g.,
polygyny but not polyandry being allowed). But the condition of the
embattled remnant obviously forced the Jews to take even more drastic
measures to retain group identity and unity, as is evidenced by the
radical negative actions of Ezra & Nehemiah. After the conquest of the
area by Alexander the Great toward the end of the 4th century B.C.E. and
the subsequent spread of Hellenistic culture, the repressive Jewish
attitude intensified even more, as can be seen in Ben Sira, the Book
of Jubilees, and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. The
Hellenistic culture proved increasingly attractive and pervasive, and
those Jews who saw it as a threat to Jewish identity felt that they had
to insulate the Jewish community from its enervating influences. By
increasing restrictions half the population, the female half, was
thereby more surely removed from Hellenism’s baleful blandishments; such
moves also tended to lessen the Hellenizing influence non-Jewish women
had on the male half of the Jewish community. Such an approach was also
reinforced by the knowledge that a significant element in the
to-be-rejected Hellenistic culture was the relatively much higher status
of women in religion and society.
CHAPTER III
ATTITUDE OF MAJOR JEWISH GROUPS TOWARD WOMEN
1. PHARISEES
As noted,
of the last two pseudepigraphal books just analyzed, one most probably,
and the other perhaps, was written by early Pharisees. Outside of the
teachings of the Pharisees reflected in the rabbinic documents (and to
some extent the New Testament), they are, along with Josephus, our best
sources of information concerning their attitude toward women. Since the
rabbinic writings will be treated at length later and since the
pertinent material in Josephus is brief, it would be helpful to present
Josephus’ material here so as to provide, along with the completed
analyses of the Book of Jubilees and the Testaments of the
Twelve Patriarchs (realizing that the latter’s relevance here is
quite tentative), a basis for an initial evaluation of the attitude of
the Pharisees toward women: Josephus described himself as having been a
Pharisee entrusted with considerable leadership. Concerning women he
said: “The woman, says the Law, is in all things inferior to the man.”
He drew the consequence from this position: “Let her accordingly be
submissive,” and added a slightly ameliorative phrase-which changed
nothing: “not for her humiliation, but that she may be directed; for the
authority has been given by God to the man.”1
The
evidence of these sources indicates that the Pharisees thought of women
as “in all things inferior to the man,” as “evil,” as “overcome by the
spirit of fornication more than men,” as ones who “in their heart plot
against men,” and that every man should “guard (his) senses from every
woman.” Such an attitude could hardly be without wide social effects in
the areas which came under the influence of the Pharisees.
Joseph
Klausner2
would seem to argue that the opposite is the case, not only for the
early Pharisees, but also for the whole Hasmonean period., i. e. the
first and second centuries before the Common Era:
The
social position of women in any land is evidence of the country’s
cultural state.... In general, the status of women in Judea was improved
under the Hasmoneans. The legend about the mother and her seven sons
during Antiochus’ persecution shows that the nation knew how to
appreciate the dignified and patriotic stand taken by the Jewish woman.
Mention should also be made of the fine relationship depicted in the
Book of Tobit (the father) and his wife Anna, between Tobiah (the son)
and Sarah, and between Raguel and Edna, whom he calls ‘my sister,’ just
as the ‘beloved’ calls his love in the Song of gongs. All this is
reliable evidence that the general attitude towards women took a turn
for the better in Hasmonean Judea. The position of Queen Salome
constitutes further proof of this. Also worthy of note is the fact that
not a single Hasmonean king had more than one wife, in contrast to
Herod, for example, who took many. The regulations which Simeon ben
Shetah introduced regarding the woman’s kethubah (wedding contract)
simply lent religious and juridical sanction to this satisfactory
situation which already prevailed in fact.
Klausner
said the same thing, using almost identical words, over forty years
earlier in his Jesus von Nazareth;3
there he also added a reference to the book of Judith, and ended with
the statement: “This position of the Jewish woman in the centuries
before Jesus is a witness therefore to the high level of the Hebrew
culture of that time.”
The
evidence offered by Klausner unfortunately appears to be quite
incommensurate with the conclusion drawn, especially in view of all the
counter evidence already put forth.
First,
the story about the “mother and her seven sons” is extremely moving, but
when one asks what the image of the woman in this story is, the answer
is rather stereotypical: she was a mother (of sons!), and suffered;
hardly “reliable evidence” that the “general attitude toward women took
a turn for the better” (which language would indicate that it had been
even worse previously). The evidence of the Book of Tobit seems even
weaker. The events of the story, which can hardly be true, were supposed
to have taken place in the seventh century B. C. E., and in this sense
evidence nothing concerning the Hasmonean period; moreover, the book was
written before 200 B. C. E., hence considerably before the Hasmonean
period; in this sense it likewise can have no bearing on that latter
period. Further, it is quite likely that the book was composed in Egypt,4
or Syria,5
and hence it could hardly reflect Hasmonean Palestinian Judaism. The
fact that all three wives were addressed by their husbands as “sister”
(which was an Egyptian custom at the time the book was written) does not
seem to prove much. Likewise, the fact that a real human affection
appeared to exist between the husbands and wives in the story6
shows that marriages with affection existed (where or when?) within
Judaism; but doubtless there have been many such instances everywhere
and at all times.
The
message of the Book of Judith is that God will protect his People; it is
hardly that of high esteem for women. When it is asked what the image of
woman is, this time in the Book of Judith, the answer, again, is
stereotypical: woman accomplishes her end by adorning her physical
beauty and seducing men, and, in this instance, killing men.7
As in the Wisdom literature and elsewhere, the implicit message to men
is to beware of beautiful women-they will un-man you and lead you to
death. The redeeming factor here of course is that Judith puts her evil
womanly wiles at the service of her nation. But Judith was hardly held
up as a model of the typical Jewish woman; though she was a widow from
her youth and was extremely beautiful, she did not take another husband
either before her killing of Holofernes or afterwards; perhaps placing
her seductive sexual powers at the service of her nation, and God,
demanded, in this obviously fictional story, both that she not be
“defiled” by Holofernes, or by any other man subsequently.8
The moral of the book is not that women are good creatures of God, but
that God is so great that He can bring good out of evil; the moral is
not that women are to be valued greatly, but that God is so great that
He can humble Israel’s enemies even through the lowliest of instruments,
women. “And the Lord struck him down by the hand of a woman!” (13:16).
A brief
discussion of the Book of Esther might well be parenthetically inserted
here, for although Klausner does not refer to it, it is nevertheless
often pointed to, along with Judith, as evidence of a high evaluation of
women in the late biblical period. Actually it also provides evidence of
the opposite thesis. After a seven-day-long celebration King Ahasuarus
was drunk and ordered his eunuchs to fetch Queen Vashti, “in order to
display her beauty to the people and the officers” (1:11). She declined
to come, an understandable decision given the probably riotous condition
of what by then must have been a somewhat sodden drinking bout. This
infuriated the king and disturbed his advisers, for they thought that
when word got abroad among the other wives in the kingdom, “there will
be endless disrespect and insolence!” Hence, Queen Vashti had to be
deposed, so that “all the women will henceforth bow to the authority of
their husbands ... ensuring that each man might be master in his own
house” (1:20-21).
One
contemporary Jewish woman writes that.,
Further,
in order to insure that we really have no shred of sympathy left for
Vashti, several sources credit her with responsibility for preventing
the king from giving his consent to the rebuilding of the Temple. These
legends are very significant, for they reflect popular and rabbinic
feeling. And it is very clear that in no way was Vashti’s refusal to
debase herself seen by succeeding Jews as noble or courageous. Quite the
contrary. The Rabbis must have found themselves in somewhat of a bind
initially. On the one hand they couldn’t possibly approve the demand
Ahasuarus makes on Vashti. On the other hand, to support her would be
to invite female disobedience in other situations, an idea they
apparently could not tolerate. They solve this by condemning Ahasuarus
as foolish and by creating legends whereby Vashti is shown as getting
exactly what she deserves.9
The later
chosen queen, Esther, a Jew, saved her people by a certain bravery, but
basically through her physical beauty, the result being that tens of
thousands of people were killed at her behest. Again the image of women
in the Wisdom literature was substantiated: “good” women are beautiful
and submissive; but the beauty of women is dangerous and leads to the
death of many. Here again, as with Judith, the redeeming factor was that
Esther put this death-dealing female power at the service of her people.10
The point of this whole, fictional, story concerns the Providence of God
which preserves his people from annihilation-and by the most unlikely
means, a woman, just as happened with Judith. The fact that in both
these stories the “heroines” were women indicates not that women were
often heroines or highly thought of in Jewish society at that time,11
but just the opposite, that women were not heroines or highly thought of
in that society; otherwise the stories would not have been interesting
or worth recording. They were of interest exactly because they displayed
God’s Providence for his people by having them saved by the most
unlikely and despised means available-women.
In
comparing Vashti and Esther, Mary Gendler wrote:
Ahasuerus
can be seen not only as an Ultimate Authority who holds vast power over
everyone, but more generally as male, patriarchal authority in relation
to females. As such, Vashti and Esther serve as models of how to deal
with such authority. And the message comes through loud and clear: women
who are bold, direct, aggressive and disobedient are not acceptable; the
praiseworthy women are those who are unassuming, quietly persistent, and
who gain their power through the love they inspire in men. These women
live almost vicariously, subordinating their needs and desires to those
of others. We have only to look at the stereotyped Jewish Mother to
attest the still-pervasive influence of the Esther-behavior-model....
What I am interested in here, however, is pointing up typical male and
female models of behavior and, at that level, it is clear that society
rewards men for being direct and aggressive while it condemns women,
like Vashti, for equivalent behavior. For, in a sense, Mordecai and
Vashti have behaved identically: both refuse to debase themselves by
submitting to illegitimate demands. For this Mordecai is praised and
Vashti is condemned.12
The
reigning of Queen Salome (did the Hellenist example of reigning queens
have an influence here?) and the “monogamy” of the Hasmonean kings
(remember of course also the multiple concubines some of them had) and
the small reforms in the marriage contract by Rabbi Simeon ben Shetah13
are perhaps items favoring the position of women. But in the face of the
flood of opposite evidence, they hardly warrant the conclusion that “The
position of woman ... was from the time of the Hasmoneans onward one of
thoroughgoing esteem,”14
nor could any similar claim be made for the position of women in the
view of the early Pharisees.
2. SADDUCEES
Besides
the Pharisees there were three other groups of men who had an important
influence on the customs and everyday life of Palestinian Judaism: the
priests, the Essenes, and the scribes or rabbis. Each of these groups
will have to be analyzed somewhat further, but the last is
overwhelmingly more important than the first two. As can be seen in the
cultic restrictions placed on women by the priestly writers in
Leviticus, and elsewhere, the priestly party tended throughout the
biblical period to be restrictive of the role women were allowed to play
in religion and society. In the late biblical times this was reinforced
by the strongly negative attitude toward women expressed by Ben Sira
(second century B. C. E.). who was at least vigorously supportive of the
priestly party, Hence, it has been suggested that he was a forerunner of
the Hellenized upperclass priestly party, the Sadducees.
The
Sadducees gathered their support not only from the aristocratic priestly
families but also from the merchants and middle-class Jews who would
benefit from association with the ruling, or at least powerful, class.
They were adherents of the written Torah, but recognized no oral Torah,
and hence were in opposition to the Pharisees. Unfortunately, almost
nothing about their attitude toward women is known; it can only be
speculated that perhaps Hellenist influence led them to give women more
freedom than was otherwise customary, but on the other hand, the
priestly tradition would have bent them in the opposite direction. In
any case, their influence, at least insofar as they deviated from
tradition, was doubtless relatively meager among the masses, who cared
little for “foreign,” ways, which were associated with the hated foreign
rulers-earlier the Seleucid Greeks and later the Romans. Since these
upper classes often joined in oppressing their own people, they were
also often hated-which is reflected in the fact that they were
frequently attacked and looted by their own people during the disastrous
Jewish rebellion, 66-70 C. E.
3. ESSENES--QUMRAN
Until
recently what we knew of the Essenes came from three contemporary
sources: the Roman writer Pliny, the Alexandrian Jew Philo, and the
Palestinian Jew Josephus. Then at the end of the nineteenth century the
Damascus Document was discovered; it is a copy of a document written by
and about a Jewish sectarian group around the beginning of the Common
Era which most scholars identify with the Essenes of the three
traditional sources. Still further discoveries came with the finding of
the Dead Sea Scrolls; these are original manuscripts from around the
beginning of the Common Era, most of which came from or were connected
with the Essene-like settlement at Qumran on the Dead Sea. Though there
is some dispute, most scholars also identify Qumran with the Essenes,
and for the purposes of this study they can be so treated. Concerning
the Essenes’ attitude toward women, it must be said that they followed
in the tradition of the misogynism of the Wisdom, apocryphal, and
pseudepigraphical literature, and the attitude of the Pharisees.
The
Essenes were in many ways closely related to the Pharisees, and came
into existence about the same time in Palestine, namely, the second
century B. C. E. In fact, Schuerer says “Essenism is first of all only
Phariseeism in the superlative.”15
In the matter of their relation with women, they went considerably
farther than the Pharisees, however: the central group were male
celibates.16
Pliny stated the matter bluntly: “The solitary tribe of the Essenes is
remarkable beyond all the other tribes in the whole world, as it has no
women and has renounced all sexual desire.”17
This description of the Essenes’ celibacy is neutral enough in regard to
women, but the more detailed information from Josephus, who claimed he
was an Essene novice for a number of months,18
is not so neutral. To begin with, women are
considered a source of dissension: “They neither bring wives into the
community nor do they own slaves, since they believe that the latter
practice contributes to injustice and that the former opens the way to a
source of dissension.”19
The almost ubiquitous concern in this period with sexual immorality as
a-if not the-primary sin is also reflected in the Damascus
Document, which states: “Meanwhile, however, Belial will be rampant in
Israel, the son of Amoz: ‘Terror and the pit and the trap shall be upon
thee, 0 inhabitant of the land! (Isa. 24:17). The reference is to those
three snares, viz. whoredom. .. .”20
In another place Josephus noted that the Essenes “Disdain marriage, but
they adopt other men’s children, while yet pliable and docile, and
regard them as their kin and mould them in accordance with their own
principles.”21
Philo
also attributed to the Essenes much the same derogatory attitude toward
women, but spelled it out in much greater detail, and misogynism again
rang through clearly:
They
eschew marriage because they clearly discern it to be the sole or the
principal danger to the maintenance of the communal life, as well as
because they particularly practice continence. For no Essene takes a
wife, because a woman (gyne) is a selfish creature, excessively
jealous and an adept at beguiling the morals of her husband and seducing
him by her continued impostures. For by the fawning talk which she
practices and the other ways in which she plays her part like an actress
on the stage she first ensnares the sight and hearing, and when these
subjects as it were have been duped she cajoles the sovereign mind. And
if the children come, filled with the spirit of arrogance and bold
speaking she gives utterance with more audacious hardihood to things
which before she hinted covertly and under disguise, and casting off all
shame she compels him to commit actions which are all hostile to the
life of fellowship. For he who is either fast bound in the love lures of
his wife or under the stress of nature makes his children his first care
ceases to be the same to the others and unconsciously has become a
different man and passed from freedom into slavery.23
Some
scholars argue that this opinion concerning women is not really that of
the Essenes, but rather Philo’s own. However, Colson is most likely
right when he says, “This diatribe must not, I think, be taken as
Philo’s definite opinion, but rather as what might be plausibly argued
by the Essenes.”24
What the Essenes, through Philo, say about women is more detailed than
what is found in Josephus, but it surely is in line with it. Moreover,
it is very similar to the lengthy descriptions of the wily ways of women
depicted in the Wisdom and pseudepigraphal literature quoted above,25
and a similar diatribe found among the Qumran literature, quoted below;26
this factor is especially significant when it is realized that all this
literature was kept, copied, and studied at Qumran. “The association of
women with trouble-making belongs quite naturally to the Wisdom of the
OT. At Qumran, not only the OT Wisdom literature, but also Ben Sira and
even properly Essene Wisdom texts were copied; and one of the
unpublished texts from Cave IV attests, among other things, that the
sapiential depreciation of women was not forgotten but developed
startlingly.”27
It should also be noted that what Philo’s Essenes have to say here about
the sinful seductiveness of women is not predicated of the wanton woman
or the prostitute, but rather of women as such, or at least of wives!
The text
from Cave IV referred to by Strugnell is doubtless the lengthy
description of the wayward ways of the harlot. The previous descriptions
of the ways of prostitutes from Proverbs and elsewhere, or indeed any
description of the seductive ways of women from ancient Jewish
literature, is far outstripped by this Essene diatribe. There is
obviously a fascination here with that forbidden thing, sex, and its
personification, woman; but since it is forbidden, there is also
expressed a deep hatred of the unattainable, woman, here in the form of
a harlot. Here is the fountainhead of misogynism.
(The har)lot
utters vanities,
and
errors;
She seeks
continually [to] sharpen [her] words,
[ ... ]
she mockingly flatters
and with
emp[tiness] to bring together into derision.
Her
heart’s perversion prepares wantonness,
and her
emotions [ ... ]
In
perversion they seized the fouled (organs) of passion,
they
descended the pit of her legs to act wickedly, and behave with the guilt
of [transgression... ] the foundations of darkness, the sins in
her skirts are many.
Her [ ...
] is the depths of the night,
and her
clothes [ ... ]
Her
garments are the shades of twilight,
and her
adornments are touched with corruption.
Her beds
are couches of corruption,
[ ... ]
depths of the Pit.
Her
lodgings are beds of darkness,
and in
the depths of the nigh[t] are her [do]minions.
From the
foundations of darkness she takes her dwelling,
and she
resides in the tents of the underworld,
in the
midst of everlasting fire,
and she
has no inheritance (in the midst of)
among all
who gird themselves with light.
She is
the foremost of all the ways of iniquity;
Alas!
ruin shall be to all who possess her,
And
desolation to a[ll] who take hold of her.
For her
ways are the ways of death,
and her
path[s] are the roads to sin;
her
tracks lead astray to iniquity,
and her
paths are the guilt of transgression.
Her gates
are the gates of death,
in the
opening of her house it stalks.
To Sheol
a[l]l [ ... ] will return,
and all
who possess her will go down to the Pit.
She lies
in wait in secret places,
[... ]
all [ ... ].
In the
city’s broad places she displays herself,
and in
the town gates she sets herself,
and there
is none to distur[b her] from
Her eyes
glance keenly hither and thither,
and she
wantonly raises her eyelids
to seek
out a righteous man and lead him astray,
and a
perfect man to make him stumble;
upright
men to divert (their) path,
and those
chosen for righteousness from keeping
the
commandment;
those
sustained with [ ... ] to make fools of them with wantonness,
and those
who walk uprightly to change the st[atute]
to make
the humble rebel from God,
and to
turn their steps from the ways of righteousness;
to bring
presumptuousness
those not
arraign[ed] in the tracks of uprightness;
to lead
mankind astray in the ways of the Pit,
and to
seduce by flatteries the sons of men.28
However,
apparently not all who wished to follow the Essene principles were able
or willing to give up married life. Josephus said:
There is
yet another order of Essenes, which while at one with the rest in its
mode of life, customs, and regulations, differs from them in its views
on marriage. They think that those who decline to marry cut off the
chief function of life, the propagation of the race, and, what is more,
that, were all to adopt the same view, the whole race would very quickly
die out. They give their wives, however, a three years’ probation, and
only marry them after they have by three periods of purification given
proof of fecundity. They have no intercourse with them during pregnancy,
then showing that their motive in marrying is not self-indulgence but
the procreation of children.29
In sum it
must be said that there is no significant evidence of a positive
attitude among the Essenes toward women as such; at most there seems to
be a tolerance among some for marriage for the sake of offspring. But
there is a great deal of evidence of an extremely negative attitude on
the part of the Essenes toward women; the misogynist tradition was
continued here vigorously. The celibate way of life apparently did not
continue beyond the destruction of the temple in 70 C. E., but the
Essenes did have a significant impact on the Palestinian Judaism of
their time. Pliny’s remarks in this regard are dramatic: “Day by day the
throng of refugees is recruited to an equal number by numerous
accessions of persons tired of life and driven thither by the waves of
fortune to adopt their manners. Thus through thousands of ages
(incredible to relate) a race in which no one is born lives on for ever;
so prolific for their advantage is the other men’s weariness of life.”30
Something so basic and pervasive as their misogynism could not help but
be spread with their influence in general.
4. THERAPEUTAE
Mention
should be made at this point of the Therapeutae, a group of Egyptian,
Essene-like Jewish ascetics who shared a common life. They provide an
interesting study in similarity and contrast with the customs of their
contemporaries, the Essenes, in Palestine. What is known about them is
from Philo; therefore they were in existence in the first century C. E.
The Therapeutae community lived near Alexandria and had both men and
women members, though for the most part they were separate, each having
his or her own cell. They came together every Sabbath in their
synagogue, which was divided into two sections:
being
separated partly into the apartment of the men, and partly into a
chamber for the women; for the women also, in accordance with the usual
fashion there, form a part of the audience, having the same feelings of
ardor as the men, and having adopted the same sect with equal
deliberation and decision; and the wall which is between the houses
rises from the ground three or four cubits31
upward, like a battlement, while the space above up to the roof is left
open ... on two accounts: first of all, in order that the modesty which
is so becoming to the female sex may be preserved; and secondly, that
the women may be easily able to comprehend what is said, being seated
within earshot.32
Here is
exhibited a mingling of Jewish and Hellenist influences-which one would
expect in the then perhaps most flourishing of Hellenist cities (founded
by Alexander the Great) which was at the same time perhaps the then most
flourishing Jewish city in the world. The men and women were separated
in the synagogue, according to the Jewish custom;33
even today one can see in the synagogue in the very orthodox section of
Jerusalem, Mea Shearim, the same kind of wall (though higher) between
the room for men and the room for women, with a separate entrance for
each room; a somewhat similar division exists at the Western, or
“Wailing” wall. That meant, of course, that the women could only listen,
but not speak in the services. However, it was untraditional that the
women would have committed themselves with a devotion equal to that of
the men to the life of this sect, for that meant devoting the greatest
part of their lives to being in their cells studying allegorical
interpretations of the Scriptures; women traditionally did not devote
themselves, like men, to a study of the Scriptures,34
whereas in Hellenist Mystery religions and the Egyptian Isis cult women
did take prominent and even priestly roles.35
There
was, however , one regular occasion when the female Therapeutae did take
an active part in a religious service. Every seventh week there was a
sacred feast day with a meal. The men would recline at one side of the
table and women on the other; with the meal there were readings, prayers
and hymn- singing-and the women participated in the latter. Afterwards
the men and women grouped themselves in two separate choirs and sang in
alternating fashion, accompanied with various hand and body movements,
like a sacred dance. At the end the men and women mixed to form a single
choir. Philo said: “Then, when each choir has separately done its own
part in the feast, having drunk as in Bacchic rites of the strong wine
of God’s love they mix and both together become a single choir, a copy
of the choir set up of old beside the Red Sea in honor of the wonders
there wrought ... the men led by the prophet Moses and the women by the
prophetess Miriam.”36
Thus they prayed, sang and danced, filled with pious enthusiasm., until
morning, when they returned to their cells. Leipoldt noted that the
Therapeutae were “outsiders of Judaism,” that their general asceticism.,
their eremitical life-style (which one finds in Greek thinkers), their
philosophical critique of slavery,37
and especially their night feast every seven weeks, which had all the
characteristics of a Greek Mystery religion feast, clearly reflected the
influences of Hellenism. Concerning the last matter Leipoldt continued:
“When the Greeks reflected a past fateful event by imitation, men and
women participated equally-in Mystery religions something accepted as
obvious. When the Therapeutae take this over they may not exclude the
women Therapeutae, so much more so may they not since in the Old
Testament model the prophetess Miriam steps forward so decisively.
Hence, one may not view the participation of the women Therapeutae in
the worship service as indicative of the Jewish manner,”38
but rather the Greek manner. It should be noted that if, despite all the
massive Hellenistic influences present in Alexandria and among the
Therapeutae, the women were still so strictly separated in the weekly
synagogue service and relegated to listening, then the force of the
Jewish custom must have been very strong.
Thus we
find a blending of Jewish and Greek traditions in the Therapeutae, and,
as far as women are concerned, the stronger influence of Greek
customs-in contrast to the apparently relatively weaker Greek influence
among the Essenes- worked to their advantage: they were full-fledged
members, “having adopted the same sect with equal (to the men)
deliberation and decision”; they spent their time studying the
Scriptures; they took an active part in the sacred banquet, vigil, and
dance every seven weeks. None of these things was true of the position
of women in the Essenes. Nevertheless, all women Therapeutae were
segregated in the Sabbath synagogue, did not have the right to speak
there, and in other ways appeared subordinate to men, which was not the
case with women in many contemporary Greek Mystery religions. The
misogynism of much of contemporary Palestinian Judaism seemed to have
been greatly modified by Greek influence in the Therapeutae, though we
know from other evidence that this modifying influence on the
restrictions in the lives of married Jewish women in Egypt was not so
effective.39
5. ELEPHANTINE WOMEN
At some
point in this study a brief description of the status of women in the
fifth century B. C. E. Jewish colony at a Persian military outpost at
Elephantine, far up the Nile near Aswan, should be given. In time this
material falls beyond the main confines of the study; likewise, this
distant outpost apparently remained isolated and without influence on
the rest of Judaism. Nevertheless, as a Jewish community with an
extraordinarily different attitude toward the status of women from what
was prevalent elsewhere in Judaism in either the biblical or rabbinic
periods, it deserves to be mentioned here, however briefly.
Perhaps
the best guide in this matter is Reuven Yaron., Introduction to the
Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford, 1961). He states that the
position of women in the Elephantine compared favorably with that in
other parts of the ancient Near East and that one ought to look to
Egyptian law for an explanation. In the law of procedure he noted that
women at Elephantine did not attest documents, but that they could be
parties to litigation, and were capable of taking an oath. In the field
of the law of property and obligations women enjoyed full equality; they
went about their transactions in the same manner as men, no trace of
inferiority or male supervision of any kind being discernible, although
in the field of succession women may have been in an inferior position.
Outside the sphere of private law, women were apparently enlisted in the
military units which made up the population of the Elephantine. Equality
of property rights also involved the duty to share in the burden of
taxation. In C 22 women are conspicuous among the contributors to the
temple fund, paying two shekels each, just like the men. The most
interesting feature of divorce at Elephantine is the equal capacity of
the spouses, as far as the power of dissolution of the marriage is
concerned. “This is in striking contrast to the situation which on the
whole obtains in the ancient East, and also in Talmudic law, where the
husband alone is entitled to dissolve the marriage.... The equality at
Elephantine is probably due to the Egyptian environment.”40
In most
of these matters Jewish women elsewhere in both late biblical and
rabbinic times labored under grossly contrasting disabilities, perhaps
most dramatically so in the essential area of marriage and divorce;
outside of Elephantine it was the Jewish man who acquired the woman, and
he alone could effect a divorce.41
However, the privileges enjoyed by Jewish women at Elephantine did not
effect mainstream Judaism.
6. THE RABBIS
The
scribes, as their name partially indicates, were those men who were
responsible for the copying, protection , understanding, and explanation
of the sacred books, the Scriptures. By the beginning of the Common Era
they commanded tremendous respect from the masses of the people, who
were over the years convinced that they were first of all Jews and that
to be a Jew meant to live according to the Torah, the Scriptures; but it
was only the scribes, those learned in the Law, the Torah, who could
properly explain what that meant. Beyond this dependence of the masses
on the scribes for instruction and explanation of what the Law was and
how it was to be lived, was the tendency to see in the scribes the
bearers of a secret knowledge, of an esoteric tradition. The replete
apocalyptic literature of the time is evidence of such an esoteric
tradition, as also is the fact that for hundreds of years the knowledge
of the scribes, the rabbis, was handed down orally-committed to writing
in the Mishnah, which was produced in the second century C. E.-in an
archaic, holy language, Hebrew, that was not understood by the masses
(it was only in the first century of the Common Era that the leading
rabbis promoted the translation of the Bible into vernacular versions,
called Targums).42
It should
be noted that the scribes of the first century C. E. were not all of one
religious party. There were scribes who belonged to the Sadducees, but
the majority belonged to the party of the Pharisees. It should also be
observed that not all priests were necessarily members of the Sadducees.
Many were adherents of the Pharisees (both the Pharisees and Sadducees,
as well as the Essenes, were closed brotherhoods; not just everyone who
claimed to live according to their principles could claim the name of
and membership in the fraternity-a period of probation had to be passed
before acceptance or rejection was decided upon), which is not at all
strange when it is recalled that the Pharisees in effect wished to raise
the biblically required stipulations for priests on Temple duty
concerning purity and food regulations to the norm for the everyday life
of the priest and the entire people. (Rabbi Meir-about 150 C. E.-once
defined a non-Pharisee as someone who “did not eat his profane food in
levitical purity.”)43
At the same time, not all Pharisees (there were perhaps something over
6,000 in Palestine in the first century, as compared to 7,000-9,000
priests)44
were priests or scribes. They came from all parts of society, though in
the main they were lower middle class laymen who were also not scribes.
Succinctly put, the Pharisees were a sect of men who lived
according to certain levitical rules of ritual purity, etc. that were
derived from the written Torah and the Oral Law as handed down from the
time of Moses by the scribes. (The term “Rabbi” was originally a form of
address meaning “my master,” but by the first century it had become a
title for one learned in the Law; in other words, the scribes, or as the
Germans more descriptively put it, the “learned in the Scriptures,”
Schriftgelehrten, came to be called not scribes but rabbis.) The
scribes were those who studied and taught what this correct way
of living was. As a consequence, many Pharisees became scribes and were
doubtless as a consequence the most important and influential members of
their brotherhood.
It is
important to recall that in the first century C. E. the party of the
Pharisees completely attained the upper hand in Palestine and after the
destruction of the Temple in 70 C. E. the Sadducees as a party
disappeared. Particularly interesting for the question concerning the
status of women in the early formative period of Judaism is the
Tannaitic tradition which recalls that the wives of the Sadducees
followed the ritual purity regulations of the Pharisees, “since
otherwise in the eyes of the Pharisees they would have been considered
tainted with the impurity of a menstruant and their husbands would then,
in their eyes, have been constantly impure.”45
Josephus confirmed this overwhelming influence of the Pharisees when he
wrote: “They are, as a matter of fact, extremely influential among the
townspeople; and all prayers and sacred rites of divine worship are
performed according to their exposition. This is the great tribute that
the inhabitants of the cities, by practising the highest ideals both in
their way of living and in their discourse, have paid to the excellence
of the Pharisees.”46
Of the
Sadducees Josephus said: “Whenever they come to officiate they follow
the prescriptions of the Pharisees, even if it be in an involuntary and
forced manner; the masses would not tolerate its being otherwise.”47
As a consequence, very little of the thought of the Sadducees or their
scribes has been recorded. The work of the rabbis of the Mishnah and
Talmud, and subsequent work, has been overwhelmingly influenced and
dominated by the Pharisaic tradition. Moreover, most scribes were
Pharisees. Therefore it is very important to learn the attitude of the
Pharisees, particularly the Pharisaic scribes, the rabbis, toward women,
since they handed on and developed traditions that not only often went
back hundreds of years, but also exercised a wide influence at that time
and subsequently.
As noted
above, there is a wealth of material to document this attitude,
particularly as found in the Mishnah and Talmud. Since the scope of the
influence of the rabbis covered every aspect of life, methodologically
it would seem best to deal with the rabbinic material in each area as it
is treated systematically below. However, it would be helpful to quote
and analyze a number of rabbinic statements which reflect the general
attitudes of the ancient rabbis toward women, keeping in mind that the
body of rabbis of course did not present a homogeneous attitude toward
women.
a) Positive Evaluations of Women
In the
rabbinic writings there are a number of positive evaluations of women.
For example, “It was taught: He who has no wife dwells without good,
without help, without joy, without blessing, and without atonement.”48
There is a series of sayings gathered together in one place in the
Talmud, mostly concerning the sadness caused by the death, or divorce,
of one’s wife: “Rabbi Alexandri said: The world is darkened for him
whose wife has died in his days (i.e., predeceased him).... Rabbi Jose
ben Hanina said: His steps grow short.... Rabbi Johanan also said: He
whose first wife has died, (is grieved as much) as if the destruction of
the Temple had taken place in his days.... Rabbi Samuel ben Nahman said:
For him who divorces the first wife, the very altar sheds tears.”49
In modern
discussions of the status of women in rabbinic Judaism, lists of such
positive rabbinic sayings about women will frequently be put forward to
prove that women were very highly valued by the rabbis, or at least that
this positive evaluation balanced, or even outweighed, the negative
statements found in rabbinic literature. A judgment about whether the
positive or negative attitudes of the ancient rabbis predominated can
wait until the evidence on both sides has been presented and analyzed.
But two things should be kept in mind in evaluating the positive
statements. First, as with the Wisdom literature noted above,50
almost all the positive things said about women by the rabbis are not
about women as such, but rather about women as they are related to men,
namely, as wives. In fact, at the same place in the Talmud as the above
appreciative statements about the loss of one’s wife it is also stated:
“Rabbi Samuel ben Unya said in the name of Rab: A woman (before
marriage) is a shapeless lump, and concludes a covenant only with him
who transforms her (into) a (useful) vessel.”51
Secondly, although a good wife is highly valued and receives deep
affection, this appreciation very frequently is expressed, as in the
Wisdom literature,52
in terms of what the wife does for the husband and family.
This
attitude was expressed well by a modern rabbi writing on the subject of
the Jewish woman: “Only the life of the woman contains even more
renunciation. Her whole life is a self-denying devotion to the welfare
of others, especially of her husband and children. The true woman is the
performance of duty personified ... renunciation, sacrifice for the joy
of her husband and children becomes her joy.” On the next page is a
further comment about the subordination of wives to their husbands:
“This will-subordination of the wife to the husband is a necessary
condition of the unity which man and wife should form together. The
subordination cannot be the other way about, since the man ... has to
carry forward the divine and human messages.”53
This
essay on Jewish women, written by Rabbi Samson Hirsch in German in the
latter part of the nineteenth century and translated and published in
English in the middle of the twentieth century, contains about as
thorough a listing of the positive rabbinic statements about women as
might be found,54
and hence will serve as a convenient check-list for analysis here. Rabbi
Hirsch claims “full equality of status” for women in Judaism and speaks
of placing “the woman forthwith on a footing of equality with the man.”55
The last portion of this rather lengthy essay is devoted to “The Jewish
Woman in the Talmudic Tradition,” and here the list of rabbinic
statements is brought forward.
In
addition to the laudatory statements already mentioned, the ancient
rabbinic literature also contains the following rabbinic teachings which
are likewise in praise of women, or rather, of wives and marriage.
“Rabbi Eleazar said: Any man who has no wife is no proper man,” that is,
as Rabbi Eliezer is recorded in the same place as having taught: “Anyone
who does not engage in the propagation of the race is as though he sheds
blood.” Also in the same place Rabbi Hiyya taught about wives that, “It
is sufficient for us that they rear up our children and deliver us from
sin,” i.e., satisfy the male’s sexual drive. “Our Rabbis taught:
Concerning a man who loves his wife as himself, who honors her more than
himself...”
56
“Rabbi Hama ben Hanina stated: As soon as a man takes a wife his sins
are stopped up,” that is, his concupiscence is allayed. A man was
advised to “be quick in buying land, but deliberate in taking a wife.
Come down a step in choosing your wife”; since the wife was to be in the
subordinate position it was thought important that she come from a lower
social position. In the same place in the Talmud there is also the
appreciative saying: “Happy is the husband of a beautiful wife; the
number of his days shall be doubled,” which is immediately followed by a
warning against all other beautiful women: “Turn away thy eyes from (thy
neighbor’s) charming wife lest thou be caught in her net. Do not turn in
to her husband to mingle with him wine and strong drink; for, through
the form of a beautiful woman many were destroyed and a mighty host are
all her slain.”57
If a good
wife was appreciated by the rabbis, a bad wife was equally
unappreciated: “Raba said: (If one has a) bad wife it is a meritorious
act to divorce her.” “Raba further stated: A bad wife . . . (should be
given) a rival at her side”; that is, a second wife should be taken.
“Raba further stated: A bad wife is as troublesome as a very rainy day;
for it is said, A continual dropping on a very rainy day and a
contentious woman are alike.” “How baneful is a bad wife with whom
Gehenna is compared.” “Behold I will bring evil upon them, which they
shall not be able to escape. Rabbi Nahuan said in the name of Rabbah ben
Abbuha: This refers to a bad wife, the amount of whose kethubah is
large.”58
In
demonstrating the high estimation of women held by the ancient rabbis,
Rabbi Hirsch referred to the rabbinic teaching about the beneficent or
maleficent influence a wife has on a husband: “It once happened that a
pious man was married to a pious woman, and they did not produce
children. Said they, ‘We are of no use to the Holy One, blessed be He, I
whereupon they arose and divorced each other. The former went and
married a wicked woman, and she made him wicked, while the latter went
and married a wicked man, and made him righteous. This proves that all
depends on the woman.”59
However, the fact that this truly appreciative story about a pious wife
is immediately followed by a whole series of rather deprecatory
statements about women in general somewhat modifies the force of that
story as evidence of high appreciation of women by the rabbis as a group
(although clearly individual rabbis at least at times expressed
themselves more positively about women):
And why
must a woman use perfume, while a man does not need perfume?. .. And why
has a woman a shrill voice but not a man?... And why does a man go out
bareheaded while a woman goes out with her head covered? She is like one
who has done wrong and is ashamed of people; therefore she goes out with
her head covered. Why do they (the women) walk in front of the corpse
(at a funeral)? Because they brought death into the world, they
therefore walk in front of the corpse.... And why was the precept of
menstruation given to her? Because she shed the blood of Adam (by
causing death), therefore was the precept of menstruation given to her.
And why was the precept of the ‘dough’ given to her? Because she
corrupted Adam, who was the dough of the world, therefore was the
precept of dough given to her. And why was the precept of the Sabbath
lights given to her? Because she extinguished the soul of Adam,
therefore was the precept of the Sabbath lights given to her.60
Similarly
weakened, or at least put in an ambivalent light as evidence concerning
the rabbis as a group, are several sets of rabbinic teachings quoted by
Rabbi Hirsch: “Rabbi Helbo said: One must always observe the honor due
to his wife, because blessings rest on a man’s home only on account of
his wife,” and “Thus did Raba say to the townspeople of Mahuza, Honor
your wives, that ye may be enriched,” and again, “Rab said: One should
always be heedful of wronging his wife for since her tears are frequent
she is quickly hurt.”61
These are all truly sensitive sentiments, but in the same place the same
“Rab also said: He who follows his wife’s counsel will descend into
Gehenna.” At this the Talmud adds the part which Rabbi Hirsch only
partially quoted as proof of the rabbis’high estimation of women: “Rabbi
Papa objected to Abaye: But people say, If your wife is short, bend down
and hear her whisper!” He did not include the following resolution of
what the rabbis saw as a contradiction between the teachings of Rab and
Papa just quoted: “There is no difficulty: the one refers to general
matters; the other to household affairs. Another version: the one refers
to religious matters, the other to secular questions.”62
Apparently the translator of the English Soncino edition was somewhat
embarrassed by this teaching for he noted: “A man should certainly
consult his wife on the latter, but not on the former-not a
disparagement of woman; her activities lying mainly in the home,” which
means that rabbinic “high estimation of women” was here limited to a
valuing of women as housekeepers.
The noble
statement: “Who is wealthy?... He who has a wife comely in deeds,”63
takes on a somewhat intimidating quality when it is realized that it was
made by Rabbi Akiba, who allegedly allowed his wife to spend twenty-four
years in living widowhood while he studied Torah, who was “the founder
of the peculiar institution of married ‘monasticism’.... After marriage
they would devote themselves completely to their studies while their
wives supported them”64
(not unlike what happens in the Mea Shearim section of Jerusalem today),
and who also taught that a man may divorce his wife merely on the
grounds that “he finds another woman more beautiful than she is.”65
It also
says in the Talmud: “The Holy One ... endowed the woman with more
understanding than the man.”66
However, since this statement comes in the midst of a discussion about
the age at which vows can be made and is used as an argument that girls
can make vows a year earlier than boys because they mature sooner, its
intended meaning seems to be limited to this particular case. This is
clearly confirmed in an early midrash where the very same discussion is
taken up and carried further as follows: “Some reverse it, because a
woman generally stays home, whereas a man goes out into the streets and
learns understanding from people.”67
The
evidence presented by Rabbi Hirsch from the early rabbinic writing,
Sifra commentary on Leviticus 26:13, is at best of doubtful value. He
writes: “Like the men, so the women are through the deliverance and
election of Israel called to the highest spiritual and moral elevation
of which mankind is capable (Sifra on Leviticus 26:13).”68
The commentary referred to reads: “‘And I make you to walk tall.’ Rabbi
Schimon says: two hundred cubits. Rabbi Jehuda says: one hundred cubits,
as Adam, the first, I have only men. Whence women? Because it says: ‘our
daughters as corner columns, hewn according to the pattern of the
Temple.’ (Ps. 144, 12) And how high is the temple pattern? One hundred
cubits.”69
This quotation would not seem to indicate a “high” estimate of women by
the rabbis-at le-st not in the usual sense.
Rabbi
Hirsch also notes that the Talmud says that women are promised greater
bliss-after death-but he does not note what it then says about how
women are to merit this bliss. The following first sentence Rabbi Hirsch
refers to; the rest he does not: “(Our Rabbis taught): Greater is the
promise made by the Holy One, blessed be He, to the women than to the
men; for it says, ‘Rise up, ye women that are at ease; ye confident
daughters, give ear unto my speech. Rab said to Rabbi Hiyya: Whereby do
women earn merit? By making their children go to the synagogue to learn
Scripture and their husbands to the Beth Hamidrash to learn Mishnah, and
waiting for their husbands till they return from the Beth Hamidrash.”70
The latter half of this passage would seem to at least dilute somewhat
the strength of the former half as evidence of the rabbis’ high
estimation of women.
Also
brought forth as evidence is the talmudic statement71
that “only if the husband has preserved his own fidelity to his wife and
has allowed himself no excesses does the water test the fidelity of his
wife.”72
According to this rabbinic teaching, if the husband has been faithful,
the wife will either miscarry as a result of the ordeal if she is guilty
of adultery, or not miscarry if she is not guilty; whereas, if the
husband has not been faithful, she would presumably not miscarry in
either case. But no matter what, the woman must go through the
humiliating ordeal merely on the demand of her husband, that is, she
must be brought before the priest in the temple, in public, have her
head dress and hair disheveled and her cloths ripped off her to the
waist, and be forced to drink water mixed with dirt from the floor. In
no case does the husband suffer any disabilities.73
The need of the husband to be faithful so as to make his wife’s ordeal
effective on the one side, and the obligation of a wife suspected even
by a groundlessly jealous husband to go through the ordeal on the other
would not seem to bespeak an especially high estimation of womanhood by
the rabbis.
Rabbi
Hirsch likewise maintained that “the Sages expect from the husband the
most tender consideration and the most loving and respectful treatment
for his wife,”74
and offered as one piece of evidence of this the statement that “if a
man goads his wife to insult him by refusing her ornaments and finery,
he becomes poor (Shabbath 62b).” The statement referred to is as
follows: “Three things bring man to poverty, viz., urinating in front of
one’s bed naked, treating the washing of the hands with disrespect, and
being cursed by one’s wife in his presence.... Raba said (that is when
she curses him) on account of her adornments. But that is only when he
has the means but does not provide them.” Hirsch further added as proof
that, “even if a man has to deny his wife something or reprove her, his
right hand should draw her near him while his left hand repels (Sota
47a).”75
The pertinent quotation is: “It has been taught: Rabbi Simeon ben
Eleazar says: Also human nature should a child and woman thrust aside
with the left hand and draw near with the right hand.” The English
Sorcino edition notes: “One must not be too severe in chiding a child or
reproving a wife lest they be driven to despair.” As still further
evidence Rabbi Hirsch stated that “reminders of duty should also be
given by the husband softly and gently (bGitten 6b)” The talmud passage
reads: “Rabbi Hisda said: A man should never terrorize his household ...
the three things which a man has to say to his household just before
Sabbath commences ... should be said by him gently, so that they should
obey him readily.” Since these statements are all very much like advice
to treat servants well so that they will obey properly, they are not
very effective testimony of the high value the rabbis placed on women.
Here
Hirsch also added the quotation from bB. M. 59a about bending down to
consult one’s wife if she is short, already discussed above, and the
differing treatment of wives by various types of men, including those
who lock them up whenever they leave the house, discussed below (see
chapter V-4, “Women Appearing in Public”),76
and also the reference to the fidelity of the husband and the trial by
ordeal for his wife. He then wrote: “Nowhere do we meet among Jews such
a seclusion and isolation of women as is usually assumed on the analogy
of oriental custom,” which is a less than accurate statement if one
simply recalls, as one example, Philo’s description of the harem-like
existence of Jewish women in first century C. E. Alexandria (see chapter
V-4, “Women Appearing in Public,” for a detailed discussion of the
seclusion of Jewish women). As still further evidence of the “most
tender consideration and the most loving and respectful treatment” of
the wife by the husband, Rabbi Hirsch wrote: “If women are not allowed
to move about much in public, this is from fear of misbehaviour not on
their part but on the part of the men (Genesis Rabbah 8, 12).”77
The teaching alluded to is as follows: “‘Wekibshah’ (and subdue her) is
written: the man must master his wife, that she go not out into the
market place, for every woman who goes out into the market place will
eventually come to grief.” This would appear to be a rather domineering
“most tender consideration.” Moreover, women were often seen as lustful,
grasping creatures of sex by many of the Pharisees and other writers of
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature of the first century before
the Common Era and by Philo, as already discussed above.
From
these quotations from Rabbi Hirsch and elsewhere it can be concluded
that there are a number of ancient rabbinic statements which are
appreciative of women, but that they are almost inevitably about women
as wives rather than as individual persons; and not a few of the
frequently quoted statements do not reflect as much appreciation of
women, i. e., wives, as they are often claimed to.
b)
Negative Evaluations of Women
The
following is a brief list of rabbinical sayings about women which do not
particularly fit into the various categories of Jewish life that will be
analyzed below; they give some indication of the widespread negative,
and even, misogynist, attitude toward women among the rabbis.
The great
rabbi of the first century before the Common Era, Hillel, who had a
reputation of generosity and openness, said, “Many women, much
witchcraft.”78
In the first century C. E. Rabbi Joshua said: “A woman would rather have
a single measure (of food) with wantonness than nine measures with
continence.”79
The notion that women by nature tend toward nymphomania was, of course,
already familiar from the Wisdom and pseudepigraphical literature.80
It was continued by the rabbis in the following teaching: “One glass is
good for a woman; two are a disgrace; with three she opens her mouth (in
lewdness); with four she solicits in complete abandon even an ass on the
street.”81
The
in-a-way opposite notion, that woman is an irresistible sexual
temptation for man, was also taught, in terms that were not only very
slightly veiled sexual symbols-reminiscent of the Wisdom literature-but
were also brimming with hatred of women: a woman is “a pitcher full of
filth with its mouth full of blood, yet all run after her.”82
Around 150 C. E. Rabbi Simon ben Jochai taught: “The most virtuous of
women is a witch.”83
He also taught that, “Women are light-headed,”84
a teaching reiterated by the school of Elias.85
Also doubly taught and recorded in this early period is this teaching:
“The world cannot exist without male and female children. It is well for
those whose children are male, but ill for those who are female.”86
A similar thought was expressed by Rabbi Simon ben Jochai: “At the birth
of a boy all are joyful . . . at the birth of a girl all are sorrowful.
“87
In the same place like thoughts of a rabbi from the following century,
i. e., toward the end of the third century, are also recorded: “Rabbi
Jicchaq said that Rabbi Ammi said: When a boy comes into the world,
peace comes into the world.... When a girl comes, nothing comes.” A list
of “characteristically female” vices was also provided, and added to by
various rabbis: “The Rabbis said: Women are said to possess four traits:
they are greedy, eavesdroppers, slothful and envious. Greedy, as it says
... Rabbi Judah ben Nahman88
said: she is also a scratcher and talkative ... Rabbi Levi89
said: She is also prone to steal and is a gadabout.”90
This last teaching is also doubly taught.91
Perhaps
the most widely known rabbinic saying from this early, mishnaic period
which reflects the inferior position of women starkly is the three-fold
daily prayer, still found in many Jewish prayer books: “Praised be God
that he has not created me a gentile! Praised be God that he has not
created me a woman! Praised be God that he has not created me an
ignoramus! Praised that he has not created me a gentile: ‘For all
gentiles are as nothing before him,’ Isaiah 40:17. Praised that he has
not created me a woman because the woman is not obliged to fulfill the
commandments. Praised that he has not created me an ignoramus for the
ignorant man does not avoid sin.”92
Because
of the blunt attitude of male superiority expressed in this prayer one
might be somewhat tempted to discount it as a single hyperbolic
statement of an obscure rabbi. Such is not the case. No less than three
separate direct quotations of this prayer occur in three of the most
ancient rabbinic collections and at least one paraphrase in another
later collection, and Paul paraphrases it in his Letter to the
Galatians. The ancient collections are the Tosephta-a collection of
Tannaitic teaching, i. e., from rabbis from two hundred before the
Common Era to two hundred afterwards; the Jerusalem or Palestinian
Talmud; and the Babylonian Talmud.93
In the first two the order is different-gentile, woman, ignoramus in the
Tosephta; and gentile, ignoramus, woman in the Palestinian Talmud-but
the wording is basically the same, including the three bases for the
prayer. The Babylonian Talmud keeps the order of the Tosephta, but
substitutes “slave” for “ignoramus,” and also does not repeat the three
“justifications” for the prayer.
The
somewhat later paraphrase stems from a fourth century rabbi: “I call on
heaven and earth as witness: whether Jew or non-Jew, whether man or
woman, whether slave or slave woman-each one has according to his
actions the holy spirit within him.”94
The quotation has no context in the text and is hence difficult to
interpret completely, but it is apparently based on the earlier
formulated prayer.
Paul in
his Letter to the Galatians forms his statement in verse 28 of chapter 3
on this prayer: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave
nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in
Christ Jesus.” At that time the rabbinic teaching was not yet written
down, or at least not in any codified, authoritative fashion; hence
there is some variation from each of the later edited forms. In Paul’s
letter, Greek is used rather than gentile in the contrast with Jew;
slave is used in contrast to free, paralleling the text of the
Babylonian Talmud; the order he uses-gentile, slave, woman-is the same
as that which appears in both the Tosephta and the Palestinian Talmud.95
The fact
this statement is not simply a teaching, but rather a prayer, increases
its significance considerably. Moreover, it was not recommended as a
once-a-year or occasional prayer, but rather as a daily prayer-and it
has been used by some as such ever since.96
In the Tosephta Rabbi Judah recommended that this prayer be said daily.
In the Babylonian Talmud the prayer is attributed to Rabbi Judah’s
contemporary, Rabbi Meir, who lived in the first part of the second
century C. E. and claimed he faithfully passed on what he learned from
Rabbi Akiba.
There are
many more rabbinic statements about women which reflect a negative, if
not a misogynist, attitude on the part of many rabbis toward women; but
they will be dealt with, as indicated, within the context of the
systematic analysis of the life of Jewish women. However, on the basis
of the evidence of both the positive and negative rabbinic statements
about women thus far analyzed, and proleptically considering the mass of
essentially negative evidence to be discussed below, it would be correct
to conclude that quantitatively and qualitatively the negative attitude
vastly outweighs the positive. It can be said, therefore, that the
attitude of the ancient rabbis toward women was a continuation of the
negative attitude toward women that evolved from the return from the
Exile through the later Wisdom, apocryphal, and pseudepigraphical
literature.97
In fact, it was in a way an intensification of it, in that the rabbis,
through their great influence on the masses of Judaism, projected it
most forcefully into the everyday life of the observant Jew, for
example, by the promotion of the three-fold prayer.
As C. G.
Montefiore summed up the matter:
The
Rabbinic literature is written by men and for men. The difference in the
relations of men and women to each other makes a constant difference
between the Rabbis and ourselves. It is always cropping up. Modern
apologists tend to ignore or evade it. They quote a few sentences such
as ‘Who is rich? He who has a good wife’; or they tell of a few
exceptional women such as Beruria. It is quite true that wife and mother
played a very important part in Rabbinic life; it is true the Rabbis
were almost always monogamists; it is true that they honoured their
mothers profoundly, and usually honoured and cared for their wives. But
that is only one side of the story. ‘Women, children and slaves’: that
familiar and frequent collocation means and reveals a great deal. Women
were, on the whole, regarded as inferior to men in mind , in function
and status.98
CHAPTER IV
WOMEN IN RELATION TO CULT AND TORAH
1. WOMEN FULFILLING TORAH
The heart
of Judaism is Torah, the Law, and the differing status of men and women
is reflected here right at the heart, even quite explicitly. There are
at least two places in the Mishnah which take up the different standings
and obligations men and women have before the Law. The question is
asked, “Wherein does a man differ from a woman?” and eight responses are
given, of which three are of more interest than the others for they
indicate both the greater power of the father compared to the mother and
the inferior status of the daughter vis-a-vis the son (only the daughter
can be sold by the father, not the son; only the daughter can be
betrothed without her consent-if done before she is twelve and a half
years old): “The man may place his son under the nazirite vow, but the
woman may not impose the nazirite vow upon her son ... the man may sell
his daughter, but the woman may not sell her daughter; the man may
betroth his daughter, but the woman may not betroth her daughter.”1
In a
second place distinctions are made between positive and negative
ordinances, and between those which are bound up with a stated time and
those which are not. In effect, women are supposedly obliged to all
ordinances other than time-bound, positive ones: “All positive
ordinances that are bound up with a stated time are incumbent upon men
but women are exempted, but all positive ordinances which are not bound
up with a stated time are incumbent upon both men and women; and all
negative commandments ... must be observed by men and women alike.”
except for three specific ritual laws, like trimming a beard.2
Either the Mishnah elsewhere or the Talmud spelled out specifically to
some extent which time-bound religious obligations women were freed
from: women did not have to live in the “sukka,” or temporary dwelling
(the essential action for the week-long feast of Succoth)3
or carry the festival bouquet; be present at the sounding of the ram’s
horn, the shofar, on the New Year’s feast, or put on the cicith or
tephillin;4
read the Book of Esther on the feast of Purim,5
or recite each morning and evening the great prayer of Judaism, the
Shema: “Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Dt. 6:7).6
It is difficult to see how in most of these instances the duties of a
housewife or daughter would be any more inhibiting than those of a
householder or son: since everyone, woman or man, has to get up and go
to bed (“when you lie down and when you rise up”-Dt. 6:8), the
recitation of the Shema at those times would cause no problem; nor
should the living in the sukka, since the men’s meals would have to be
served in there anyhow; and the attendance at one New Year’s feast per
year should cause no more difficulty for women than for men.
One
midrash stated that the reason women-and slaves and children-were not
obliged to fulfill all the Law was: “Because she has a single heart (for
her husband); likewise, the heart of the slave is directed to his
master.... Women and slaves still have a human master over them and the
service of him makes such a claim on their heart that the time and
energy for the service of God is lacking. Therefore, is a lesser claim
in regard to the fulfillment of commandments made on women and slaves
than on men and freeman.”7
Much
subsequent explanation, however, including that of most contemporary
Jewish commentators, points out that the reason for the differing
obligations to fulfill the Law was that women would at times find it
impossible to fulfill the time-bound commandments because of their
household obligations and limitations connected with their sex, i. e.,
menstruation, pregnancy, nursing, etc.8
But, in the same paragraph of the Mishnah this rule is contradicted when
rules which are not time-bound are said not to oblige women: “All
obligations which devolve upon a father concerning his son must be
observed by men but women are exempt, and all obligations which devolve
upon a son regarding his father are incumbent on both men and women.”9
The Babylonian Talmud observes that these obligations of the father
include: circumcision, redemption of first born son, teaching Torah,
teaching an occupation, marriage, swimming-and except for circumcision,
none of these tasks were bound to a specific time.10
That means that women, mothers, had no obligation to perform these tasks
for their sons; in fact, in all these instances women also had either no
obligation or, in some instances, no possibility to fulfill these tasks
for themselves, i. e., no obligation to learn a trade, no absolute
obligation (as a man has) to marriage, or no possibility for
circumcision or redemption.
The
Talmud itself made a somewhat similar observation: “Women are exempt
from the study of Torah , the obligation of producing progeny, and from
the redemption of the (firstborn) son, although these are not commands
which are bound to a particular time.”11
In the same place the Talmud notes three additional feasts (including
Passover) which are connected with a specific time, but which women are
nevertheless obliged to observe. Apparently the oftoffered rationale of
giving precedence to women’s physical weakness and her household duties
did not apply here, but only in certain select cases. In such a
situation one feels the need to search for a deeper reason behind the
one so ambiguously applied:
Learning
was seen as the key to survival-obviously the only way Jews could remain
Jews in exile was by learning what it meant to be a Jew and passing this
knowledge on from generation to generation. This learning role, however,
was open only to men. Women were also excluded from religious or
communal activity that was associated with learning or the communal
observance of rituals. There were certain mitzvot from which
women were exempted. In essence, all the important ways in which Judaism
defined what it meant to be a Jew were (and still are) either partially
or completely closed to women.
There are
several reasons for this. First, there is always a division of labor in
patriarchy: men get the status roles and women get the role of doing
everything that men don’t want to do, and anything else that enables men
to do what they want to do. In addition, the Jews were in exile, and
involved in a struggle for survival. In the division of labor, the
people who were considered most capable got the most important role.
Men, seen (by men) as being most capable of intellectual labor,
allocated that role to themselves. Men were also more actively involved
in confronting daily overt oppression and hostility as they went out
into the world to earn a living. They needed some sort of compensation
to off set their being treated as inferiors. They had to have someone to
whom they were superior. Women had a definite role to play.12
The
question of obligation concerning meal prayers is a good example of
rabbinic legal distinctions which perhaps obligate women in some
instances, perhaps not in others, and forbid them in still others. Women
(along with slaves and children again) are not exempt from saying the
prayers after meals,13
but it is disputed whether or not they can say it for someone else who
for some reason cannot say it himself. Some say women, along with
children and slaves, may,14
but the Talmud says: “A curse light on the man whose wife or children
have to say grace for him”;15
and with regard to a different prayer reference, the Talmud repeated the
curse: “May a curse come upon that man whose wife and (minor) sons have
to recite the benediction for him.”16
Furthermore, the ancient Mishnah stated that, “Women or slaves or minors
may not be included (to make up the number needed) for the recitation of
Common Grace.”17
And still further, women (and children and slaves) may not even extend
the ceremonial, and officially obliged, invitation to say grace (when
three or more are together at meal), the zimmun; in this
connection, “a hundred women are no better than two men.”18
In this connection a baby boy was considered, at least by some talmudic
rabbis, as more significant than a grown woman, for the Talmud stated:
“An infant in the cradle may be counted for the zimmun, but
women, of course, could not.”19
It should
also be noted here that there are three commands directed specifically
at women, the disregarding of which, according to the Mishnah, has dire
results: “For three transgressions do women die in childbirth: for
heedlessness of the laws concerning their menstruation,20
the Dough-offering (Hallah), and the lighting of the (Sabbath) lamp.”21
The reasons given for these three commands-in no less than four ancient
sources22-all
lead back to the charge that Eve caused the death of Adam:
Concerning menstruation: The first man was the blood and life of the
world ... and Eve was the cause of his death; therefore has she been
given the menstruation precept. The same is true concerning Hallah
(leaven); Adam was the pure Hallah for the world.... And Eve was the
cause of his death; therefore has she been given the Hallah precept. And
concerning the lighting of the (Sabbath) lamp. Adam was the light of the
world.... And Eve was the cause of his death; therefore has she been
given the precept about lighting the (Sabbath) lamp. Rabbi Jose (early
second century) said: there are three causes of death and they were
transmitted to women, namely, the menstruation precept, the Hallah
precept, and the precept about lighting the (Sabbath) lamp.23
Though
the precept concerning menstruation could be seen as degrading for
women, and the precept concerning Hallah might be seen as bothersome,
the lighting of the Sabbath lamp at the Friday evening home service
would normally be viewed as an honor; hence, it is somewhat of a
surprise to learn that the ancient rabbinic reason for it is that it is
a punishment for Eve’s having caused Adam’s death.24
It might
at first blush seem that this double-standard in men’s and women’s
obligations toward fulfilling the Law was not really a restricting thing
for the women, but rather a lightening of a burden. However, one result
was that when a woman performed an act that she was exempt from, it had
a lesser value than the same act performed by a man, who was obliged to
perform it. The Talmud makes this point quite baldly; it discusses, and
rejects, the opinion that a heathen would not receive any merit for his
good actions-that is, for fulfilling the Torah25-but
goes on to make the point that the performance of a good act which is
not obligatory has less merit than if it is obligatory:
Said Mar
the son of Rabina: The release from those commands only means that even
‘if they observed them they would not be rewarded. But why should they
not? ... What is meant, then, is that they are rewarded not as greatly
as one who does a thing which he is bidden to do, but as one who does a
thing unbidden. For, Rabbi Hananina said: He who is commanded and does,
stands higher than he who is not commanded and does.26
Given the
fact that fulfillment of the Law had more and more become the way par
excellence of the righteous Jewish life from the time of Ezra on,
such a result was natural-the threefold benediction concerning women
expressed this vividly.
The
double-standard Torah obligation often had even greater effect: with the
passage of time many non-obligations for women became outright
restrictions. One modern Jewish scholar makes the point bluntly: “A
logical consequence of female exemption from the time-geared features of
the liturgical round is the ineligibility of women to take an active
role in them, for example, as leaders in prayer for congregations
including men.”27
In referring to the exercising of ministerial functions by Lily Montagu
in a Liberal Synagogue in England (20th century), the same author chides
his countrymen: “The appointment was an exceptional one and probably not
often, if indeed ever, paralleled within Reform Judaism even in its most
radical manifestations. In so far as it was possible at all, it reflects
the weakness of the sense of history within Liberal Judaism and a
consequent tendency towards a loss of organic cohesion with the main
stream of Jewish life.”28
2. SEGREGATION IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE
One clear
development of an exemption into a prohibition can be seen in the
physical separation of men and women that prevailed in the Temple of
Herod (started in 19 B. C. E.), but which did not exist in the earlier
temples. In Herod’s Temple, by far the most grand and imposing of Jewish
temples, women were permitted to enter only the first court, the “court
of heathens,” and the court inside that, the “women’s court.” The
women’s court was five steps above that of the heathens, but also
fifteen steps below that of Jewish men, the “Israelite’s court,” which
women were not permitted to enter.29
The Mishnah even described the women’s court as being enclosed by a
gallery: “Beforetime (the Court of the Women) was free of buildings, and
(afterwards) they surrounded it with a gallery so that the women should
observe from above and the men from below and that they should not
mingle together.”30
Moreover, the women were allowed to enter their own court only by
certain gates,31
and indeed this, as well as the entrance to the court of the heathens,
was denied to them if they were within seven days of the end of their
menstruation, or forty days of the birth of a boy, or eighty days of the
birth of a girl.32
(It should be remembered., of course, that this separation of men and
women was not only part of a broader set of distinctions between men and
women, but a part also of another pattern of distinctions, for
“separation was the principle upon which Temple worship was founded; it
emphasized the distinction between man and God, Jew and Gentile, men and
women, priests and people. These various separations were symbolized by
the different courts of the Temple”33-beyond
the Israelites’ court was the Priests’ court, and beyond that the Holy
Place and the Holy of Holies).
Each
Jewish community in Palestine and throughout the Diaspora usually had at
least one synagogue, an institution whose origins go back to the time of
Ezra, and possibly to the Exile. As a building, the synagogue was a
meeting place for prayer and for the study of the Law; at least by the
time of the Roman emperor Augustus the synagogues tended to have two
separate areas: the “sabbateion.” for worship services, and the
“andron,” for lectures on and discussion of the Law by the scribes and
their students. The latter room, as the name makes clear, was
exclusively for males.34
But even in the prayer hall the sexes were separated,35
either by some sort of barrier or grillwork36
or moderately high wall, as with the Therapeutae discussed above, or in
a separate adjoining room, as in the synagogue of Delos (from the first
century B.C. E.), or later, in a gallery around the two sides and the
rear, complete with a separate entrance, as can be seen from the oldest
extant ruins in Palestine, those at Capernaum. The latter stem from the
third century C. E.; presumably all earlier synagogues were destroyed by
the Romans after the 70 C. E. and 135 C. E. rebellions.
For a
rather thorough discussion and documentation of the existence of a
separate women’s section in ancient synagogues see the work of Eliezer
L. Sukenik.37
Among other things, he says:
The
ancient literature nowhere mentions a specific regulation to the effect
that the men and women must be kept separate at public worship; still
less is it prescribed that the women’s section shall be built in the
form of a gallery. That the sexes were in fact kept apart in synagogues,
however, is already attested by Philo (apud Eusebius, Praep.
Evang. 8:12), the custom having probably been taken over by the
synagogue from the Jerusalem Sanctuary.... There is therefore every
reason to suppose that the galleries of which remains have been found in
several of the ancient synagogues of Palestine served, as in modern
synagogues, as a women’s section.... The staircases leading up to the
gallery are always situated outside the basilica proper, leaning against
either the outer or inner walls of one of the annexed chambers.
Sukenik
then notes that the Palestinian Talmud (fourth century C. E.) described
a scene in 116 C. E. when Trajan destroyed the famous Diplostoon
synagogue in Alexandria which proved that the women occupied the gallery
above the men, after having killed the men Trajan offered mercy to the
women at the price of their honor-they replied: “Do to those above as
you have done to those below.”38
In the
same place39
there appears the following even more explicit and detailed rabbinic
statement, probably about the temple primarily, but also doubtless
influencing synagogue customs:
In what
does the ‘disposition of a large display at a feast’ consist? In a
separation between the men’s area and the gallery reserved for women.
That is therefore something which has been taught elsewhere. Originally
the court had been undivided: then a balcony was erected; the women
viewed the ceremony from above and the men remained below so that there
was no mixing of the sexes. That virtuous act was taught in the words of
the Law, saying (Zechariah 12:12): The country will be in mourning, each
family separate, etc., the women apart. There are two different ways of
explaining this verse. According to the one the prophet deplores the
future death of the messiah; according to the other the matter concerns
the destruction of the evil inclination (from henceforth overcome). The
former justifies itself thus: if during the mourning the Law prescribes
the separation of the men and the women, how much more therefore would
this be so at a moment of rejoicing. Those who take the other way
justify it as follows: if for those who no longer have the evil
inclination the men must be separated from the women., how much more is
that separation necessary for those who have not overcome the evil
inclination at all.
Slightly
later than the time of the codification of the Palestinian Talmud, the
fact that Miriam took out the women to sing the Song (of the Sea)
separately was taken as the authority for the segregation of the sexes
in prayer in the synagogue.40
I
A
somewhat similar picture is offered by the archaeological data. Although
the remains of the ancient basilical synagogues of Galilee, with a
distinctive Hellenistic stamp, show unmistakable indications of the
existence of galleries, which probably were the place assigned women, no
traces of a women’s gallery have been found in the well-preserved
remains of the non-basilical, more oriental synagogue of Dura-Europos in
Hellenized Mesopotamia. Scholars differ in interpreting these facts.
According to one school, the silence of earlier rabbinic sources and the
absence of a women’s gallery in Dura reflect an earlier, more liberal
attitude toward women, which allowed them to sit in the main hall,
though in a special part, together with the men. The other school argues
that the silence of earlier rabbinic authorities implies that in those
circles no provisions were made at all for women in the synagogue,
because they were excluded from active participation in public worship.
For a few special occasions, in which women might have access to the
synagogue, a temporary, removable screen would have been sufficient.
Isaiah
Sonne maintains that:
Only the
latter interpretation seems to fit the evidence that provisions for
separation of sexes appear mainly in synagogues with a Hellenistic
tinge.... Another consideration should be borne in mind. It is probable
that the basilical type of synagogue, which adopted architectural
features of the temple, followed the example of the ‘woman’s hall’ in
separating the sexes-i. e., by erecting galleries. The communities with
a non-basilical type of synagogue might have taken stricter measures of
separation, confining the women to a separate, adjoining room, as seems
to have been the case in the earlier building of the Dura-Europos
synagogue.41
3. NO MEN, NO MINYAN
Given the
physical separation of women in the synagogue, it is not surprising that
they were also “precluded even from constituting units of the necessary
quorum of ten (minyan) to form a congregation to worship
communally, boys under thirteen being likewise precluded (and also, in
antiquity, slaves).”42
Basically
what Loewe says is accurate; already in the Mishnah it is clearly
indicated that ten men constitute a minyan,43
but it is not totally precise to say that boys under thirteen or slaves
were never counted toward a minyan: the Encyclopaedia Judaica
article on Minyan states that “the accepted custom in emergency
cases is nine adults and a boy,” and gives rabbinic references. Already
in the Babylonian Talmud it was noted that an infant boy “can be counted
to make up ten,” and that “nine and a slave maybe joined (to make up
ten).”44
In a reference to the Mishnah and Talmud references, Meg. 1, 3 and bMeg.
5a, the above Encyclopaedia Judaica article notes: “In talmudic
times a community was regarded as a ‘city’ if there were at least ‘ten
idle men ... who could come to each synagogue service to make up the
minyan ... in traditional congregations, especially in Eastern
Europe, when it was customary to pay a few old or idle men to be present
twice a day at the services. These people were called ‘minyan
men. In the Reform ritual women are counted in the minimum quorum of ten
persons to constitute a public prayer service since they have full
religious equality with men.” Since late 1973 counting women toward a
minyan is to be allowed in Conservative American synagogues, but
this has not been done in Orthodox synagogues.
4. WOMEN READING TORAH
It is
also not surprising to read in the ancient Tosephta: “Everyone is
reckoned among the seven persons (who are called forward to read from
the Torah in the Sabbath synagogue service), even a child and even a
woman.45
But a woman is not to come forward to publicly read (from the Torah).”46
A talmudic quotation of the same teaching added, “out of respect for the
community.”47
I. Elbogen48
argues that women were originally called to Torah, but then were later
forbidden in practice from carrying out the reading; Billerbeck,49
on the other hand, insists that women were called to the Torah merely in
appearance in order honor them, but in keeping with the general custom
they always had to forego actually carrying out the reading.
A similar
explanation is often given to the somewhat anomalous facts that a
three-year old child was once named the president of the synagogue in
Venosa, and the same happened to a woman in Smyrna and once in Myndos,
and that a woman proselyte was called the mother of two synagogues.
These events took place in the Diaspora where foreign pressures were
strong and it was sometimes important to adapt to the Hellenist
environment (with its women’s liberation movement) at least in language;
hence, these honorary titles, with no real powers, were handed out to
important personages-including patronesses.50
Thus, at
the beginning of the Common Era, and subsequently, women were not only
not individually active participants in the synagogue services; they
could also often not be spectators-only listeners, who might also join
in the congregationally recited prayers.
5. WOMEN STUDYING TORAH
In the
time after the destruction of the temple (70 C. E.) there is no question
but that the central element in Jewish life was the study of Torah, the
Law, oral and written. But even in the immediately preceding centuries
the study of the Law was at least a close second to temple worship.
Indeed, with the ever-increasing significance of the scribes after the
return from the Exile in the sixth century B. C. E., and especially with
the appearance of the Pharisees in the second century B. C. E., the
study of the Law became as important as temple worship, and at times
more important, as with the Essenes and some Pharisees, like the author
of the Book of Jubilees (second century B. C. E.). Given, then,
the extraordinary prominence in Jewish life held by the study of the
Law,51
it is important to see what relationship women had to it.
The fact
is that Jewish women of ancient rabbinic days, i. e., the formative
centuries just before and after the beginning of the Common Era, did not
study Torah, the Law.52
There was no outright command forbidding women to study Torah, but there
were statements that came very close to it, and in fact went
considerably beyond a simple negative command. In the first century C.
E., Rabbi Eliezer, who claimed he taught only what he learned from his
teachers, said: “If any man teach his daughter Torah it is as though he
taught her lechery.”53
The
opposing opinion of a contemporary scholar, Ben Azzai, was also given in
the same place, but his opinion was clearly neither the traditional nor
the accepted one. Ben Azzai, though a widely reputed scholar, was not an
ordained rabbi and hence his opinion did not carry as much weight as an
Eliezer, who was an ordained rabbi and who hence belonged to the “chain
of tradition.” Moreover, Ben Azzai wanted to teach daughters enough
Torah merely so that they would know that if they had performed some
meritorious deeds, this would result in postponing the deadly effects of
the drinking the “Waters of Bitterness” by wives suspected of adultery:
“Hardly has she finished drinking before her face turns yellow and her
eyes bulge and her veins swell, and they say ‘Take her away! take her
away! that the temple court not be made unclean!’ But if she had any
merit this holds her punishment in suspense ... Hence Ben Azzai says....
“The commentary of the Babylonian Talmud completely ignored Ben Azzai’s
opinion and provided a reason for Eliezer’s position, adding the tiny
suggestion that instead of saying that the teaching of Torah to women
actually taught them lechery, Eliezer, rather, had taught that it was
as though she were taught lechery.54
The Palestinian Talmud, in the discussion of this portion of the
Mishnah, provided an additional story about Rabbi Eliezer that bore on
the same subject- Eliezer said: “The wisdom of women is only in her
distaff.... May the words of the Torah be burned rather than be given to
women!”55
These are amazingly strong words for one whose entire life was devoted
to the preservation and study of the Torah.
Hans
Kosmala56
has some very enlightening remarks on the passage; he noted that Ben
Azzai, as we know from his other statements, made more generous
judgments than his contemporaries. He often maintained a view which was
totally contrary to the interpretation and stand handed down. Moreover,
he was not an ordained rabbi, but only a student of wisdom. Even though
because of his personality he stood in high esteem, he did not exercise
an independent teaching office. Probably he took part in halachic
discussions, but he did not possess the same authority in decisions, as,
for example, Rabbi Eliezer. From this debate we can conclude that Ben
Azzai’s statement was a counter-move against an ancient custom that had
become law. This counter-move was repulsed. The dictum of R. Eliezer was
sustained throughout the following period. In his debate over the
matter, Kosmala concluded:
Farbstein
knows all this perfectly well, but apologetical grounds prevented him
from presenting us with the true state of affairs. With his (partial)
Talmud citation he makes us believe that the opinions on the matter were
in fact fundamentally divided. In reality, however, only once in a
special situation and in a very special connection was a contrary voice
raised, and it sank on the same day in the broad stream of legal
tradition. The Torah remained an affair of men.
Another
talmudic passage has pertinence here. When commenting on the statement
in the Mishnah that if an adulteress had any merit the effectiveness of
the test waters would be postponed, the Talmud asked what kind of merit
could bring about the postponement of the effects for three years: “‘And
another for three years, etc.’ What sort of merit? If I answer merit of
(studying) Torah, she is (in the category) of one who is not commanded
and fulfils!57
Rather must it be merit of (performing) a commandment.... Rabina said:
It is certainly merit of (the study of) Torah (which causes the water to
suspend its effect); and when you argue that she is in the category of
one who is not commanded and fulfils, (it can be answered) granted that
women are not so commanded, still when they have their sons taught
Scripture and Mishnah and wait for their husbands until they return from
the Schools, should they not share (the merit) with them?”58
It is clear from this teaching that the rabbis did not expect any women
to be studying Torah; the only connection with the study of Torah that
women could be expected to have was to send their sons and
husbands off to study and to wait for them.
Although
it was not absolutely forbidden to teach women Torah (if Rabbi Eliezer’s
dictum and its widespread echo is not seen as an absolute negative),
there also was no obligation to do so either, as there was for sons:
“The father is obliged to teach his son Torah.”59
When it is recalled how important the obligation to fulfill a command
was, and how the mere lack of obligation led to positive restrictions in
other instances, such as women not being counted in a minyan, it
will be apparent that this lack of obligation to teach women Torah, or
for women to study Torah, was likely to have a very negative effect.
This likelihood was confirmed by the fact that this obligation-or lack
of it-was specifically discussed at length in the Talmud, with the
result that it was clearly stated that women were not obliged to study
Torah: “and how do we know that she (mother) has no duty (to teach her
children)?... Because it is written ‘And ye shall teach them your
sons’-but not your daughters.”60
Still
another story about Rabbi Eliezer corroborated the presumption that
women did not study Torah: “Rabbi Eliezer was asked, ‘Is it permissible
to drink from the hand of the bride so long as her husband is sitting
with her at the festive table?’ He replied, ‘Whoever drinks from the
hand of a bride is as though he drinks from the hand of a harlot.’ (His
colleagues) said to him, Are not all the daughters of Israel possessed
of good manners?’ He answered, ‘God forbid! who is not familiar with the
Torah cannot be possessed of good manners.’”61
The
assumption that men are to learn Torah, but not women, was further
mirrored in the “difference in formulation, according to sex, of a
prayer for the prosperity of a new-born infant. In the case of a boy,
the conclusion asked that his parents may be granted to bring him up to
‘Torah, marriage, and good works’;62
for girls, a current modification of the formula runs ‘to reverence,
marriage, and good works.’ ... Reference to the Torah is conspicuously
absent.”63
It should be added that in the recitation of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:7,
is quoted: “You shall repeat them to your sons.” That this very ancient
precept, with its sole focus on men, persisted through much later times
is seen by the fact that it was listed as the eleventh commandment (of
the total of 613) to which Maimonides remarked: “Women are not obliged
thereto.”64
Thus, if
no women were obliged to study Torah, and if no one was obliged to teach
them., there was not much possibility that they would in fact study
Torah. For who taught Torah? The rabbis, and their attitude toward women
would have made it impossible for them to have women students. As the
modern Jewish scholar C. G. Montefiore notes:
Very few
women were students of the Law: it was not intended that they should be.
Yet the highest and most adorable thing in the world was to study the
Law. The greatest and purest joy in the world was to fulfil all the
commandments and ordinances of the Pentateuch and Rabbinic codes. But
women need not, and could not, observe them all. It was not for nothing
that the daily blessing was said (the blessing which the modern orthodox
Jews have not had the courage and good sense to remove from their prayer
books): ‘Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who hast not made me a
woman.’ This blessing was as sincerely said as the two previous ones:
‘Blessed art thou, O Lord our God who hast not made me a gentile or a
slave.’65
a)
Beruria: The Exception that Proves the Rule
Montefiore said, “they tell of a few exceptional women such as Beruria,”
who apparently had some knowledge of Torah. In fact, whenever some kind
of evidence is put forth which is counter to the above documentation,
that women in reality did not study Torah, Beruria is always mentioned.
When one finds in this connection a reference to Beruria everywhere, and
very often only to Beruria,66
one is tempted to see this as a classical case of the exception proving
the rule.
Because
Beruria was such an exceptional woman in early Jewish history, she is
deserving of a more detailed discussion. The Encyclopaedia Judaica
(vol. 4, col. 701) emphasizes that “she is famous as the only woman in
talmudic literature whose views on halachic matters are seriously
reckoned with by the scholars of her time.” Beruria was the daughter of
a rabbi and the wife of the very important Rabbi Meir (early and middle
second century). There are various spellings of her name, the usual
alternates being Valeria, or possibly Valuria. In his 1921 book,
Jesus und die Frauen, Johannes Leipoldt referred to these alternate
spellings and described her as the daughter of Rabbi Chanina ben
Teradion (p. 120). Twenty years later in Jesu Verhaeltnis zu Griechen
und Juden., he referred to her as a proselyte: “The proselyte
Veluriat67
is probably the same woman as Meir’s wife Veluria because of the rarity
of the name” (p. 20). However, in 1954, in Die Frau in der antiken
Welt und im Urchristentum Leipoldt again simply referred to Beruria
as the daughter of Rabbi Chanina ben Teradion (p. 100). Since the Talmud
itself68
identifies Beruria as the daughter of Rabbi Chanina ben Teradion, it is
not likely the identification between her and the proselyte Valeria can
be made.69
Beruria
became an avid student of Torah, although we do not know who taught her
to read or with what rabbi she studied; she may have studied with her
father, but perhaps also with other rabbis. Apparently she went through
the intensive three-year course of study customary for disciples of
rabbis at the time:
Rabbi
Simlai came before Rabbi Johanan and requested him: Let the master teach
me the Book of Genealogies.... Let us learn it in three months, he
proposed. Thereupon he (Rabbi Johanan) took a clod and threw it at him,
saying: If Beruria, wife of Rabbi Meir and daughter of Rabbi Hananya ben
Teradyon who studied three hundred laws from three hundred teachers in
one day could nevertheless not do her duty in three years, yet you
propose to do it in three months!70
Beruria
not only put in the canonical three-year program of study, but also did
it in such an exemplary manner that she was held up as an example of how
to study Torah. Indeed, her reputation as an avid student was so great
that it spawned legends about her studiousness, as in the clearly
hyperbolic reference to the three hundred laws studied from three
hundred teachers every day for three years. Such a legend was quite a
compliment to her reputation, and triply so when it is also recalled
that Beruria was being held up to be emulated by Rabbi Simlai who
himself was a very renowned rabbi, and that Rabbi Simlai lived over a
hundred years after Beruria.
Beruria
also took part in the discussions and debates among the rabbis and their
more able followers. In one such a debate over a very technical matter
of ritual purity she opposed, and bested, her brother: in referring to
Beruria, Rabbi Judah ben Baba said, “His daughter has answered more
correctly than his son.”71
Another debate was recorded in which two rabbinical schools were ranged
on opposite sides, whereupon Beruria gave her solution. “When these
words were said before Rabbi Judah, he commented ‘Beruria has spoken
rightly.’”72
The striking thing about these reports, and others elsewhere in the
Talmud, is that a woman’s opinion on Torah became law, halacha.
At least one woman penetrated to the heart of Judaism, Torah, and not
only as an absorbent student, but also as a rabbinical disputant and a
decisive maker of law.
Beyond
these accomplishments Beruria also followed the path of all other really
able students of Torah and became a teacher of Torah: “Beruria once
discovered a student who was learning in an undertone. Rebuking him, she
exclaimed: Is it not written, ‘ordered in all things and sure?’ If it
(the Torah) is ‘ordered’ in your 248 limbs it will be ‘sure,’ otherwise
it will not be ‘sure.’”73
The then common mode of studying Torah was to recite it aloud to
memorize it more effectively. Here Beruria not only drilled the student
as a schoolmistress, but did so in a peculiarly rabbinic fashion: she
quoted from the Torah and argued her position by explaining and applying
the scriptural passage. Her rebuke of the student was gentle; she tried
to lead him more deeply into his studies. As one modern Jewish woman
scholar states, “One gets the impression that Beruria had the
personality of a master-rebbe who was seriously concerned with the
spiritual and educational welfare of people.”74
That this story of Beruria, together with one of her teaching the famous
rabbi Jose the Galilean on the road to Lydda, is grouped with a number
of other rabbinical stories about teaching, indicates that the editors
of the Babylonian Talmud were aware of her teaching prowess as late as
the fifth century-three centuries after her death.
Still
another story recorded in the Talmud portrays Beruria teaching Torah in
the customary rabbinical manner-quoting, explaining, and applying
Scripture:
A certain
min (Sadducees) said to Beruria: It is written: ‘Sing, O barren,
thou that didst not bear.’ Because she did not bear, she should sing?
She said to him: Fool! Look at the end of the verse, where it is
written, ‘for more are the children of the desolate than the children of
the married wife, saith the Lord.’ Rather, what is the meaning of ‘O
barren, thou didst not bear’?-Sing O community of Israel, who resembles
a barren woman, for not having borne children like you, who are damned
to hell.75
Beruria
clearly did not suffer fools gladly, as this story and the one about
Rabbi Jose the Galilean, related below, indicate. She could also be
extremely sympathetic and sensitive to those she felt were sincere, but
here she faced a man she thought was helping to destroy true Judaism (min
is to be understood here either as a Sadducee opponent of the
Pharisees/rabbis or as a Jewish- Christian) and who apparently was
expounding Scripture in an ignorant way. If there was anything Beruria
could not tolerate, it was a man being pretentious about Torah.
Beruria
likewise had an intense moral fervor and sensitive concern for persons,
as illustrated by the following story about her and her famous husband,
Rabbi Meir:
Certain
highwaymen living in the neighborhood of Rabbi Meir annoyed him greatly,
and Rabbi Meir prayed for them to die. His wife Beruria said to him:
What is your view? Is it because it is written: ‘Let the sinners be
consumed’? Is ‘sinners’ written? ‘Sins’ is written. Moreover, look at
the end of the verse: ‘and let the wicked be no more.’ Since the sins
will cease, the wicked will be no more. He prayed for them and they
repented.76
This is
clearly high moral advice, presented with the usual scriptural
quotation, analysis and application of its meaning. Beruria here showed
herself the superior of the best male rabbinical mind and moral spirit;
the hard proof of that is that Rabbi Meir took her advice, with success.
A modern male Jewish scholar has commented on this passage: “Students
sufficiently familiar with Hebrew would profit greatly by following
Beruria’s argument in the Talmud’s original text, also looking up the
Hebrew of the verse ....”77
If
Beruria was a brilliant student and teacher of Torah, a decider of
halacha, and one who lived and taught an intensely moral life, did
she not have all the qualities of a rabbi? Rabbi, after all, simply
meant master or teacher; it was a term of respect given to the teachers
of Torah who were expected to decide the law and live morally. She
clearly did, but in the documents as we have them she is never referred
to as rabbi. Presumably she never received the “ordination” (semikhah)
to the rabbinate that promising young men normally received at the
completion of their studies. (At least one man, as noted above, Ben
Azzai, of the first century, was also learned in the Law, taught Law,
decided Law, and was of high moral character, and was also not
“ordained,” and hence not referred to as rabbi.) There was no legal
reason why she could not have been “ordained”; rather, the generally
very low rabbinic estimate of women is the most likely reason, though
from the documents which are available we cannot know that for certain.
Beruria,
as she appears in the pages of rabbinic writings, is a person who lived
a very full human life with perhaps more than her measure of suffering.
Hers was the time of the final destruction of the Jewish homeland in
Palestine by the Romans in 135 C. E., until it was reestablished in the
twentieth century. She lost her father Rabbi Hananya ben Teradyon in
these same Hadrianic persecutions. Her brother, whom she had bested in a
Torah dispute, disgraced the family by turning to banditry and
subsequently was murdered by his gang for trying to inform on them. Her
sister was forced into a brothel by the conquering Roman authorities,
although Beruria contrived to have her husband Rabbi Meir rescue her.
But perhaps the most tragic suffering of her life was the death of two
of her sons. Her endurance and response to their sudden deaths is
recalled in the following rabbinic story:
When two
of their sons died on Sabbath, Beruria did not inform Meir of their
children’s death upon his return from the academy in order not to grieve
him on the Sabbath! Only after the Havdalah prayer did she broach
the matter , saying: Some time ago a certain man came and left something
in my trust; now he has called for it. Shall I return it to him or not?
Naturally Meir replied in the affirmative, whereupon Beruria showed him
their dead children. When Meir began to weep, she asked: Did you not
tell me that we must give back what is given on trust? ‘The Lord gave,
and the Lord has taken away.’78
In the
midst of extraordinary suffering we see her rabbinic style coming to the
fore once more, as she tells a story and applies it to the present
situation with a Scripture quotation. Likewise, the stereotypical sex
roles are reversed as the strong Beruria takes the more intellectual
approach and Rabbi Meir weeps.
In all
the stories recorded about Beruria, she is always set over against a
man; the only story involving another woman is really not a tale about
Beruria but about her husband, who was asked by Beruria to rescue her
sister from the brothel.79
In the rabbinic writings Beruria is seen only as a rabbinic student,
disputant, halachic decision-maker, and above all a teacher-always with
men. Moreover, she is always superior to the men, whether as a model of
studiousness, a teacher, or as a superior and even at times triumphant
disputant and exegete. This is the case even in regard to her husband,
the most learned and renowned rabbi of his age. If such a strong and
positive image comes through even the totally male memorized, written
and edited rabbinic materials, what must Beruria have been like?
Beruria
had to be an unusual-a rabbinical-woman to make a broad mark on that
massive male work, the Talmud. Clearly she did not fit the female
stereotype of her day. But she was more than that. She very keenly felt
the oppressed, subordinate position women held in the Jewish society
around her, and struck out against it. Her consciousness was extremely
sensitized: “Rabbi Jose the Galilean was once on a journey when he met
Beruria. ‘By what road,’ he asked her, ‘do we go to Lydda?’ ‘Foolish
Galilean,’ she replied, ‘did not the Sages say this: Engage not in much
talk with women? You should have asked: By which to Lydda?’”80
What is irritating Beruria is woman’s second class status, here
reflected in the rabbinic law that a man should not speak much with
women., who are too “lightheaded” to waste time on, and sexually
tempting besides. Here was a chance to throw verbal acid in the face of
one of her “oppressors.” A student she treated gently; the rabbi she
called a fool. But with her keen wit she did not simply vituperate the
rabbi (one wonders if he had earlier delivered himself of some pompous
sage quotation on the frivolity and inferiority of women to have earned
this breathtaking attack); instead, she carefully followed the
traditional rabbinic pattern of disputation by rebutting a statement
with a quotation from the written or oral Law. Always she remained the
intellectual.
What a
weight Beruria’s reputation must have had in talmudic times for this
vitriolic putdown of a rabbi to be noted, remembered for hundreds of
years, and finally made permanent in the final redaction of the Talmud.
That there was obviously also a counter-feeling among the early rabbis
is reflected only in a shadowy fashion in the last line of the talmud
story about Rabbi Meir’s rescue of Beruria’s sister from a brothel.
There was a backlash to his rescue efforts and “He then arose and ran
away and came to Babylon; others say because of the incident about
Beruria.”81
No further information about the “incident” is given in the Talmud.
There is merely this dark reference, sheer innuendo.
A
thousand years later, we find a full-blown legend about the incident in
the commentary on this passage by the famous Jewish medieval talmudic
scholar Rashi:
Beruria
once again made fun of the saying of the Sages that women are
lightheaded. Then Meir said to her: With your life you will have to take
back your words. Then he sent one of his students to test her to see if
she would allow herself to be seduced. He sat by her the whole day until
she surrendered herself to him. When she realized (what she had done)
she strangled herself. Thereupon Rabbi Meir ran away (to Babylonia) on
account of the scandal.82
There is
nothing at all in the intelligence, perceptiveness and moral character
of Beruria to make this in any way credible. Would she not have
perceived that her husband had set a trap for her? Is it not
incomprehensible that the great Rabbi Meir could have commissioned his
rabbinic student to commit one of the three deadly sins83
in its most serious form: sexual immorality with a married Jewish woman?
Finally, why would it take a thousand years for this story, so out of
character with all of the previously known documentation, to surface?84
It clearly was invented simply to morally annihilate Beruria, the one
woman of superior stature in the Talmud, Beruria the feminist-for it was
exactly on that point that she was attacked. Because she took an overtly
feminist stance of rejecting the rabbinic stereotyping of women as
intellectually inferior, she was told she would have to give up her
life. Feminism was a capital crime! In male chauvinist fashion the moral
destruction planned for her would reduce her to the female stereotype, a
weak sexual creature who could not resist a determined Don Juan.
Despite
the historical bankruptcy of this late legend, it does underline
Beruria’s towering reputation in her lifetime and for centuries
afterwards. The very attempt to destroy it is evidence of its power.
Although the opposition was already there in talmudic times, as is seen
in the innuendo about the “incident,” the later hatchet job suggests
that the enemies of what she stood for grew stronger in time.
Fortunately, the character assassination attempt was far from completely
successful, for the clearly historically based evidence of the earlier
talmudic stories remains today. Less fortunately, the fact that the
talmudic evidence was not erased bears witness not only to the vigorous
reputation of Beruria, but also to the faithful honesty of the
generations of rabbis who memorized, handed on, and finally wrote down,
collected, and edited the stories about Beruria. This latter means that
there were no other women who entered and advanced in the heartland of
Judaism, the study of the Torah, otherwise we would have talmudic
stories of them as well. Beruria was the “exception that proves the
rule” that in talmudic days women did not study Torah.
b)
Imma Shalom: No Exception
The one
other woman of the early Rabbinic period who, along with Beruria, is at
times mentioned by name as one who knew Torah, if not exactly as an
example of “many women recorded as being Torah scholars in the
fullest Sense,”85
is Imma Shalom. She was the sister of Rabbi Gamaliel Il and the wife of
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus-both famous first century C. E. rabbis, the
latter being the one who, among other things, said “Whoever teaches his
daughter Torah, it is as though he taught her lechery.”86
Imma Shalom could not qualify as a Torah scholar in any sense of the
word. There are several references to her in rabbinical writings, but
only two have importance for us here. One story is about a dispute she
was involved in with her brother (whether the recorded dispute is real
or fictitious is difficult to determine definitely, but that has no
bearing on its significance-or lack of significance-here), during which
she bribed the (Christian?) judge, but lost anyhow because her brother
put up a larger bribe. No scriptural or rabbinic argumentation was
presented by Imma Shalom, nor was an ethical principle propounded or
exemplified.87
The
second story about Imma Shalom also hardly proves that women were
learned in Torah or were highly esteemed by the rabbis. It relates that
when she once heard a sceptic mocking her brother, saying, “Your God is
not strictly honest, or He would not have stolen a rib from sleeping
Adam,” she asked him to fetch a police official whereupon he asked her
why. “We were robbed last night of a silver cruet and the thief left in
its place a golden one.” He responded, “If that is all I wish that thief
would visit me every day!” Imma retorted, “and yet you object to the
removal of the rib from sleeping Adam! Did he not receive in exchange a
woman to wait on him?”88
Perhaps the last line helps explain why the story was recorded.89
c)
Other Non-exceptions
The
article on “Woman” in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia90
refers to the ubiquitous Beruria, then to the wife (no name given-a
revealing fact) of Jacob ben Judah Mizrahi, who “continued to direct his
Yeshiva after his death,” and to the “daughter (again no name) of the
exilarch Samuel ben Eli of Baghdad, and Miriam Sapira (who) both taught
Torah to male students from whom they were separated by a curtain”-also
a “revealing” fact. Again, outside of Beruria, none of these cases has
any bearing on the topic at hand, the status of women in the period of
formative Judaism, i. e., 200 B. C. E.-500 C. E.; the latter two women
lived during the High Middle Ages and the wife of Mizrahi lived in the
sixteenth century.
A
different list of “learned women” of this early period is given by
Shalom Ben-Chorin.91
He grants that such women were the exception, but insists that there
were some. Again none of them, with the exception of Beruria, can in any
way be said to be learned in Torah, and in fact there is some difficulty
with the general term “learnedness” (Gelehrsamkeit) used in
reference to some of them. Ben-Chorin does not include Imma Shalom in
his list of learned women because he has just referred to her in a
somewhat derogatory fashion as a bluestocking.92
He begins his list with Beruria and then mentions “Homa the daughter of
Rabbi Chisda from Kaphri.”
It is
puzzling why Homa the daughter of Rabbi Chisda should be listed as
learned in Torah. In the Babylonian Talmud she does not even have a
name, but is constantly referred to simply as the daughter of Rabbi
Chisda.93
As a child she was once taken upon her father’s lap
and was asked which of his two prize pupils she wanted for a husband;
she said, both. This was recorded because she did eventually marry one,
Rami, and after his death, the second, Raba.94
It is also recorded that she had a hole made in the wall of the “court”
so that she could stick her hand through above the head of her husband,
presumably to ward off maleficent spirits,95
and that once she burst into the courtroom to denounce a woman as a
liar.96
The last
story about her in the Talmud is largely about another woman whom the
Talmud names Homa. In the story this other Homa, who was reputed to be
very beautiful but who also had the ill-fortune of having three husbands
die one after the other, went to the rabbinical court, and in the course
of her visit her beauty apparently “became visible” to the court:
As she
was shewing it to him her arm was uncovered and a light shone upon the
court. Raba arose, went home and solicited Rabbi Chisda’s daughter [his
own wife]. ‘Who has been to-day at the court?’ enquired Rabbi Chisda’s
daughter. ‘Homa the wife of Abaye,’ he replied. Thereupon she followed
her, striking her with the straps of a chest until she chased her out of
all Mahuza. ‘You have,’ she said to her, ‘already killed three (men),
and now you come to kill another (man)!’97
Here
Rabbi Chisda’s daughter (Homa) appears either as a very jealous woman or
one superstitiously fearful of the evil power of a thrice-widowed
woman-or both. From all of the evidence, Homa (Rabbi Chisda’s daughter)
can in no way be said to exhibit learnedness in Torah, or anything else.
A third
learned woman, according to Ben-Chorin, is Yalta, the wife of Rabbi
Nahman., a fourth century C. E. Babylonian rabbi. Although there are a
number of references to Yalta in the early rabbinical writings, none of
them indicate that she was in any way learned. She exhibited a sharp
temper when a guest refused to send her a glass of wine with a blessing
over it-women were not present when guests were at meals.98
She also once said to her husband: “The Torah has permitted something of
a similar taste for everything it has forbidden; I would like to eat
meat in milk”; whereupon she listed a number of things that were
forbidden and other things somewhat similar which were allowed.99
The list, however, shows no more “Gelehrsamkeit” than any Jewish wife
would have if she tried to keep a kosher home; that is, if she followed
the rules her “learned” husband laid down.
Two other
women are also referred to by Ben-Chorin. One is the foster mother of
Rabbi Abaye, mentioned above,100
who possessed medical knowledge and is credited with some pedagogical
statements-but this of course does not qualify her as one learned in
Torah. The last reference is more interesting: “Also a maid of Rabbi
Judah (second century C. E.) is described as learned; she commented on
Bible verses which were difficult to understand.”101
Perhaps
the first thing to notice about this maidservant of Rabbi Judah (the
codifier of the Mishnah) is that she is nameless; in the five, or
possibly six, places in the Babylonian Talmud where she is mentioned she
is always referred to only as Rabbi Judah’s maidservant or domestic. Our
evidence concerning her is very meager. We do know that she had learned
at least some Hebrew, something of the symbolic style of speaking
current among rabbis and their students, and was an imposing and
responsible enough member of Rabbi Judah’s household to be able to levy
an excommunication and exercise a powerful prayer at the death of the
Rabbi-no mean accomplishments for a woman servant. However, given the
slimness of the documentation one must be careful to neither unduly
expand nor contract its significance. It is necessary to look at each
portion separately before attempting an over-all evaluation.
If the
reference in bShab. 152a, about a ninety-two year old domestic of Rabbi
Judah’s household serving as a food taster, refers to the female
domestic in question, as seems reasonably likely, and if it is coupled
with the stories of her exercising significant household
responsibilities, one gets the picture of an intelligent, perceptive
woman servant who for many decades must have heard the great Rabbi
Judah, and perhaps even his father, Rabbi Simon III, teaching his
students and discussing halachic matters with his colleagues.
She even
had charge of the tables reserved by the patriarch for the numerous
pupils who received free board at his house; and as circumstances or her
whims dictated, she would either immediately dismiss the students after
the meals were over or invite them to remain a while longer. In such
company she adopted the technical language known only to the initiated,
and employed exclusively by the Rabbis, who scarcely ever expressed the
principal idea literally, but nearly always resorted to symbols and
figures of speech:102
When
Rabbi’s maid indulged in enigmatic speech she used to say this: The
ladle strikes against the jar [all the wine in the jar has been used
up]; let the eagles fly to their nests [the students may now leave the
dining room for their lodgings]; and when she wished them to remain at
table she used to tell them, The crown of her friend [the bung of the
adjoining jar] shall be removed and the ladle will float in the jar like
a ship that sails in the sea.103
That such
a woman in that setting would have learned some Hebrew is not at all
surprising, especially those terms dealing with kitchen and domestic
matters. However, when looking at the passage in bMeg. 18a it is a
little difficult to conclude with Ben-Chorin that she “commented on
Bible verses which were difficult to understand.” The passage reads as
follows:
The
Rabbis did not know what was meant by serugin, until one day they
heard the maidservant of Rabbis household, on seeing the Rabbis enter at
intervals, say to them, How long are you going to come in by serugin?
The
Rabbis did not know what was meant by halugelugoth, til one day
they heard the handmaid of the household of Rabbi, on seeing a man
peeling portulaks, say to him, How long will you be peeling your
portulaks? (halugelugoth).
The
Rabbis did not know what was meant by, salseleah (and it shall
exalt). One day they heard the handmaid of the house of Rabbi say to
a man who was curling his hair, How long will you be mesalsel
with your hair?... [Then comes a similar example which does not involve
Rabbi Judah’s maidservant. I
The
Rabbis did not know what was meant by we-tetethia bematate (of
destruction), til one day they heard the handmaid of the household
of Rabbi say to her companion, Take the tatitha (broom) and
tati (sweep) the house.104
To be
sure, Ben-Chorin is not alone in making the sort of claim he does: “She
used to help the great scholar and his students to interpret difficult
biblical passages by Muttering clues to their interpretations as she
cleaned the room.”105
Likewise: “In almost one breath this sensible woman once explained the
meaning of four separate rabbinical expressions in the presence of the
learned. The ingenious, roundabout way in which this was done, and her
half playful manner of concealing the act, are matters not without
interest.”106
There are
difficulties with these explanations of this passage. First, those who
were aided by the maidservant’s Hebrew utterances did not include Rabbi
Judah himself. Secondly, that these word difficulties all occurred and
were solved “in almost one breath” is quite unlikely. What is likely is
that several different occasions were involved and that these four at
any rate were remembered and (almost) brought together in this one
passage-after all, they were also recorded singly elsewhere in the
Talmud.107
The Talmud simply records that a group of rabbis who gathered around the
household of Rabbi Judah the Prince were inadvertently assisted in
understanding some unusual Hebrew words when they overheard the
maidservant on different occasions using a form of these words-which
concerned household matters that a maidservant would deal with. It is
just possible that the maid was circumspectly passing on some of her
household Hebrew to perhaps relatively newly arrived rabbis, but there
is nothing in the text that positively indicates that this was the case;
rather, the contrary is true. If she was “commenting on Bible verses
which were difficult to understand,” then neither the rabbis who
overheard her utterances nor those who recorded them in the Talmud were
aware that she was doing so. Still, it is possible.
This same
maidservant also wielded an extraordinary degree of responsibility, as
the following story of her banishing a malefactor from the company of
the Rabbi’s household indicates:
Then R.
Samuel b. Nahmani got up on his feet and said: Why, even a ‘separation’
imposed by one of the domestics in Rabbi’s house was not treated lightly
by the Rabbis for three years; how much more so one imposed by our
colleague, Rab Judah! ... What (was the incident) of the domestic in
Rabbi’s house? It was one of the maidservants in Rabbi’s house that had
noticed a man beating his grown-up son and said, Let that fellow be
under a shammetha! because he sinned against the words (of Holy
Writ): Put not a stumbling-block before the blind. For it is
taught: and not put a stumbling-block before the blind, that text
applies to one who beats his grown-up son (and this caused him to
rebel).108
Obviously
not only rabbis could “exclude” wrongdoers at that time, but obviously,
too, the maidservant’s reputation must have carried some weight. It
should also be noted that she also knew the rabbinic style of backing
things up with a Scripture quotation-she doubtless had heard many such
bannings issued over the decades.
The final
story about Rabbi Judah’s maidservant reveals again her strength of
character in a most dramatic manner.
On the
day when Rabbi died the Rabbis decreed a public fast and offered prayers
for heavenly mercy. They, furthermore, announced that whoever said that
Rabbi was dead would be stabbed with a sword.
Rabbi’s
handmaid ascended the roof and prayed: The immortals desire Rabbi (to
join them) and the mortals desire Rabbi (to remain with them); may it be
the will (of God) that the mortals may overpower the immortals. When,
however, she saw how often he resorted to the privy, painfully taking
off his tefillin and putting them on again, she prayed: May it be the
will (of the Almighty) that the immortals may overpower the mortals. As
the Rabbis incessantly continued their prayers for (heavenly) mercy she
took up a jar and threw it down from the roof to the ground. (For a
moment) they ceased praying and soul of the Rabbi departed to its
eternal rest.109
In sum,
it is likely that the same maidservant is spoken of in all the passages
quoted, although one cannot be absolutely certain since no name is ever
given-a fact in itself which reveals a good deal about the inferior
status of women, even those of strong character. This maidservant was a
strong character who learned at least some Hebrew, could banter with
rabbinic students in the “in” language, and at least once wielded
effectively the “separation” in the approved manner. Nevertheless, for
all of her strength of character, she is not evidence that women studied
Torah. In fact she is evidence that they did not, for if such a servant
had been male, he would doubtless have eventually been pulled into the
ranks of the rabbinic students and then the rabbis, and would not have
been nameless, or known simply as a man’s servant.
In a
further remark Ben-Chorin writes: “When a pharisee can even issue a
warning about a pharisaical woman (Sotah 3, 4), that shows that women
had already entered into the theological discussion, if perhaps even
only on the periphery.”110
The pertinent reference in the Mishnah is as follows: “A foolish pious
man and a cunning wicked man and a sanctimonious woman and the
self-inflicted wounds of the Pharisees-these ruin the world.”111
Neither this text itself, however, nor the comment on it in the
Babylonian Talmud give any indication of women being involved in
theological discussion.112
In the
end, of course, Shalom Ben-Chorin also is not attempting to maintain
that women studied Torah in ancient rabbinic days. As noted, he remarks:
“learned women were the exception.”113
In fact he goes beyond that, saying: “We must envision the religious
life of a Jewish woman in this time as extremely introverted.... We have
rather indiscriminately chosen several examples here out of a relatively
large time span, but this is legitimate, for in this time span, from the
time of Christ to the later talmudic period, no real emancipation of the
woman took place. Her status within Judaism did not change.”114
It does seem that every time a list of women from ancient rabbinic days
purportedly learned in Torah is put forth, they all seem to be
chimerical-with the exception of Beruria. One can conclude that in
mishnaic and talmudic times women did not study, nor were they taught,
Torah.
6. WOMEN DISTRACT FROM TORAH STUDY
A
corollary point might well be added here: for the sake of prayer and the
study of Torah, men did well to avoid contact with women, including
their wives. The second century B. C. E. Testament of Naphtali
stated: “There is a season for a man to embrace his wife, and a season
to abstain therefrom for his prayer.”115
The idea is further developed in the Mishnah, where it states: “If a man
vowed to have no intercourse with his wife.... Disciples (of the Rabbis)
may continue absent for thirty days against the will (of their wives)
while they occupy themselves in the study of Torah.”116
This period is especially noteworthy, for by contrast the Mishnah adds:
“laborers-only for-one week.”
The
Talmud expands the opposition between women and the study of Torah when
it states: “Students may go away to study Torah without the
permission (of their wives even for) two or three-years.”117
But it does not stop there, for a number of stories are added which
indicate that it was often customary for a man to go off without his
wife for twelve years! (This was apparently the usual period of Torah
study in the academy.) This is true not only for the later rabbinic
times but perhaps even for the first century C. E., for such a story is
also told of Rabbi Akiba.118
If the question is “for how long (may they-disciples-go away) with the
permission (of their wives)?” the response is: “For as long as they
desire.”119
In fact, the life of Rabbi Akiba illustrates this dictum well, for after
allegedly spending twelve years away from his wife he returned to his
home town where he overheard an old man saying to his wife: “‘How long
will you lead the life of a living widowhood?’ ‘If he would listen to
me,’ she replied, ‘he would spend (in study) another twelve years.’ Said
(Rabbi Akiba): ‘It is then with her consent that I am acting,’ and he
departed again and spent another twelve years at the academy.”120
However,
Louis Finkelstein121
says: “The time of separation from his wife, which in reality could
hardly have exceeded three years, is extended [according to the Talmud]
over the full thirteen years.... Incredible as this is, the Babylonian
teachers thought it insufficient, and they created a legend, according
to which., when Akiba came home at the end of the twelve years, he heard
a neighbor....” Nevertheless, even if Finkelstein is accurate, that the
rabbis thought expanding Akiba’s three years’ absence from his wife to
study Torah to twenty-four years would enhance his reputation, says
almost as much about what the rabbis thought about women and their
compatibility with the study of Torah as does the actual three-year
absence or the perhaps legendary twenty-four year absence.
Finkelstein also commented:
Akiba may
thus be regarded as the founder of the peculiar institution of married
‘monasticism’ which, while it never became very popular in Judaism, has
exerted an influence throughout the centuries. Many of Akiba’s pupils
followed his example, and hardly more than a generation ago there were
groups of people in the small Lithuanian communities, called perushim,
separatists, who resurrected the ancient custom.
[For a record of the institution during the
Middle Ages, see Moritz Guedemann, Geschichte des Erziehungswesens
und der Cultur der abendIaendischen Juden, Amsterdam, 1960, vol.
I,
pp. 266 ff.-who refers to the thirteenth century “almost monastic
foundation. After marriage, they would devote themselves completely to
their studies while their wives supported them. Rightly or wrongly, the
talmudists believed that as married men, students were less open to
temptation than as celibates. ‘He who has bread in his basket,’ they
said in a rather coarse metaphor, ‘is safer than he who lacks it.122‘
Indeed,
elsewhere the Talmud teaches it is good to neglect one’s family and let
them go hungry so as to devote one’s time to the study of Torah.123
The haggadic En Jacob on Gittlin 1 even records an instance when
a man sold his daughter to gain the means needed to study Torah!124
Thus,
holding to the observance of the scriptural command for every man to
produce progeny, and adhering to the need for men to allay their sexual
drive (as exhibited by some rabbis in their refusal to instruct an
unmarried young man on the grounds that his entire day was filled with
sin, that is, filled with sinful thoughts of sex),125
it was thought best to remove women from Torah, or at least to
subordinate them as much as possible to the study of Torah. The perfect
wife and mother was one who lived so as to allow her husband and sons to
spend as much of their lives as possible in the study of Torah: “Whereby
do women earn merit? By making their children go to the synagogue to
learn Scripture and their husbands to the Beth Hamidrash to learn
Mishnah, and waiting for their husbands till they return from the Beth
Hamidrash.”126
One “rabbi,” Ben Azzai, even went so far as not to marry at all; he was,
he said, in love with the Torah. Though strictly speaking not an
ordained rabbi, Ben Azzai was probably the only known ancient “rabbi”
not to marry.127
Concerning the obligation for all Jewish men to marry to produce progeny
and Ben Azzai’s delinquency in the matter, the Babylonian Talmud
recorded: “They said to Ben Azzai: Some preach well and act well, others
act well but do not preach well; you, however, preach well but do not
act well! Ben Azzai replied: But what shall I do, seeing that my soul is
in love with the Torah; the world can be carried on by others.”128
In the
end, it was not the brilliant Torah scholar and ethical thinker Beruria
who was held up as the ideal wife, but rather the wife of Rabbi Akiba,
who spent perhaps twenty-four years in living widowhood while Akiba
studied Torah.129
CHAPTER V
WOMEN IN SOCIETY
1. WOMEN’S EDUCATION
If women
did not study Torah, it must also be concluded that they normally
received no formal education, since formal study in ancient Judaism was
largely limited to the study of Torah. Concerning more ancient times it
was said that,
her
protected status was based on a religious and moral outlook, sharply
contrasting local Canaanite custom, as well as in economic and social
interests that predated the Settlement. These generally limited her
activity to that of the home and kindred occupations and provided the
goals and limitations of her education, contingent upon her father’s
position in society. The mother was naturally the girl’s primary teacher
and model...the young girl learned the domestic chores and special
skills of her mother through observation and imitation in the informal
atmosphere of the home.1
Raphael
Loewe also noted: “Marriage, as far as concerns the women, took place
regularly at the age of twelve.... Opportunities for the development of
maturity of personality, let alone the acquisition of formal education,
were consequently limited.”2
However, some daughters of upper class families may have learned Greek,
“as a social accomplishment.”3
But even those who had managed to learn something were normally
forbidden to teach even children;4
the reason given by the Talmud was “on account of their (the children’s)
fathers5-that
is, there was a danger of sexual immorality between the woman teacher
and the children’s fathers who brought them to school.6
2. BEARING WITNESS
Another
crucial matter which was somewhat dependent upon the education women
had-or did not have-and which was related both to religious and civil
life, was that of bearing witness. Basically women were not allowed to
bear witness in the Jewish society of the rabbinic period. The ancient
Mishnah stated the matter rather clearly: “The law about an oath of
testimony applies to men but not to women.”7
There were a very few specific situations when a woman’s testimony did
carry weight; they were always the same circumstances when the testimony
of a gentile slave would also be accepted-for example, a woman could
remarry on the strength of the testimony of another woman that her
husband was indeed dead.8
There can be no doubt but that women were disqualified from bearing
witness, as is borne out by much discussion in the later Talmud, where,
among other places, it says: “For that he (a slave) is disqualified from
giving evidence can be learnt by means of an a fortiori from the
law in the case of woman: for if woman who is eligible to enter (by
marriage) into the congregation (of Israel) is yet ineligible to give
evidence....”9
There is still further evidence from the first century C. E. that women
were so disqualified. Josephus wrote: “The testimony of women is not
accepted as valid,” and then added as a reason, “because of the
lightheadedness and brashness of the female sex.”10
On the other hand the midrash compilation Jalqut Schimoni says
women were disallowed because they were given to lying.11
The
midrash Pirke REL 14 (7d, 7) lists women’s not being able to bear
witness as one of the nine curses visited upon women as a result of the
Fall:
To the
woman he gave nine curses and death: the burden of the blood of
menstruation and the blood of virginity; the burden of pregnancy; the
burden of childbirth; the burden of bringing up the children; her head
is covered as one in mourning; she pierces her ear like a permanent
slave or slave girl who serves her master; she is not to be believed as
a witness; and after everything-death.12
In the
same place there is also an interesting exegesis put forward to explain
on the basis of Scripture why women are not allowed to bear witness. It
concerns Gen. 18:9-16, where Sara is told by Abraham that she would bear
a child in her old age-at which she laughed. The rabbis said: “And then
Sara denied it: I did not laugh. It is from this place that it is taught
that women are unqualified to bear witness.”
It is
interesting to note that in the middle of the twentieth century Rabbi
Raphael Loewe, consciously or unconsciously, opted for Josephus’ reason
rather than that in the Jalqut Schimoni:
No
reflection on their veracity is hereby intended, but merely (to cite an
operative phrase) ‘because they have light, i. e., flighty minds.’
(bShab. 33b; bKid. 80b) The solemnity of oathtaking was deemed to be a
matter beyond the range of normal female appreciation (Shab. 4, 1;
bShab. 30a; Maimonides, Hilekhoth Eduth 9, 1-2; Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen
Mishpat 35, 14); and in cases where a woman’s testimony was
indispensable for the pursuance of justice, as affecting her personal
status, evidence was generally taken from her informally and not in open
court. The analogy afforded by certain informalities of procedure
introduced into juvenile courts today, out of considerations of child
psychology, is of relevance here.13
It is
possible that this disability of women was not always so stringent in an
earlier, biblical time. At least, so argues one Jewish legal scholar,
Boaz Cohen. In speaking of a statement concerning giving testimony from
the Mishnah, B. K. 1, 3,14
he states: “The quaint formulation of this hoary halachah seems
to suggest the admission of women as witnesses.... Needless to say that
our baraita is merely the reminiscence of an earlier rule that
was later abandoned.... According to the prevalent Tannaitic view, women
were excluded from testimony.”15
Cohen also notes that in contrast, in the Hellenistic world “women were
accepted as witnesses in Greco-Egyptian Law,” although “in Athenian Law,
women were competent witnesses only in cases of homicide.”16
Whereas the legal position of women in this regard, and others) improved
with the passage of time from the Greek, to the Hellenistic, to the
Roman worlds, if Cohen is correct it apparently deteriorated in the
Jewish world.
3. WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND SLAVES
In the
ancient rabbinic writings, the Mishnah, and later the Talmud also, there
is an extraordinary linking of women along with slaves and children;
they all more or less suffered the same disabilities in these instances;
they were all less than full Jewish citizens. The grouping of these
three occurs numerous times; the following is a sampling: “Women and
slaves and minors are exempt from reciting the Shema and from wearing
phylacteries.”17
“Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from (the law of) the Sukkah.”18
These first two examples at least apparently relieve women, slaves, and
minors of certain burdens-though it is a mixed blessing.19
The following can hardly make even that claim.
“What is
found by a man’s son or daughter that are minors, what is found by his
Canaanitish bondman or bondwoman, and what is found by his wife, belong
to him.”20
The following two teachings expand the list of disqualified beyond that
of women, slaves and minors; it is an extraordinary grouping: “All are
subject to the command to appear (before the Lord) excepting a
deaf-mute, an imbecile, a child, one of doubtful sex, one of couple sex,
women, slaves that have not been freed, a man that is lame or blind or
sick or aged and one that cannot go up (to Jerusalem) on his feet. “21
“These are they that are ineligible (to bear witness concerning the new
moon): a dice-player, a usurer, pigeon-flyers, traffickers in Seventh
Year produce, and slaves. This is the general rule: any evidence that a
woman is not eligible to bring, these are not eligible to bring.”22
At least one midrash provides a reason why women, slaves and children
are grouped together in exempting them from fulfilling all the Law: they
are all subordinate to a master.23
In the
first five articles of the Mishnah tractate Kiddushin women are grouped
together, not with slaves and children, but with slaves, beasts and
property. What they all have in common is very revealing in regard to
the relative status of women; namely, how each of these “items” is
acquired by a man: “The woman is acquired by three means.... She is
acquired by money, or document, or by sexual connection.”24
There are only two ways to acquire a Jewish slave: “A Hebrew bondman is
acquired by money or by document”;25
but the parallel is fully restored with the non-Jewish slave: “A
Canaanite bondman is acquired by money or by a document or by
usucaption.”26
The next “item” again varies in the manner of acquisition: “A big beast
is acquired by the act of delivery and a small animal by lifting up.”27
But the parallel of three is again restored in regard to the next
“item”: “Property that carries security can be acquired by money, or by
document, or by usucaption.”28
In going
from the mishnaic to the talmudic period the relative position of women
among slaves and children slips to last place. Whereas the Mishnah says
simply: “Women or slaves or minors may not be included (to make up the
number needed) for the Common Grace,”29
the Talmud commentary on that mishnah carries the matter further in such
a way that both an infant and a slave take precedence over women in
certain important religious circumstances: “Women, slaves and children
are not counted (in the three). Rabbi Jose said: An infant in the cradle
may be counted for zimmun.30
But we have learnt: women, slaves and children may not be counted? He
adopts the view of Rabbi Joshua b. Levi. For Rabbi Joshua b. Levi said:
Although it was laid down that an infant in a cradle cannot be counted
for zimmun, yet he can be counted to make up ten.31
Rabbi Joshua b. Levi also said: Nine and a slave can be counted toward a
minyan (and the former perhaps for a zimmun), but a woman may
not.32
There can
be no doubt that the repeated grouping of women together with slaves and
children, and even other types of “inferior” persons and animals and
property, reflect very clearly the inferior status of women. As quoted
above, C. G. Montifiore notes: “‘Women, children and slaves’: that
familiar and frequent collocation means and reveals a great deal. Women
were, on the whole, regarded as inferior to men in mind, in function and
in status.”33
4. WOMEN APPEARING IN PUBLIC
The
degree to which Jewish women appeared in public in the first centuries
just before and after the beginning of the Common Era was apparently not
only considerably less than is the case today in Israel, but also less
than in the then contemporary Hellenistic civilization. Here again,
however, we should recall the important differences in the strength of
some customs as practiced on the land and in small villages as compared
to the towns and cities, as well as the distinction between the upper
and lower classes. In the country the women went about more freely than
in the towns and cities; they had to draw the water at the well;34
they worked in the fields,35
albeit never alone;36
they sold olives at their doors,37
and they were shopkeepers.38
At the feast of Succoth there used to be such a tumult and mixing of men
and women in the women’s court of the temple that galleries were erected
for the women to keep them separate.39
In the
wealthier families such contacts between men and women were apparently
not at all customary.40
There is evidence to indicate that both the ideal and, to a large
extent, at least in the towns and cities, the reality as well was that
unmarried women were very secluded. A telling bit of evidence to this
effect was recorded in III Maccabees 1:18-19, where, when Ptolomy IV
(217 B. C. E.) was about to desecrate the Holy of Holies by entering it,
it was related: “The virgins who had been shut up in their chambers
rushed forth with their mothers, and covering their hair with dust and
ashes, filled the streets with groanings and lamentations.” A similar
event took place several decades later (176 B. C. E.) when Heliodorus,
the chancellor of Seleucid IV, attempted to rob the treasury of the
Temple: “Unmarried girls who were kept in seclusion ran to the gates or
walls of their houses, while others leaned out from the windows; all
with outstretched hand made solemn entreaty to Heaven” (II Mac.
3:19-20). Around the same time Ben Sira also gave advice about keeping
unmarried daughters out of sight: “Keep a close watch over a headstrong
daughter.... Do not let her display her beauty to any man, or gossip in
the women’s quarters.”41
In a work composed by a Diaspora Jew shortly before or after the
beginning of the Common Era, but referring to the persecutions of the
Jews under Antiochus IV (167 B.C. E.), it was said of Hannah, the mother
of seven martyred sons:
Now these
are the words that the mother of the seven sons, the righteous woman,
spake to her children: ‘I was a pure maiden, and I strayed not from my
father’s house, and I kept guard over the rib that was builded into Eve.
No seducer of the desert, no deceiver in the field, corrupted me; nor
did the false, beguiling Serpent sully the purity of my maidenhood.42
The
picture drawn by Philo in Egypt depicts the physical restriction of
Jewish women as even more severe-at least in Egypt at that time: “Their
women are kept in seclusion, never even approaching the outer doors, and
their maidens are confined to the inner chambers, who for modesty’s sake
avoided the sight of men, even of their closest relations.”43
In another place Philo confirms this restriction of women as much as
possible to the household, with the unmarried limited even further: “The
women are best suited to the indoor life which never strays from the
house, within which the middle door is taken by the maidens as their
boundary, and the outer door by those who have reached full womanhood.”44
Women were to stay off the streets, except to go to pray, and they were
only to do that when everyone else had gone home: “A woman, then, should
not show herself off like a vagrant in the streets before the eyes of
other men, except when she has to go to the temple, and even then she
should take pains to go, not when the market is full, but when most
people have gone home.”45
The
evidence given just above from the apocrypha and the pseudepigrapha
refers to unmarried women in Palestine, and Philo’s testimony reflects
the restrictive customs concerning both married and unmarried women in
Jewish Egypt. The following mishnaic and tannaitic evidence indicates
that restrictive tendencies concerning married women were also present
in Palestine at the beginning of the Common Era.
One
mishnah states: “These are they that are put away without their Ketubah:
a wife that transgresses the Law of Moses and Jewish custom.... And what
(conduct is such that transgresses) Jewish custom? If she goes out with
her hair unbound, or spins in the street, or speaks with any man.”46
In another discussion of divorce Rabbi Meir is recorded as saying:
As men
differ in their treatment of their food, so they differ in their
treatment of their wives. Some men, if a fly falls into their cup, will
put it aside and not drink it. This corresponds to the way of Papus b.
Judah47
who used, when he went out, to lock his wife indoors. Another man, if a
fly falls into his cup, will throw away the fly and then drink the cup.
This corresponds to the way of most men who do not mind their wives
talking with their brothers and relatives. Another man, again if a fly
falls into his soup, will squash it and eat it. This corresponds to the
way of a bad man who sees his wife go out with her hair unfastened and
spin cloth in the street.... Such a one it is a religious duty to
divorce.48
Hence, in
Palestinian Judaism of the 1st century C. E. some men even locked their
wives in their houses, but “most men” did not object to their wives
talking to their brothers and relatives, although whether within
or outside their own households is not stated.
With the
passage of time the restrictions on married women leaving their
households in Palestinian Judaism became even more severe. In the rather
early Genesis Rabbah49
there is a very clear statement of this development; how much it may
also precisely reflect the state of affairs in the first and second
centuries is difficult to judge, though it surely fits in naturally with
the other earlier evidence of Palestinian restrictiveness and the even
more rigid Alexandrian limitations: “The man must master his wife, that
she not go out into the market place, for every woman who goes out into
the market place will eventually come to grief.”
In sum,
it is clear that in Palestinian Judaism at the beginning of the Common
Era unmarried women were kept indoors; married women were often limited
in their appearances in public although apparently many nevertheless did
at times leave their households.50
In view of these restrictions and those within the household and the
head and face covering of women, both to be discussed below, it would
seem appropriate to speak of a quasi-harem existence in Palestinian
Judaism of the 1st century C. E.;51
in Alexandrian Judaism the harem existence was full-blown.
5. WOMEN’S HEAD AND FACE COVERING
When a
Jewish woman did go out in public, she always went out with a head
covering52
which also covered the whole face,53
leaving one eye free.54
Going out without a head covering was considered so shameful that it was
grounds not only for divorce by the husband,55
but divorce without the obligation to pay the ketubah: “These are they
that are put away without their Ketubah ... if she goes out with her
head uncovered.”56
In fact, Rabbi Meir is quoted as saying that it is a duty for a husband
to divorce a woman who goes out without her head covered.57
On the other hand, if a man uncovered the head of a woman in public he
was obliged to pay the large sum of 100 zuz.58
Apparently, when in their own house or own courtyard some women covered
their head only minimally, or not at all.59
But apparently many women kept their heads covered even when in their
own house or courtyard, for during the early rabbinic period (17 B. C.
E.) the rabbis once asked the mother of the highpriest Ishmael ben
Kimhith what she had done to merit so much glory (the source of her
glory being that two of her sons had served as highpriest in one day).
She answered: “Throughout the days of my life the beams of my house have
not seen the plaits of my hair.” Such a statement alone would lead to
the conclusion that such behavior was unusual, but the rabbis’ immediate
response confirms the opposite: “They said to her: There were many who
did likewise and yet did not succeed.”60
In the still earlier story of Susanna in the Book of Daniel (written
after 160 B. C. E.) there is clear evidence that it was customary for
women to cover their heads and faces in public. When Susanna was brought
to trial by the two lecherous Elders, it was said of her: “Now Susanna
was a woman of great beauty and delicate feeling. She was closely
veiled, but those scoundrels ordered her to be unveiled so that they
might feast their eyes on her beauty” (Dan. 13:31-32). Of course, the
passage in Numbers 5:11-31 about the trial of the wife suspected of
adultery provides even considerably earlier evidence (at least fifth
century B. C. E., if not earlier) that women covered their heads in
public and that uncovering them was a great disgrace: “The priest shall
bring her forward.... He shall set her before the Lord, uncover her
head...” (Num. 5:16-18).
The head
and face covering probably consisted of a plaited hair-do combined with
two kerchiefs, a forehead band with ribbons hanging down to the chin,
and a hairnet with ribbons and bows on it.61
Just how thoroughly this covering hid the features of the women is
documented by many biblical and rabbinic passages,62
including the following rather dramatic one: “Once there was a
highpriest to whose lot it fell to administer the water of bitterness
(the test for a suspected adulteress of Num. 5:11-31). The woman was
brought to him and he uncovered her head and took her hair down. Then he
took the vessel to give her to drink; he looked at her and saw that it
was his mother.”63
Billerbeck comments on this passage: “Here one can see clearly that the
covering and veiling of the woman consisted of her coiffure. As long as
her head-dress was in order the priest did not know who was standing
before him, for her hair-do covered her face. Only as her head-dress was
uncovered by the undoing of her hair-do did he recognize his mother.”64
Jewish
women in Palestine before and after the Common Era, and probably also
later in Babylonia, then, always appeared in public with their head and
face largely covered, and very often even maintained this covering, or
at least a somewhat lesser one, within the confines of their own home
and courtyard so that even their own relatives might in some cases never
see their faces. These customs were probably less rigidly enforced in
the villages.
6. CONVERSATION WITH WOMEN
Jewish
women were not only to be seen as little as possible; they were also to
be heard and spoken to as little as possible. A general prohibition
against superfluous talk with any women was stated clearly a hundred
years before the Common Era, and was repeated, specified, and extended
subsequently. The Mishnah recorded that, “Jose b. Johanan (150 B.C. E.)
said ... talk not much with womankind.”65
Following tannaitic rabbis developed the text rather dramatically: “This
they said of a man’s own wife: how much more of his fellow’s wife! Hence
the Sages have said: He that talks much with womankind brings evil upon
himself and neglects the study of the Law and at the last will inherit
Gehenna.”66
The opposition between women and the study of Torah existed not only in
the sense that women did not study Torah, as discussed above,67
but also in the sense that women distracted men from the study of Torah.68
The prohibition was studied in the 2nd century C. E. as confirmed in
Beruria’s quoting it to Rabbi Jose the Galilean.69
It is repeated in the Talmud: “Do not converse much with women, as this
will ultimately lead you to unchastity.”70
In another place it is repeated, paralleling the mishnaic statement
concerning not speaking with one’s own wife, but adding other women
relatives as well. Here, too, the prohibition is not against “much talk,
“ but apparently against any speaking with women on the street:
Our
Rabbis taught: Six things are unbecoming for a scholar.... ‘He should
not converse with a woman in the street.’ Rabbi Hisda said: Even with
his wife. It has been taught similarly: Even with his wife, even with
his daughter, even with his sister, because not everyone knows who are
his female relatives.71
The
matter was carried so far that at times even an indirect speaking to a
woman was forbidden: “‘Will you send a greeting to (my wife) Yaltha,’ he
suggested. ‘Thus said Samuel,’ he replied, ‘(to listen to) a woman’s
voice is indecent.’ ‘It is possible through a messenger?’ ‘Thus said
Samuel,’ he retorted, ‘One must not enquire after a woman’s welfare.’
‘Then by her husband!’ ‘Thus said Samuel,’ said he, ‘One must not
enquire after a woman’s welfare at all.’”72
If there was any question about the seriousness of the prohibition of
speaking unnecessarily with women, even one’s wife, the matter was laid
to rest by the great Rab (second century C. E.), who was ordained by
Judah ha Nasi, the compiler of the Mishnah: “Rab said: Even the
superfluous conversation between a man and his wife is declared to a
person in the hour of his death.”73
There is
an enlightening passage immediately following the one just cited, which
teaches that although a husband ought not usually to talk much with his
wife, he may do so to cajole her into having sex with him: “Now behold
Rabbi Kahana once lay down beneath the bed of Rab, and he heard him
converse and jest and perform his needs. (Thereupon) he said: The mouth
of Rab is like that of one who has not tasted any food.74
Said (Rab) to him: Kahana, get out, this is unseemly!-There is no
contradiction: In the one case (it is) where he has to procure her
favor, in the other “where he has no need to procure her favor.” That
there was a tendency for husbands to limit their conversation with their
wives to when they had sexual intercourse with them is reinforced by the
story told about the first century C. E. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus75
(but here the story was told by his wife, Imma Shalom). What is
significant is the double meaning given to the word “converse” (SPR);
here it obviously means both vocal and sexual intercourse: “Imma Shalom
... replied: He (my husband) ‘converses’ with me neither at the
beginning nor at the end of the night, but (only) at midnight; and when
he ‘converses,’ he uncovers a handbreadth and covers a handbreadth, and
is as though he were compelled by a demon.”76
It can be
concluded that in ancient Palestinian Judaism men were normally not to
speak with women, especially in public (not even one’s own wife or
relatives, let alone other women); in private, conversation with one’s
wife or female relatives was to be kept to a minimum concerning
necessary items, although to “procure the wife’s (sexual) favor” this
prohibition was relaxed. In this regard women seem to have been seen
solely as serving and sexual beings.
7. WOMEN’S ABSENCE FROM MEALS
There is
an interesting corollary to the restrictions on conversing with women
within the household, which, among other things, limited their role as a
“serving being,” albeit with a somewhat demeaning motivation. First,
women did not eat with the men whenever there was a guest. This is made
clear in two stories about Rabbi Nahman (third century C. E.), who, when
at meal with a guest, asked him to send greetings to his (Nahman’s) wife
Yaltha. One story is quoted just above;77
the other is as follows: “Ulla was once at the house of Rabbi Nahman.
They had a meal and he said grace, and he handed the cup of benediction
to Rabbi Nahman. Rabbi Nahman said to him: Please send the cup of
benediction to Yaltha,”78
but Ulla refused to do so. At this point Billerbeck comments: “women
normally did not partake at a meal for guests; in order to honor them,
the cup of benediction with some left over wine was sent to them.”79
The same custom persists in the villages of Palestine today. While in
Israel in 1972 1 was in a number of houses of Arabs, Christian, Druze
and Muslim, for meals, and never met the wives, or any other women; my
friends had many similar experiences.
The
separation of women., or rather, females, from the meals of the men was
carried even further; the men were not even to be served by women. When
the same Rabbi Nahman wanted to have his daughter, who was only a child,
serve him and his guest a drink, he was rebuked with the clear quotation
of the earlier Rabbi Samuel: “One must not be served by a woman. “ When
Nahman argued that she was only a child, he was told: “Samuel said
distinctly, that one must not be served by a woman at all, whether adult
or child.”80
Again, a
similar custom persists among contemporary Palestinians; at all the
meals I was at, we were never served by girls or women. The women did
all the work of preparing the food and usually brought it as far as the
door of the dining area, whether it was a room or house roof or
whatever, and there it was taken by the youngest males and brought to
the guests.
CHAPTER VI
WOMEN AND SEX
1. WOMAN AS SEX OBJECT
Although
much of the evidence already discussed indicates that the early rabbis
often thought of women as mainly sexual creatures, there is still
further rabbinical documentation which projects an image of women as
almost totally sex objects. To begin, on the negative side (that is, a
woman who was not sexually, physically, attractive was judged
negatively), in a discussion in the Mishnah about the kinds of women who
are to be divorced without their kethubah, it was stated that all
defects which disqualify priests also disqualify women (and hence they
are to be divorced).1
At this point Blackman in his translation notes: “To these are added, in
the case of women, unpleasant perspiration, obnoxious breath, unbearable
odor, ugly unusual hair, horrid voice, unsightly scar, ungainly
breasts.”
But the
rabbis’ remarks about women as sex objects were usually on the
“positive” side, i. e... as stimulating sexual desire in the male. The
concern for avoiding this latter was the cause of some unusual
prohibitions: “A man should not walk behind a woman on the road.” The
editor of the English Soncino edition here notes: “To avoid unchaste
thoughts.” The prohibition was strengthened: “Rabbi Johanan said: Better
go behind a lion than behind a woman. And specified: “Even if his wife
happens to be in front of him on a bridge he should let her pass on one
side.” And strengthened still further: “whoever crosses a river behind a
woman will have no portion in the future world.” The English Soncino
edition notes: “Because the woman in crossing will naturally lift up her
dress.”2
Several
biblical women were remembered by the rabbis in particularly sexual
terms:
Our
Rabbis taught: Rahab inspired lust by her name; Jael by her voice;
Abigail by her memory; Mical daughter of Saul by her appearance. Rabbi
Isaac said: Whoever says, ‘Rahab, Rahab,’ at once has an issue. Said
Rabbi Nahman to him: I say Rahab, Rahab, and nothing happens to me! He
replied: I was speaking of one who knows her and is intimate with her.3
However,
it was not just these women who were thought by the rabbis to stimulate
lust, for after admonishing men not to “converse much with women, as
this will ultimately lead you to unchastity,” they added: “Rabbi Aha of
the school of Rabbi Josiah said: He who gazes at a woman eventually
comes to sin.”4
And further: “One should not look intently at a beautiful woman, even if
she be unmarried, or at a married woman even if she be ugly, nor at a
woman’s gaudy garments ... even when these are spread on a wall.”5
It would seem that every part of a woman’s body was an incitement to
lust: “Rabbi Isaac said: A handbreadth (exposed) in a (married) woman
constitutes sexual incitement. “This general statement was then
specified: “Rabbi Hisda said: A woman’s leg is a sexual incitement.” And
yet further: “A woman’s voice is a sexual incitement.” But perhaps the
crowning sexualizing statement about the body of a woman is the
following: “If one gazes at the little finger of a woman, it is as if he
gazed at her secret place!”6
Such
looking was thought to have an effect on the offspring when sexual
intercourse did actually take place afterwards: “Rabbi Josiah said ...
he who looks even at a woman’s heel will beget degenerate children.
Rabbi Joseph said: This applies even to one’s own wife when she is a
niddah.7
Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish said: ‘Heel’ that is stated means the unclean
part, which is directly opposite the heel.”8
A little later in the same passage a number of specific birth defects
were explained in terms of “deviations” in sexual practice. Save for the
one about conversation, they all seem to focus on the woman: “Rabbi
Johanan ben Dahabai said: The Ministering Angels told me four things:
People are born lame because they (their parents) overturned their
table.” The English Soncino edition comments here: “i. e., practiced
unnatural cohabitation.” What is obviously meant here is that during
sexual intercourse the woman rather than the man took the superior
position, which is what the editor of the German edition says.9
The sperm had to be deposited in the vagina, since conception took
place. It is interesting to note, however, that the English editor
apparently still thinks that the woman’s having the superior position is
“unnatural.”
It is
perhaps of sufficient interest to note here parenthetically that the
mythical Lilith of early medieval midrash (the Alphabet of Ben Sira),
Adam’s first mate, was, like him, made from the dust of the earth,
wanted equality with him and also wished at times to have the superior
position in sexual intercourse; things did not work out and so the more
docile Eve was made from Adam’s rib. To the medieval author, the things
Lilith wanted were clearly “unnatural.” The pertinent portion of the
story is as follows: “Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for
when he wished to lie with her, she took offense at the recumbent
posture he demanded. ‘Why must I lie beneath you?’ she asked. ‘I also
was made from dust, and am therefore your equal.’ Because Adam tried to
compel her obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name
of God, rose into the air and left him.”10
The editors commented:
It is
characteristic of civilizations where women are treated as chattels that
they must adopt the recumbent posture during intercourse, which Lilith
refused. That Greek witches who worshiped Hecate favoured the superior
posture, we know from Apuleius; and it occurs in early Sumerian
representations of the sexual act, though not in the Hittite. Malinowski
writes that Melanesian girls ridicule what they call ‘the missionary
position,’ which demands that they should lie passive and recumbent.11
Rabbi
Johanan ben Dahabai, in the passage quoted above, went on to say that
children are born “dumb, because they kiss ‘that place’; deaf, because
they converse during cohabitation; blind, because they look at ‘that
place’.”12
Such prudishness did not go undisputed. In fact, the resultant decision
firmly reestablished the more primitive condition whereby the woman was
totally at the disposal of the man:
Rabbi
Johanan said: The above is the view of Rabbi Johanan ben Dahabai; but
our Sages said: The halachah is not as Rabbi Johanan ben Dahabai, but a
man may do whatever he pleases with his wife (at intercourse).... A
woman once came before Rabbi and said, ‘Rabbi! I set a table before my
husband, but he overturned it.’ Rabbi replied: ‘My daughter! the Torah
hath permitted thee to him-what then can I do for thee?’ A woman once
came before Rab and complained, ‘Rabbi! I set a table before my husband,
but he overturned it.
The
answer was the same: the woman belonged to the man and he could do with
her what he would.13
Thus, the
tradition of woman as a sex object, already firmly founded in the Wisdom
literature and the pseudepigraphal writings, was vigorously continued in
the rabbinic literature. C. G. Montefiore noted that social intercourse
with women was usually taboo. They were the source of moral danger. They
were the incitements to depravity and lust. The evil impulse-the
Yetzer ha-Ra-is especially and mainly the impulse which leads to
sexual impurity. “The result was not entirely healthy.... The lack of
healthy, simple companionship and friendship caused a constant dwelling
upon sexual relations and details. “ For example, concerning levirite
marriage the following discussion was held:
But when
he slept? Surely Rab Judah ruled that one in sleep cannot acquire his
sister-in-law! But when accidental insertion occurred? [The English
Soncino edition comments at this point: “When in a state of erection the
levirite fell from a raised bench upon his sister-in-law who happened to
be below” (v. Rashi)] Surely Rabbah stated: One who fell from a roof and
his fall resulted in accidental insertion, is liable to pay an indemnity
for four things, and if the woman was his sister-in-law no kinyan
[‘acquisition’] is thereby constituted! It is when, for instance, his
intention was intercourse with his wife and his sister-in-law seized him
and he cohabited with her.... Raba said: If a levir’s intention was to
shoot against a wall and he accidentally shot at his sister-in-law, no
kinyan is thereby constituted; if he intended, however, to shoot
at a beast and he accidentally shot at his sister-in-law, kinyan
is thereby constituted, since some sort of intercourse had been
intended.14
As
Montefiore stated, “in the Rabbinic literature sexual allusions are very
frequent. Immense are the Halachic discussions about the details of sex
life, and sexual phenomena.” There are six tractates in the Mishnah
devoted specifically to women: Yabamoth (Sister-in-law), Ketuboth
(Marriage Deeds), Sotah (The Suspected Adulteress), Gittin (Bills of
Divorce), Kiddushin (Betrothals), and Niddah (The Menstruant). (In the
Herbert Danby translation of the Mishnah into English this amounts to
about one hundred pages.) The corresponding tractates in the Babylonian
Talmud in the English Soncino edition run to eight volumes.
‘Repel
nature, and it recurs.’ Repress it, and it grows up again, and not
always in a healthy form. Where we should not dream of thinking that any
sexual desire could be evoked, the Rabbis were always on the watch for
it, dwelling on it, suggesting it. Though they were almost invariable
married men, they yet seem to have often been oddly tormented by sexual
desires; perhaps, too, the very absence of natural and healthy social
intercourse between men and women drove them to dwell theoretically with
double frequency upon every sort of sexual details and minutiae.15
2.
IMPURE
MENSTRUOUS WOMEN
As the
Encyclopaedia Judaica points out, the state of ritual impurity “is
considered hateful to God, and man is to take care in order not to find
himself thus excluded from his divine presence.”16
The same author also notes that it is certain that the rabbis did not
regard impurities as infectious diseases or the laws of purification as
quasi-hygienic principles; rather, they saw ritual purity as a religious
ideal. It was one of the steps on the way to the spirit of holiness.17
Thus, though at times the incurring of uncleanness is involuntary, one
of the main results is to somehow separate oneself from God, to be
displeasing to God. The consequences of ritual impurity can be dire in
the extreme. “A polluted person is always in the wrong. He has developed
some wrong condition or simply crossed some line which should not have
been crossed and this displacement unleashes danger for someone.”18
While the
temple in Jerusalem yet existed, the concern of the priestly class about
ritual purity became so overriding that it was said of them, “to render
a knife impure was more serious to them than bloodshed.”19
In fact, the Mishnah notes that “if a priest served (at the Altar) in a
state of uncleanness his brethren priests did not bring him to the
court, but the young men among the priests took him outside the Temple
Court and split open his brain with clubs.”20
At the same time it must be remembered that by the beginning of the
Common Era, “the prohibition against contracting impurity and the
obligation of purity extend also to all Jews and to all localities.”21
There
were three main causes of impurity: leprosy, dead bodies of certain
animals, and particularly human corpses, and issue from sexual organs
(these laws were based mainly on Leviticus 11-17, composed by priestly
writers in the fifth century B. C. E.). Of the three, the last is the
most important and frequent, and clearly it is the woman that is mostly
involved. If a man has an emission of semen outside of intercourse he is
unclean; but if a man has intercourse with a woman, both are unclean-in
both instances, however, only until the evening of the day of the
emission.
The
Levitical laws concerning the impurity of women are much more
restrictive. When a woman has a menstruous discharge of blood, she is
unclean for seven days, or as long as it lasts, whichever is longer. In
addition, whoever she touches becomes unclean for a day, as does any
thing she touches. Further, whoever touches anything on which she sits
shall wash his clothes, bathe in water and remain unclean till evening.
If he is on the bed or seat where she is sitting, by touching it he
shall become unclean till evening. If a man goes so far as to have
intercourse with her and any of her discharge gets on to him, then he
shall be unclean for seven days, and every bed on which he lies down
shall be unclean (Lev. 15:23-34).
In the
latter case a further, more severe punishment is specified: “If a man
lies with a woman during her monthly period and brings shame upon her,
he has exposed her discharge and she has uncovered the source of her
discharge; they shall both be cut off from their people” (Lev. 20:18).
In the end, the biblical threat against disregarding these laws
concerning ritual purity was dire: “In this way you shall warn the
Israelites against uncleanness, in order that they may not bring
uncleanness upon the Tabernacle where I dwell among them, and so die”
(Lev. 15:31). The young priests referred to above apparently took it
upon themselves to be God’s executioners.
After
giving birth a woman was also considered unclean for a period of time
and in need of still further “purification” for an even longer period.
What is especially interesting is that both periods of “impurity” were
twice as long if a girl was born than if a boy was-which would seem to
indicate that a girl was considered twice as defiling as a boy:
When a
woman conceives and bears a male child, she shall be unclean for seven
days, as in the period of her impurity through menstruation.... The
woman shall wait for thirty-three days because her blood requires
purification; she shall touch nothing that is holy, and shall not enter
the sanctuary till her days of purification are completed. If she bears
a female child, she shall be unclean for fourteen days as for her
menstruation and shall wait for sixty-six days... (Lev. 12:2-5).
Originally, in biblical times, intercourse was forbidden only during the
seven- or fourteen-day period, but by rabbinic times there were many
attempts to expand that restriction to the entire forty- and eighty-day
periods-with substantial success.22
In the
rabbinic period, which began, of course, already in the late Second
Temple period, i. e., first and second centuries B. C. E., Tithe laws
relating to the menstruous woman comprise some of the most fundamental
principles of the halachic system, while a scrupulous observance of
their minutiae has been one of the distinguishing signs of an exemplary
traditional Jewish family life.”23
Already in the early part of the second century C. E. the rules
concerning menstruation were said to be “essential laws” (gufei Torah).24
Judging from the quantity of writing produced, the ancient rabbis
obviously thought the regulation of the niddah, the menstruant,
to be of extreme importance. The Mishnah devoted ten chapters to the
tractate Niddah, while the contemporary Tosefta. had another nine
chapters; at least four chapters of additional commentary are still
extant in the Palestinian Talmud, while the full text of ten chapters of
commentary by the Babylonian Talmud is extant. It is interesting to note
that Niddah is the only tractate out of the twelve in the more generic
“order” of Tohoroth (concerning cleanness and uncleanness) that has a
gemara (that is, has a commentary on the Mishnah teachings) in the
Babylonian Talmud. The English Soncino edition of Niddah is over 500
pages long.
In
connection with a similar point a Jewish woman editor wrote:
The laws
of niddah raise several issues of concern to women.... Perhaps
the most vexing is: Why were the restrictions imposed upon the
menstruating woman retained after the destruction of the Temple, while
all other forms of tum’ah were allowed to lapse? Women of
childbearing age are thus the only Jews regularly tameh 50% of
the time. It is difficult to avoid the implication that we are dealing
here with the potent residue of an ancient taboo based on a mixture of
male fear, awe, and repugnance toward woman’s creative biological cycle.
Furthermore, is there really no stigma attached to the concept of
tum’ah, especially as practiced in the isolation of the niddah?
She is treated, after all, as though bearing a rather unpleasant
contagious disease. The prolongation of her period of tum’ah for
seven days after the cessation of her menstrual flow reinforces the
impression that the menstrual blood itself has powerful contaminating
properties which must be guarded against.25
The
rabbis fixed the menstrual cycle at 18 days; during the first seven
after blood first appeared the woman was unclean; for the next eleven
she was clean, unless blood appeared. The restriction was greatly
expanded, however, as early as the end of the tannaitic period when
Jewish women were accustomed to observe seven “clean” days;26
“if even a spot of blood as large as a mustard seed appeared,”27
they would be considered unclean for the next seven days. This practice,
of course, could make many women unclean a majority of the time.
One of
the comments of the English Soncino edition editor, Isidore Epstein, is
of special interest:
Graver in
its consequences and in full force to the present day [1948] is the law
of Niddah. The reasons for the Niddah ordinances are many
and varied. They promote sexual hygiene, physical health, marital
continence, respect for womanhood, consecration of married life, and
family happiness. But over and above these weighty reasons, they concern
the very being of the soul of the Jew. They safeguard the purity of the
Jewish soul, without which no true religious, moral and spiritual
life-individual or corporate-as Judaism conceives it, is attainable.28
That the
niddah regulations would promote marital continence is apparent;
that they necessarily would foster consecration of the married life and
family happiness, or, indeed, sexual hygiene and physical health, is
not. But to claim that they promote respect for womanhood is puzzling.
It is difficult to see how declaring a person unclean and contaminating
of everyone and everything within touch would encourage self-respect or
respect from others. To go beyond this and say that the essence of the
Jewish soul and the developing of a true religious, moral and spiritual
Jewish life is absolutely dependent upon the “banishment” (as the word
niddah means in its root) of all women for forty per cent of
every year during thirty years or more of their adult lives is even more
confounding; it would seem to project misogynism into “the very being of
the soul of the Jew.”
Perhaps
the question of uncleanness resulting from a discharge from the female
sexual organs was fairly straight forward in biblical times, but by the
rabbinic period the deciding of such questions had become extremely
complex and often of great moment. Only a rabbi, who of course was
always a male, could make the decisions. Page after page of the talmudic
tractate Niddah is devoted to stories of how cloths with blood stains
would be brought or sent by women to the rabbis to judge their “purity,”
normally by color and smell: “To decide a law relating to a menstruous
woman demands, besides a profound knowledge of the halakhah, experience
in various medical matters, and at times also the ability to assume the
grave responsibility of disqualifying a woman from pursuing a normal
married life and of-at times--separating her forever from her husband.”29
Whereas nowadays whether the discharge was “unclean” menstrual blood or
not can be easily resolved, previously this problem was often one of
paramount human significance and an obstacle to married life for many
women. Consequently, the works of the codifiers in all periods contain
hundreds of responsa dealing with the subject out of a manifest
desire to alleviate this hardship, “though with a very scant possibility
of doing so.”30
It cannot
be said that persons or things connected with menstruation were
considered indifferently in ancient Palestinian Judaism. According to
the Mishnah, “heedlessness of the laws of the menstruant” was one of the
three transgressions for which women died in childbirth!31
Further, the uncleanness of a menstruating woman was considered “the
most loathsome impurity.”32
In fact, it was compared with the greatest horror in Judaism, an idol:
Rabbi
Akiba said: Whence do we learn of an idol that like a menstruant it
conveys uncleanness by carrying? Because it is written, Thou shalt cast
them away like a menstruous thing; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee
hence. Like as a menstruant conveys uncleanness by carrying so does an
idol convey uncleanness by carrying.33
Israel M.
Ta-Shma notes that “this idea was prevalent already in the Bible, where
the uncleanness of the menstruous woman occurs as a noun and as a
metaphor for the height of defilement (Ezek. 2:19-20; Ezra 9:11; Lam.
1:17; II Chron. 29:5).”34
In each of these citations the noun niddah occurs and is usually
translated as “impurity” or a synonym of it. It is clear from the
Mishnah text Shab. 9 , 1, quoted above, and others that the early rabbis
understood the word niddah to refer primarily to the uncleanness
of a menstruous woman, and in a transferred sense to impure things more
generally. It is not apparent that in the earlier biblical texts the
primary meaning was not basically that which was banished or impure
generally; it was also applied in some instances to menstruous women, so
that by rabbinic times there occurred a narrowing of the meaning of the
word niddah to the uncleanness of a menstruous woman. Whenever
the rabbis saw a form of the word niddah in the Bible, they
apparently understood it to mean not simply impure, but impure as a
menstruous woman is impure. If this analysis bears up under further
careful investigation, it would provide an additional bit of evidence
that the status of women, at least in some ways, worsened in Judaism
from the earlier biblical period to the rabbinic period.
One woman
Jewish scholar wrote the following about the relationship between
tum’ah (impurity) in general and niddah impurity:
The point
at which tum’at niddah was isolated from the general category of
tum’ah and made a special case was the point at which pathology
entered halacha. At that point, tum’at niddah became divorced
from the symbolism of death and resurrection and acquired a new
significance related to its accompanying sexual prohibitions. Whereas
tum’at niddah had been a way for women to experience death and
rebirth through the cycle of their own bodies, it became distorted into
a method of controlling the fearsome power of sexual desire, of
disciplining a mistrusted physical drive.35
The evil
of having intercourse with, or even simply touching, an unclean,
menstruous, woman was apparently thought so great that this effect could
be fatal for the man as well. The following story makes that clear and
also give a picture of how “segregated” the Niddah, the
menstruating wife, was:
There was
once a certain man who had studied much Scripture and had studied much
Mishnah and attended upon many scholars, who died in middle age. His
wife kept asking the rabbis, why did he die in middle age? There was not
a person who could answer her. One time she encountered Elijah, of
blessed memory. My child, he asked her, why art thou weeping and crying?
Master, she answered him, my husband studied much Scripture and studied
much Mishnah and attended upon many scholars, yet he died in middle age.
Said Elijah to her, During the first three days of thine impurity,36
how did he conduct himself in thy company? Master, she replied, he did
not touch me, God forbid! even with his little finger. On the contrary,
this is how he spoke to me: Touch nothing lest it become of doubtful
purity. During the last days of thine impurity,37
how did he conduct himself in thy company? Master, she replied, I ate
with him and drank with him and in my clothes slept with him in bed, his
flesh touched mine but he had no thought of anything. Blessed be God who
killed him, Elijah exclaimed, for thus it is written in the Torah, Also
thou shalt not approach unto a woman as long as she is impure by her
uncleanness.38
According
to the Talmud a menstruous woman did not even have to come into contact
with a man to have a fatal, physical or spiritual, effect on him: “Our
Rabbis taught: ... if a menstruant woman passes between two (men), if it
is at the beginning of her menses she will slay one of them, and if it
is at the end of her menses she will cause strife between them.... When
one meets a woman coming up from her statutory tebillah,39
if (subsequently) he is the first to have intercourse, a spirit
of immorality will infect him; while if she is the first to have
intercourse, a spirit of immorality will infect her.”40
All this must be understood against the background of various
superstitions then current among the Jews concerning menstruating women
(similar beliefs, of course, were present elsewhere in the ancient
world).41
It was believed that her breath caused harm, that her glance was
“disreputable and created a bad impression,” and that menstruous blood
was deadly if drunk. If a menstruous woman looked for a long time at a
mirror it was thought that red drops resembling blood would appear on
it; she polluted the air around her and was regarded as sick and even as
afflicted with the plague.42
Since a
menstruous woman was unclean and contaminated everything and everybody
she came into contact with, even indirectly, she really was “banished,”
at least already in mishnaic times. No food was to be eaten with her:
“Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar [second century, C. E., a student of Rabbi
Meir] said: Come and see how far purity has spread in Israel! For we did
not learn, a clean man must not eat with an unclean woman.”43
At this point the English Soncino edition notes: “But there was no need
to interdict the first [eating with an unclean woman], because even
Israelites ... would not dine together with an unclean woman.” In fact
she was excluded from her home and stayed in a special house, known as
“a house of uncleanness,”44
and remained there “all the days of her impurity.” The tannaitic text of
The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan again makes this, and other
restrictions, quite clear:
What is
the hedge which the Torah made about its words? Lo, it says, Also thou
shalt not approach unto a woman ... as long as she is impure by her
uncleanness (Lev. 18:19). May her husband perhaps embrace her or kiss
her or engage her in idle chatter?45
The verse says, thou shalt not approach. May she perhaps sleep with him
in her clothes on the couch? The verse says, thou shalt not approach.
May she wash her face perhaps and paint her eyes? The verse says, And of
her that is sick with her impurity (Lev. 15:33): all the days of her
impurity let her be in isolation.46
Hence it was said: She that neglects herself in the days of her
impurity, with her the Sages are pleased; but she that adorns herself in
the days of her impurity, with her the Sages are displeased.47
Also
Rabbi Akiba in the first century noted that, “when I went to Gallia,
they used to call a niddah ‘galmudah.’48
How galmudah? (As much as to say), gemaulah da (this one
from her husband.”49
is isolated )
The
restrictions on menstruous women continued to expand even after the
early rabbinic, tannaitic, period, particularly in the religious sphere.
These increasing limitations were brought together in a small work
entitled, Baraita de-Niddah,50
which was probably composed during the latter part of the geonic period,
i. e., circa tenth century C. E. The menstruous woman was forbidden to
enter a synagogue, as was her husband also if he had been made unclean
by her in any way, i. e., by her spittle, the dust under her feet, etc.
She was also forbidden to enkindle the Sabbath lights,51
and no one could inquire after her welfare or recite a benediction in
her presence. A priest whose wife, mother or daughter was menstruating
was not allowed to recite the priestly benediction in the synagogue, nor
could any benefit at all be derived from the work of a menstruating
woman, whose very utterances defiled people!52
The appearance of the Baraita de-Niddah tended to strengthen
greatly the application of its more stringent measures; this was
especially true with regard to the prohibition against a menstruating
woman entering synagogue.53
The laws
of niddah, which were written first by the (male) priestly
writers of Leviticus and continually expanded by the (male) rabbis, must
have contributed in the extreme to a sense of female inferiority and
male superiority, at least on the unconscious level but probably most
often on the conscious level. Rachel Adler makes the point clearly:
The state
of niddah became a monthly exile from the human race, a punitive
shunning of the menstruant. Women were taught disgust and shame for
their bodies and for the fluid which came out of them, that good, rich,
red stuff which nourished ungrateful men through nine fetal months. The
mikveh, instead of being the primal sea in which all were made
new, became the pool at which women were cleansed of their filth and
thus became acceptable sexual partners once more. Nor did it help when
rabbis informed offended women that their filth was spiritual rather
than physical.54
3. MARRIED WOMEN
The
ancient rabbis urged in the strongest terms that everyone, men and
women, marry. Those men who did not marry spent all their time “in
sinful thoughts”;55
“as soon as a man takes a wife his sins are stopped up”;56
in fact, “any man who has no wife is no proper man.”57
A girl who was not married when she reached puberty ran the serious risk
that she would “become a whore.”58
Indeed, it is said that a woman will endure a bad marriage rather than
be unmarried,59
but this was not meant only, perhaps not even mainly, because of women’s
strong sexual drive, but rather because they might well then be without
a means of support.
Of
course, from the point of view of the race the basic purpose of sex is
the propagation of the race. This is reflected in Judaism all the way
back to the beginning of the book of Genesis: “Male and female he
created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and
increase’” (Gen. 1:28). However, from around the last two hundred years
before the beginning of the Common Era onward there developed a
tradition within Judaism of viewing the proper purpose of sex to be not
only exclusively restricted to within marriage, but even there to be
restricted to the procreation of children. In this tradition the
exercising of sex for the sake of pleasure, to say nothing of expressing
affection, etc., was improper, indeed, sinful.60
In the book of Tobit (ca. 200 B.C. E.) we read: “I take not this my
sister for lust, but in truth.”61
This line was continued in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs:62
“For he knew that for the sake of children she wished to company with
Jacob, and not for lust of pleasure.”63
The married Essenes maintained the same idea: “They have no intercourse
with them [their wives] during pregnancy, thus showing that their motive
in marrying is not self-indulgence but the procreation of children.”64
In the same era we find Philo continuing the tradition: in condemning
infanticide he stated that those who commit it are “pleasure-lovers when
they mate with their wives, not to procreate children and perpetuate the
race, but like pigs and goats in quest of the enjoyment which such
intercourse gives.”65
The first century Palestinian Jew, Josephus, also insisted that the
restriction of sexual intercourse was part of the Torah: “The Law (nomos)
recognizes no sexual connections, except the natural union of man and
wife, and that only for the procreation of children. “66
A similar
idea seems imbedded in the statement of the Mishnah forbidding a priest
to marry a sterile woman: “Rabbi Judah says: Although he already had a
wife or children he may not marry a sterile woman, for such is the
harlot spoken of in the Law.”67
It cannot be simply that the priest had to fulfill the law about
producing children that he is forbidden to marry the sterile woman, for
the negative applies even if he has produced children; rather, sex for
the sake of pleasure was seen here as harlotry. The talmudic commentary
made this understanding emphatically clear when it traced back a chain
of approving rabbinic judgments which were “‘also of the same opinion as
Rabbi Judah,’ who holds that a woman incapable of procreation is
regarded as a harlot,” and added: “Said Rabbi Huna ... any cohabitation
which results in no increase is nothing but meretricious intercourse.”68
The
tradition among the rabbis of the obligation to produce offspring (which
was strictly binding only on men)69
was so strong that it was said: “A man shall not abstain from the
performance of the duty of the propagation of the race,”70
and “Rabbi Eliezer stated, He who does not engage in propagation of the
race is as though he sheds blood.”71
Indeed, if a man did not have any children by his wife within ten years,
he was obliged to divorce her: “Our Rabbis taught: If a man took a wife
and lived with her for ten years and she bore no child, he shall divorce
her.”72
At the same time there was a clear preference for male children over
female children: “It is well for those whose children are male, but ill
for those who are female.”73
“At the birth of a boy all are joyful . .. at the birth of a girl all
are sorrowful.”74
“When a boy comes into the world, peace comes into the world.... When a
girl comes, nothing comes.”75
It was
noted above that according to the Mishnah, women were “acquired” in
three ways, “by money, document, or sexual intercourse. “76
As Raphael Loewe points out, “It would be surprising if wives thought of
themselves as the ‘equals’ of their husbands ... the nature of the
relationship of rabbinic spouses is fairly well illustrated by the
circumstance that whereas the talmudic Aramaic corresponding to ‘Mrs.’
means literally ‘(she) of the house of,’ in recorded or contrived
conversations the wife addresses her husband as ‘rabbi’-a form used by
slaves, but also by disciples, meaning ‘my master’-whereas the husband
addresses his wife as ‘my daughter.’”77
When it is recalled that in Hellenistic Greek and the Latin of first
century Rome women were addressed as “Lady,” or “mistress” (kyria,
domina), the Judaic appelative appears even more reflective of
male superiority.78
Bethrothals and marriages were normally arranged by the parents, the
girl having no voice in the matter unless she had reached the age of 12
½, but it was customary to betroth a daughter between the ages of 12 and
12 ½ (the girl is a minor to age 12 years and 1 day, a maiden from 12 to
12 ½, and a woman from 12 ½ on). As a maiden she could express the wish
to remain in the parental home until she became a “woman,” and from then
on she had the right to refuse a proposed husband, though from a
psychological point of view this could not have been very frequent. It
apparently even happened in mishnaic times that a man came to the rabbis
and said: “I gave my daughter in betrothal but I do not know to whom I
gave her.”79
Agrippa I (first century C. E.) betrothed his two daughters at ages six
and ten.80
It is even stated that “A girl aged three years and a day may be
acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband’s brother
cohabited with her, she becomes his.”81
“The husband (if it were his first marriage) would generally be in his
late teens or early twenties,”82
though some would suggest that for economic reasons the lower class man
was often in his thirties when he first married.
Before
marriage a daughter was pretty totally under the control of her father,
as is indicated by the following mishnah: “The man may sell his
daughter, but the woman may not sell her daughter; the man may betroth
his daughter, but the woman may not betroth her daughter.”83
There are many statements throughout the rabbinic literature indicating
that at marriage the woman passed into the control of her husband, or,
as Blackman put it: “betrothal, making a woman the sacrosanct
possession-the inviolable property-of the husband.”84
The following are samples of such statements taken only from writings
from mishnaic times. “The husband can not annul (vows made by his wife)
until she passes under his control (at marriage).”85
“Since he has acquired the woman (by marriage) should he not acquire
also her property?”86
“Since one has come into the possession of the woman does it not follow
that he should come into the possession of her property too?”87
“If she has already entered into the control of the husband. . . .”88
“She is under the control of her husband.”89
“She is under the control of another (primarily her husband).”90
“She continues within the control of the father until she enters into
the control of the husband at marriage.”91
Indeed, as already indicated, the father, and then the husband, can
annul any vow the daughter or wife may have taken without the approval
of the father or husband respectively.92
As noted above, Josephus wrote: “The woman, says the Law, is in all
things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive, not for
her humiliation, but that she may be directed; for the authority has
been given by God to the man.”93
The portion of the Torah referred to here of course is Gen. 3:16: “To
the woman he said ... You shall be eager for your husband, and he shall
be your master.”
Both the
unmarried and the married woman were expected to work, but if any profit
resulted from her work it went not to her but to her father or husband,
in return for her maintenance (an economic situation not unlike that of
a slave, and one that almost all women in Western civilization suffered
until very recently). The Mishnah was very clear; a woman passed legally
from one economic bondage to another, the latter being even more
stringent than the former:
A father
has authority over his daughter in respect of her betrothal (whether it
was effected) by money, deed or intercourse; he is entitled to anything
she finds and to her handiwork; (he has the right) of annulling her vows
and he receives her bill of divorce; but he has no usufruct during her
lifetime. When she marries, the husband surpasses him (in his rights) in
that he has usufruct during her lifetime, but he is also under the
obligation of maintaining and ransoming her and to provide for her
burial. Rabbi Judah ruled: even the poorest man in Israel must provide
no less than two flutes and one lamenting woman.94
In one
way, however, a woman’s economic position legally improved when she
married, for “the father is not liable for his daughter’s maintenance,”95
whereas the husband is “under the obligation of maintaining and
ransoming her.”96
In
another regard a woman’s legal economic lot declined when she married,
that is, in connection with things she found. The Mishnah stated: “What
is found by a man’s son or daughter that are minors, what is found by
his Canaanitish bondman or bondwoman, and what is found by his wife,
belong to him; but what is found by his son or daughter that are of age,
what is found by his Hebrew bondman or bondwoman, and what is found by
his wife whom he has divorced ... belong to them.”97
The minor daughter need only wait until she becomes 13, the Hebrew
bondwoman need not wait at all, the Gentile bondwoman need wait until
she was freed (which happened in a variety of ways), whereas the married
woman could only await the death of her husband or a divorce by him
before this restriction was lifted from her. A somewhat unessential
matter is involved here, but it is perhaps indicative of the relative
status of the married woman.
The
husband was obliged by the Mishnah to provide his wife with food,
shelter, clothing,98
ransom if necessary,99
medical care,100
and burial;101
he also had to provide a “kethubah,” a sort of insurance policy against
death and divorce.102
In return, “These are works which the wife must perform for her husband:
grinding flour and baking bread and washing clothes and cooking food and
giving suck to her child103
and making his bed and working in wool.”104
In commenting on this mishnah, the Talmud added: “fill his cup for him
... wash his face, hands and feet.105
One must
also recall the sayings from Proverbs on through the rabbinic quotations106
in praise of the good wife as the husband’s crown, joy, etc., and the
many stories from the beginning of the Bible onward about happy
marriages and deep affection between men and women. These doubtless
reflect historical reality in many individual instances. Doubtless also
there were many instances when the wife was de facto the dominant
personality in the family. Nevertheless, the structure of the
institution of marriage placed the woman in a position that was clearly
inferior and subordinate to her husband. As C. G. Montefiore was already
noted as saying, many modern apologists feel compelled to claim that
women in ancient Judaism were not placed in a position inferior to men,
that their function was different, but not inferior. The ancient Jewish
writers, not having experienced the pressure of the feminist movement of
the 19th and 20th centuries, felt no such compulsion. The rabbis stated
clearly that the wife was “under the control of the husband,” and
Josephus proclaimed bluntly that “the woman, says the Law, is in all
things inferior to the man.” It would seem that the rabbis and their
contemporaries not only were closer to the facts (indeed they lived
them) but also stated them more accurately.
4. POLYGYNY
“That
there is a tradition of polygamy among the Jews no one can deny.”107
Polyandry, one woman having several husbands simultaneously, was
forbidden: “A woman is not eligible to two (men); but is not a man
eligible to two (women)?”108
Its opposite, polygyny, one man having several wives, was not: “If four
brothers married four women and then died, and the eldest (of the
brothers that remained) was minded to contract levirite marriage with
all the widows, it is his right.”109
Even clearer is the following mishnah: “If a man was married to four
wives and he died ... If they were all put away on the same day,
whosoever preceded her fellow even by an hour acquires (first) right.
Thus in Jerusalem they used to declare in writing the hour (of the
divorce) .”110
Epstein
noted that the Bible generally assumed a patronymic family organization
among the early Hebrews and that consequently marriage represented
acquisition, ownership on the part of the husband. Such a marriage was
called ba’al marriage, where the husband was the owner of his
wife in the same sense as he owned his slaves. “Polygamy is the logical
corollary of ba’al marriage, for as one may own many slaves so he
may espouse many wives.”111
He further stated that though upon their return to the land of Canaan
from Egypt the Hebrews did not at first take up polygamy (monogamy being
the custom in Babylonia where Abraham and Sarah came from, as well as in
Egypt),
with
better times, however, even the masses indulged in polygamy, and it is
so reported especially of the tribe of Issachar. In that formative
period, it seems, bigamy became common among the Hebrews. Noble and
wealthy families had full polygamy and larger or smaller harems, but the
common folk were satisfied with two wives.... We find the teachings of
the Pharisees a continuation of the biblical attitude to polygamy, and
the teaching of the rabbis thereafter an extension of the pharisaic
tradition. This tradition accepted polygamy as legally permissible and
did not even imply a policy of monogamy as did the Church; for while the
Church shifted its center to the West, where monogamy was the rule, the
Synagogue continued in its oriental setting, where polygamy was native.
Any resistance to polygamy in talmudic times as in biblical days was
created by life itself and was not formulated into law.... The Jewish
family during that period was very like its counterpart in the biblical
period. Rulers permitted themselves plural wives; bigamy was not
infrequent, but the people as a rule practiced monogamy.112
Rabbinic
writings frequently attest to the legality of polygyny. There is, of
course, the entire tractate in the Mishnah, Yebamoth (and a
correspondingly long one in the Talmud-two large volumes in the English
Soncino edition of the Babylonian Talmud), on levirite marriage, i. e.,
a brother’s marriage to the childless widow of his brother (based on the
obligations outlined in Deut. 25:9 ff.); polygyny is very frequently
presumed in its discussions.113
It is also presumed in a number of other places in the Mishnah-and their
attendant commentaries in the Talmud.114
Nevertheless, in early rabbinic times polygamy must have been practiced
only by a minority of the men since most of the literature of the period
seems to refer to persons involved in monogamous marriages. The serious
interpersonal difficulties likely to arise in a polygamous family were
doubtless one of the main reasons for its relatively infrequent
practice.115
Still,
polygyny was a clear, legal possibility that was practiced by not a few.
Louis Finkelstein, in discussing the disagreements between the plebeian
and patrician elements in Palestinian Judaism, reflected among other
places in the patrician school of Shammai and the plebeian school of
Hillel, wrote: “The monogamous plebeians were less inclined to tolerate
such abstinence in their wives than the provincials and patricians,
among whom plural marriage was not unusual”116
(emphasis added). There are also a number of documentary references to
men around the beginning of the Common Era who engaged in polygyny.
Joseph the Tobiad (ca. 200 B.C. E.) took two wives,117
and the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus (76 B. C. E.) “feasted with his
concubines in a conspicuous place.”118
King Herod the Great, of course, had ten wives, many of them at the same
time.119
In explaining this to a Hellenic and Roman world, where the custom of
monogamy was prevalent, Josephus stated: “His wives were numerous, since
polygamy was permitted by Jewish custom and the king gladly availed
himself of the privilege.”120
and “it is an ancestral custom of ours to have several wives at the same
time.”121
Josephus also told of Izates, a first century C. E. king of Adiabene,
who was a convert to Judaism and who had several wives.122
Archelaus and Herod Antipas were polygamous,123
as was also an epitropos to Agrippa.124
Josephus, himself from a priestly family and who claimed he was a
Pharisee, had four wives, two of them and possibly three at the same
time. Shortly after his capture by the Romans he “married one of the
women taken captive at Caesarea, a virgin and a native of that place.
She did not, however, remain long with me, for she left me on my
obtaining my release and accompanying Vespasian to Alexandria. There I
married again.”125
There is no evidence that his first wife, who was in besieged Jerusalem,
was dead at this time. Later, he noted, he “divorced my wife, being
displeased at her behaviour. She had borne me three children....
Afterwards I married a woman of Jewish extraction who had settled in
Crete.”126
Rabbi Joshua ben Hananyah (1st century C. E.) recorded the polygyny of
various specific high priestly families: “I may testify to you, however,
concerning two great families who flourished in Jerusalem, namely, the
family of Beth Mekoshesh, that they were descendants of rivals127
and yet some of them were High Priests who ministered upon the altar.”128
In
talmudic times there developed a certain opposition to the idea of the
desirability of polygamy: “If the husband states that he intends taking
another wife to test his potency, Rabbi Ammi (a late 3rd century Amora)
ruled: ‘He must in this case also divorce (his present wife) and pay her
the amount of her kethubah; for I maintain that whosoever takes in
addition to his present wife another one must divorce the former and pay
her the amount of her kethubah.”129
However, juxtaposed with this statement is the immediately following
contradictory teaching by Raba (early fourth century Babylonian Amora):
“Raba said: A man may marry wives in addition to his first wife;
provided only that he possesses the means to maintain them.” The same
“Raba said: (If one has) a bad wife it is a meritorious act to divorce
her.... Raba further stated: A bad wife, the amount of whose kethubah is
large, (should be given) a rival at her side.”130
Rab (early third century) said: “Do not take two wives; if however you
have taken two, then take a third, for two could conspire together
against you, but the third will certainly break it up.”131
It should
be noted that apparently the rabbis themselves were almost always
monogamist. Some exceptions were Abba, son of Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel
I, who was a member of the Sanhedron and who had two wives at once,132
and the unusual exception of Rabbi Tarfon, a Tanna who married 300 women
during a period of famine so he could use his right as a priest to
distribute food to them that they otherwise would not have received.133
A further and even stranger exception was apparently that of two
Babylonian rabbis who seem to have engaged in a series of one-day
marriages: “Rab, whenever he happened to visit Dardeshir, used to
announce, ‘Who would be mine for the day!’ So also Rabbi Nahman,
whenever he happened to visit Shekunzib, used to announce, ‘Who would be
mine for the day!’”134
Israel
Slotki’s explanation seems even stranger than the quotation itself. In
his footnote in the English Soncino edition of Yebamoth, p. 235, he
writes: “He was anxious to establish a home in Shekunzib which he often
visited on business affairs and consequently wished to secure a wife to
bless his home whenever he would stay there.” But does one “establish a
home,” or “bless his home” by securing a new wife for a day at each
visit? Leo Jung’s explanation in the footnotes of the English Soncino
edition of Yoma is at least plausible, if not exactly documented. He
suggested that these women were taken as wives in appearance only, so
that the rabbis could avoid having a woman presented to them for the
night by the local Persian prince. Perhaps, perhaps not. The strange
thing is that the quotation is recorded in two places in the Talmud
merely as an argument against maintaining that the rabbis were opposed
to marrying women in different countries. The procedure was surely
legal. Was it therefore concluded by all the Amoraim that it was also
moral? One would have thought with the prevalence of monogamy among the
rabbis there would have been some discussion of this procedure as a
problem, but there is none. We are left with the fact of the quotations,
and their problematic pointing to the historical reality beyond them.135
Referring
to the statement by Rabbi Ammi opposing polygamy, Moses David Herr
notes: “Such statements possibly reflect the influence of Roman custom
which prohibited polygamy, especially since all the Jews of the empire
became Roman citizens after 212 C. E. The Roman emperor Theodosius
issued a prohibition against the practice of bigamy and polygamy among
Jews, but it did not disappear completely.... The Jews of Babylonia also
practiced bigamy and polygamy, despite the Persian monoganistic
background.”136
In another place the Talmud advised a maximum of four wives: “Sound
advice was given: Only four but no more so that each may receive
one marital visit a month.”137
The
public practice of polygyny and the forbidding of polyandry is usually
reflective of a severely inferior status of women in a culture. In turn,
its practice, and even just its legal possibility, is bound to reinforce
the sense of inferiority in women and superiority in men. This doubtless
was the case in ancient rabbinic Judaism, even though polygyny was
apparently not practiced in the majority of cases.
5. ADULTERY
“The
extramarital intercourse of a married man is not per se a crime
in biblical or later Jewish law. This distinction stems from the
economic aspect of Israelite marriage: the wife was the husband’s
possession ... and adultery constituted a violation of the husband’s
exclusive right to her; the wife, as the husband’s possession, had no
such right to him.”138
The decalogue reinforces this dual moral standard, that is, it states
“you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,”139
but says nothing about not coveting a neighbor’s husband. Apparently in
patriarchal days it was the husband’s right, or at least the head of the
family’s right, to punish the adulterous woman.140
“It was only when adultery was elevated to the rank of a grave offense
against God as well that the husband was required to resort to the
priests or to the court.”141
Adultery was considered one of the three capital sins,142
idolatry and murder being the other two, and hence merited the most
severe punishment, death-at least as far as the woman was concerned.
In a
metaphorical description of wayward Jerusalem as an adulterous woman by
the prophet Ezekiel, which may or may not have any historical referent,
stripping and exposure is seen as one form of punishment:143
“I will gather all those lovers to whom you made advances.... I will put
you on trial for adultery.... Then I will hand you over to them.... They
will strip your clothes off, take away your splendid ornaments, and
leave you naked and exposed. They will bring up the mob against you and
stone you, they will hack you to pieces with their swords ... and many
women shall see it.”144
Hosea said of his adulterous wife Gomer: “I will strip her and expose
her naked as the day she was born; I will make her bare as the desert,
and leave her to die of thirst.”145
Other
means of execution were stoning, burning and strangulation. The Mishnah
lists these means of execution in descending degrees of severity as
follows: burning, stoning, and strangling.146
It also specifies the various modes of execution thus:
When he
was four cubits from the place of stoning they stripped off his clothes.
A man is kept covered in front and a woman both in front and behind. So
Rabbi Judah. But the Sages say: A man is stoned naked but a woman is not
stoned naked. The place of stoning was twice the height of a man. One of
the witnesses knocked him down on his loins; if he turned over on his
heart the witness turned him over again on his loins. If he straightway
died, that sufficed; but if not, the second (witness) took the stone and
dropped it on his heart. If he straightway died, that sufficed; but if
not, he was stoned by all Israel.147
The
ordinance of them that are to be burnt (is this): they set him in dung
up to his knees and put a towel of coarse stuff within one of soft stuff
and wrapt it around his neck; one (witness) pulled one end towards him
and the other pulled one end towards him until he opened his mouth; a
wick148
was kindled and thrown into his mouth, and it went down to his stomach
and burned his entrails.149
That
women were burned for adultery, as was required in the case of a
priest’s daughter (Lev. 21:9) in the early rabbinic period, is attested
to in the same mishnah when it states: “Rabbi Eliezer ben Zadok said: It
happened once that a priest’s daughter committed adultery and they
encompassed her with bundles of branches and burnt her.”150
The Talmud explicates that recollection thus: “Rabbi Eleazar ben Zadok
said, ‘I remember when I was a child riding on my father’s shoulder that
a priest’s adulterous daughter was brought (to the place of execution)
surrounded by faggots, and burnt.’”151
H. Freedman, in the English Soncino edition, notes that, based on J.
Derenbourg, the event “took place during the short interval between the
death of Festus, the Roman procurator (in 62 C. E.), and the coming of
Albinus (63 C. E .).”152
Thus, apparently women were executed for adultery in the latter half of
the first century.153
Still later, in late third century Babylon, a similar execution was
reported: “Imarta the daughter of Tali, a priest, committed adultery.
Therefore Rabbi Hama ben Tobiah had her surrounded by faggots and
burnt.”154
The
“lightest” mode of execution was as follows: “The ordinance of them that
are to be strangled (is this)they set him in dung up to his knees and
put a towel of coarse stuff within one of soft stuff and wrapt it around
his neck; one (witness) pulled one end towards him and the other pulled
one end towards him, until his life departed.”155
If the
woman involved was married, then both the adulterer and adulteress were
to be executed. The same was also the case even with a girl who was
simply betrothed, if the intercourse took place in town, for it was
presumed that she could have screamed for help if she had been forced.
But if it took place in the country, only the man was executed, for it
was presumed she could have screamed without receiving any help.156
However, no such presumptive distinction is made in this passage
regarding the married woman: she and her lover must die in any case
(Deut. 22:22; unlike The Hittite Laws, 197, in: Pritchard,
Texts, 196 which makes this very distinction for married women) .157
Togay also remarks that “other ancient Near Eastern law collections also
prescribe the death penalty for adulterers, but, treating adultery as an
offense against the husband alone, permit the aggrieved husband to waive
or mitigate the punishment.” although “biblical law allows no such
mitigation.”158
The book
of Proverbs indicated that at least for the adulterer it was possible to
“compound” his offense, that is, pay the wronged husband a sum of money
in lieu of undergoing the death penalty.159
Since this portion of the book of Proverbs was probably composed only in
the third or fourth century B. C. E.160,
this may be an indication of the lessening of the rigor of the earlier
biblical injunctions.161
According to the available evidence, this lessening of the death penalty
was apparently applied only to the man; the woman, who was often not
likely to have any money available anyhow, was presumably still put to
death. In addition, there were doubtless situations where an adulterous
relationship resulted in a pregnancy that betrayed the relationship.
Here again, the woman alone would have been subject to punishment.162
There must also have been times when the physically more able male could
make good his escape but the woman could not, as is recorded in the
gospel according to John 8: 1 ff.
Another
instance in the ancient biblical law concerning sexual immorality where
the woman was again the victim of a double moral standard is found in
Deut. 22:13-21. There, if a man claimed that his new wife was not a
virgin the father of the bride was expected to bring out a garment with
blood stains resulting from the breaking of the hymen during the first
marital intercourse and “spread the garment before the elders of the
town.” If the elders were satisfied, they fined the husband one hundred
pieces of silver-payable to the father!-and he would not be allowed to
divorce the girl ever. However, if the elders were not satisfied with
the evidence-the obtaining of which must have presented no little
difficulty at times-“They shall bring her out of the door of her
father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death.”
The young bride, often less than a teenager,163
was in a no-win situation: if she lost her case she was put to death; if
she won she had to live forever with-under-a husband who was furious
enough with her to try to have her killed, but was frustrated and had to
pay a huge fine on her account. On the other hand, no man suffered a
penalty for a lack of virginity.
All these
punishments only took place if there was hard evidence that adultery had
occurred, usually including the testimony of two witnesses. However,
even simply on the basis of a suspicion, or only as the result of a fit
of jealousy, a husband could force his wife to submit to an extremely
humiliating and terrorizing trial by ordeal. The priestly portion of the
book of Numbers (fifth century B. C. E.), i. e., 5:11-31, is the only
specific account in the Bible of trial by ordeal. The essential
prescriptions there are as follows:164
When in
such a case a fit of jealousy comes over the husband which causes him to
suspect his wife, she being in fact defiled; or when, on the other hand,
a fit of jealousy comes over a husband which causes him to suspect his
wife, when she is not in fact defiled; then in either case, the husband
shall bring his wife to the priest.... The priest shall bring her
forward and set her before the Lord. He shall take clean water in an
earthenware vessel, and shall take dust from the floor of the Tabernacle
and add it to the water. He shall set the woman before the Lord, uncover
her head ... [tell her in a formal manner that if she is innocent she
will be unharmed, but if she is guilty] ... may the Lord make an example
of you among your people in adjurations and in swearing of oaths by
bringing upon you miscarriage and untimely birth;165
and this water that brings out the truth shall enter your body.... The
priest shall write these curses on a scroll and wash them off into the
water of contention; he shall make the woman drink the water that brings
out the truth, and the water shall enter body.... if she has let herself
become defiled and has been unfaithful to her husband, then when the
priest makes her drink the water that brings out the truth and the water
has entered her body, she will suffer a miscarriage or untimely birth,
and her name will become an example in adjuration among her kin. But if
the woman has not let herself become defiled and is pure, then her
innocence is established and she will bear her child.
Either
way, the experience is horrible for the woman, but “no guilt will attach
to the husband, but the woman shall bear the penalty of her guilt.”
The
variations on this teaching in the Mishnah are several, some few
protecting the woman somewhat with additional specifications, but many
of them making the ordeal even more severe. On the positive side, the
Mishnah made it necessary that the wife be warned about her unbecoming
conduct in front of two witnesses; that is, for example, she is told she
should not speak with a particular man, and if she disregarded this
warning she could be made to undergo the ordeal.166
Rabbi Eliezer said that the husband’s testimony that she disregarded his
warning was sufficient, but Rabbi Joshua, whose opinion was ultimately
accepted, maintained that the testimony of two witnesses was necessary.
She then was brought up to the Great Court in Jerusalem, where great
pains were taken to get her to confess to adultery. If she did, she did
not have to undergo the trial by ordeal, but apparently was also not
subject to the death penalty; she was divorced by her husband with the
forfeiture of her kethubah.167
But if after forcing her to walk and climb a great deal and carry heavy
things and after talking at her,168
she still refused to confess to being guilty, the priests took her up to
the Eastern Gate of the temple “and a priest takes hold of her
garments-if they be torn they be torn, if they be rent to tatters they
be rent to tatters-so that he bares her bosom and he loosens her hair.
Rabbi Judah says169
If her bosom were beautiful he did not uncover it;170
if her hair were comely he did not dishevel it.”171
Blackman notes: “Lest, if she is proved blameless, the younger priests
should lust for her. All her ornaments were then taken away from her and
she was covered with a black, ugly garment, “and after that he brings a
common rope and ties it above her breasts. And everyone who wishes to
behold comes to behold ... and all women are permitted to behold her.”172
Then the
various adjurations, writings and the giving to drink the “bitter
water,” which has wormwood in it,173
take place as described in Deuteronomy, with the following supplementary
details: if she refuses to drink, “they must force her mouth open and
oblige her to drink against her will. She has hardly finished to drink
when her face turns yellow and her eyes protrude and she is covered with
swollen veins. And they say, Take her out! Take her out! That she does
not defile the temple court.”174
Later in
the Mishnah it was said that because of the prevalence of adultery,
Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.
E., abolished this trial by ordeal: “When adulterers increased in
number, the application of the waters of jealousy ceased; and Rabbi
Jochanan ben Zakkai abolished them, as it is said, ‘I will not punish
your daughters when they commit harlotry nor your daughters-in-law when
they commit adultery; for they themselves....’”175
“Queen Helena of Adiabene-a proselyte to Judaism in the first century C.
E.-sought to restore the practice (Yoma 3, 10; Tos. Yoma 2, 3).”176
Later, when it was presurnably a merely academic question, Rabbi Akiba
(late 1st, early 2nd century C. E.) stated that the bitter waters would
also be ineffective if the husband “was not free of guilt.”177
In sum,
the severe penalties attached to adultery and the flagrant double
standard applied to men and women, plus the extraordinarily humiliating
and terrifying trial by ordeal for the merely suspected wife, made the
whole issue of adultery an extreme expression of misogynism, which at
times veered toward the sadistic. Fortunately mitigations did develop:
the death penalty and the trial by ordeal were eventually eliminated,178
but the double moral standard, because of the legal possibility of
polygyny and general social mores, lingered on. However, in the days
before the destruction of the Temple, misogynism in the matter of
adultery was present in full force.
6. DIVORCE
“The
woman is acquired by three means and she regains her freedom by two
methods. She is acquired by money, or by document, or by sexual
connection.... And she recovers her freedom by a letter of divorce or on
the death of the husband.”179
Ze’ev Falk notes that in ancient Israelite days divorce was “an
arbitrary, unilateral, private act on the part of the husband and
consisted of the wife’s expulsion from the husband’s house,”180
the very term usually used to refer to a divorced wife being gerushah,
“expelled.”181
“At a later stage (but before Deut. 24:1; Is. 50:1 and Jer. 3:8) the
husband was required to deliver a bill of divorce to his wife at her
expulsion.”182
The whole ceremony of the man handing the wife a writ of divorce was
done privately, before two witnesses, down through the early rabbinic
period.183
Already a
number of decades before the beginning of the rabbinic period, and down
through the time of the rabbinic writings, it was even considered
obligatory to divorce a “bad wife,” though of course the opposite, the
divorce of a bad husband, was not possible. In the midst of vitriolic
misogynism Ben Sira stated the obligation clearly and forcefully: “A bad
wife brings humiliation, downcast looks, and a wounded heart. Slack of
hand and weak of knee is the man whose wife fails to make him happy.
Woman is the origin of sin, and it is through her that we all die. Do
not leave a leaky cistern to drip or allow a bad wife to say what she
likes. If she does not accept your control, divorce her and send her
away.”184
There was
apparently some objection to the vigor of this misogynism among some of
the rabbis, but the talmudic decision was in favor of making the
misogynism of Ben Sira its own: “Rabbi Joseph (late 3rd century
Babylonian Amora) said: It is also forbidden to read the book of Ben
Sira. Abaye (student of Rabbi Joseph) said to him: Why so?... But if you
take exception to the passage: ‘A daughter is a vain treasure to her
father.... But the Rabbis have said the same: The world cannot exist
without males and females; happy is he whose children are males, and woe
to him whose children are females.” Apparently even Rabbi Joseph was
convinced of the value of Ben Sira’s attitude toward women, for a few
lines later he also referred to the misogynist passage quoted above as
being especially suitable for teaching to the masses: “Rabbi
Joseph said: (Yet) we may expound to them185
the good things it contains. E. g., ‘a good woman is a precious gift,
who shall be given to the God-fearing man. An evil woman is a plague to
her husband: how shall he mend matters? Let him divorce her: so shall he
be healed of his plague.’”186
The same passage is quoted again in Yeb. 63b, and in the same place one
finds this clear statement about the obligation to divorce a “bad wife”:
“Raba said: it is a commandment to divorce a bad wife.
Elsewhere
in the Talmud it is recorded that in the first century or early second
century C. E. several specific kinds of actions by wives obliged their
husbands to divorce them. Of course there was adultery, proved either by
witnesses, or by admission, or by the trial by ordeal, all discussed
previously.187
Also: “If she ate in the street, if she drank greedily in the street, if
she suckled in the street, in every case Rabbi Meir says that she must
leave her husband.” But then Rabbi Akiba carried the matter much
farther: “Rabbi Akiba says she must do so as soon as gossips who spin in
the moon light begin to talk about her.” But an older contemporary felt
he carried the matter too far: “Rabbi Johanan ben Nuri thereupon said to
him: If you go so far, you will not leave our father Abraham a single
daughter who can stay with her husband.”188
And again, “Rabbi Meir used to say ... a wife goes out with her hair
unfastened and spins cloth in the street with her armpits uncovered and
bathes with the men. Bathes with the men, you say?- It should be, bathes
in the same place as the men. Such a one it is a religious duty to
divorce.”189
Even childlessness for a ten-year period was grounds for a mandatory
divorce, according to the Talmud, although according to the earlier
Mishnah the barren wife need not be divorced, but then another wife also
had to be taken. “If a man took a wife and lived with her for ten years
and she bore no child, he may not abstain (any longer from the duty of
propagation),”190
is the way the Mishnah stated the charge. However, the talmudic
commentary makes the divorce of the unfruitful wife de rigeur:
“Our Rabbis taught: If a man took a wife and lived with her for ten
years and she bore no child, he shall divorce her and give her her
kethubah.”191
There is
also listed in the Mishnah a rather strange long list of vows, on
account of which, if a husband enforces them on the wife, she must
automatically be divorced.192
For example, that the wife should not eat a certain kind of fruit, or
wear ornaments, or that she not go to a house of mourning or of
feasting, or “that you shall fill and put out on the rubbish heap ...
(because the meaning of his request is) that she shall allow herself to
be filled and then scatter it.”193
Of this list Billerbeck remarks, probably with some justification: “The
whole thing gives the general impression that the entire business is
really only a shady excuse to provide the males with a convenient194
means for divorce.”195
The same
idea, that is, the duty to divorce a “bad wife,” came to expression in
another teaching, where it was also stated clearly that living with a
“bad wife” is a hell on earth: “Three kinds of persons do not see the
face of gehenna, namely, (one who suffers from) oppressive poverty, one
who is afflicted with bowel diseases, and (one who is in the hands of)
the (Roman) government; and some say: Also he who has a bad wife. And
the other?196
It is a duty to divorce a bad wife.197
And the other?198
It may sometimes happen that her kethubah amounts to a large sum.”199
No provision is made for the divorce of a “bad husband” by the wife.
There
were, however, some limitations on the husband’s power to divorce his
wife. Two were biblical restrictions, both of them involving a
considerable humiliation of the woman. One occurred when a man raped a
virgin-and was caught! “When a man comes upon a virgin who is not
pledged in marriage and forces her to lie with him, and they are
discovered, then the man who lies with her shall give the girl’s father
fifty pieces of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has
dishonoured her. He is not free to divorce her all his life long.”200
(Because the girl was like the father’s property which was damaged, it
was the father, not the girl, who received the fifty pieces of silver.)
The second took effect when a husband wrongly accused his bride of not
being a virgin, with the necessary counter proof of her nuptial
defloration being given publicly.201
The
Mishnah added at least two further restrictions. One was that, “if she
became insane he must not divorce her.”202
The second restriction took effect when she was taken captive, for
according to Kethubah 4, 4, the husband was liable for her ransom, as he
was also liable for her medical care if she was ill.203
The same mishnah which forbade the husband to divorce the unransomed
wife also allowed the husband to renege on his obligation to provide
medical care for his sick wife by divorcing her: “If she were taken
captive, he must ransom her; and if he said, ‘Here is her bill of
divorce and her kethubah,204
let her redeem herself, I he has no such power. If she came to harm, he
must heal her. If he said ‘Here is her bill of divorce and her kethubah,
let her cure herself,’ he is entitled to do so.”205
A further
inhibition to divorce was the kethubah. One of the constant concerns of
the Hebrew prophets was the welfare of widows. In early rabbinic times
this concern found expression in the development of the “kethubah.” This
was a written agreement entered into by the bridegroom whereby he
pledged a certain amount of money to go to the wife in the event of his
death or a divorce under certain conditions. Its beginnings go back to
the bride price which the prospective husband paid to the father of the
bride, which developed into a sum of money set aside in some fashion to
care for the wife if she were separated from her husband. The book of
Tobit (200 B. C. E.) speaks of a written marriage contract (7:13), and
Simeon ben Shetah (1st century B. C. E.) is referred to as the
originator of the kethubah,206
but it is more likely that it already existed in his time and that he
inaugurated, rather, the custom of making the kethubah a lien on the
husband’s property.207
Thus the kethubah became not only an insurance policy for the separated
wife, but also an obstacle to an arbitrary divorce by the husband; the
husband was more likely to think twice before giving his wife a bill of
divorce if it also entailed paying out a substantial sum.
Even a
large kethubah, of course, did not prevent all divorces,208
as can be seen from the story about the Tannaite Rabbi Jose the
Galilean, who had a contrary wife whom he wished to divorce, but could
not because “her dowry is too great for me and I cannot divorce.”
Thereupon his students said “‘We will apportion her dowry among
ourselves, so you can divorce her.’ And they did so for him; they
apportioned her dowry and had her divorced from him, and made him marry
another and better wife.”209
The problem of a dissatisfactory wife with a large kethubah was also
solved in another way: “Raba said: It is a commandment to divorce a bad
wife ... Raba further stated: A bad wife, the amount of whose kethubah
is large, (should be given) a rival at her side.”210
In the same place there were several other complaints by various rabbis
about dissatisfactory wives with large kethubahs: “‘Behold I will bring
evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape.’ Rabbi Nahman
said in the name of Rabbah ben Abbuha: This refers to a bad wife, the
amount of whose kethubah is large.” “‘The Lord has delivered me into
their hands against whom I am not able to stand.’ Rabbi Hisda said in
the name of Mar Ukba ben Hiyya: This refers to a bad wife, the amount of
whose kethubah is large.” “‘I will provoke them with a vile nation.’
Rabbi Hanan ben Raba stated in the name of Rab: This refers to a bad
wife the amount of whose kethubah is large.”
This
dissatisfaction with having to pay a large kethubah for divorcing a wife
was not limited to complaining, but also took rather concrete form in
mishnaic legislation which provided a rather large number of
circumstances under which wives could be divorced without having to pay
them their kethubah. The first two were somewhat global categories,
which then, however, were specified:
And these
are they that are divorced without their kethubah: she who transgresses
the Law of Moses and Jewish custom. And what is here meant by the Law of
Moses? If she give him food that had not been tithed, or if she have
sexual intercourse with him when she is a menstruant, or if she do not
separate the priest’s share of the dough, or if she make a vow and does
not fulfill it. And what is here meant by Jewish custom? If she go forth
with her head uncovered, or if she spin in the street, or if she hold
converse with all men. Abba Saul says, Also if she curse his parents211
in his presence. Rabbi Tarfon says, Also if she be a loud-voiced woman.
What is here meant by a loud-voiced woman? Such a one who speaks in her
house so that her neighbours hear her voice.212
Here
Blackman comments: “She unashamedly demands in loud tones sexual
intercourse with her husband or disputes with him over intimate sexual
matters so that others may overhear their talk. According to some
authorities in all such cases she must first have been admonished not to
repeat such conduct before she can be made to forfeit her kethubah.”
(There is no similar sanction on a man’s ribaldry.) The talmudic
commentary corroborates such an understanding partly by rejecting a
second possible interpretation: “Rabbi Tarfon said: Also one who
screams. What is meant by a screamer? Rab Judah replied in the name of
Samuel: One who speaks aloud on marital matters. In a Baraitha it was
taught: (By screams was meant a wife) whose voice [and here the English
Soncino edition notes: “Her screams of pain caused by the copulation”]
during intercourse in one court can be heard in another court. But
should not this, then, have been taught in the Mishnah among defects?
Clearly we must revert to the original explanation,” i.e., that given in
the name of Samuel.213
Two still
further possibilities of the husband divorcing a wife without paying her
her kethubah were provided for. One was that if the husband found out
that his wife had taken some vows he did not know about, “she is
divorced without her kethubah,”214
“because he could plead, ‘I do not want a wife that is in the habit of
making vows.’”215
Examples of such disqualifying vows include vows not to eat meat, or not
to drink wine, or not to wear bright colored clothes,216
or “if she vowed that she shall neither borrow nor lend a winnow, a
sieve, a mill or an oven, or that she shall not weave beautiful garments
for his children, she may be divorced without a kethubah, because
(by acting on her wishes) she gives him a bad name among his
neighbours.”217
A second
and even more far-reaching possibility was if a man found bodily defects
in the woman he had married that he claimed must have been present
before the betrothal. These defects, which under those circumstances
would incur the forfeiture of the ketubah by the woman upon divorce,
included all those which disqualified priests from serving in the
temple: “No man with a defect shall come, whether a blind man, a lame
man, a man stunted or overgrown, a man deformed in foot or hand, or with
mis-shapen brows or a film over his eye or a discharge from it, a man
who has a scab or eruption.”218
The talmudic commentary also specified several more: “A Tanna taught: To
these were added perspiration., a mole and offensive breath.... If a dog
bit her and the spot of the bite turned into a scar (such a scar) is
considered a bodily defect. Rabbi Hisda further stated: A harsh voice in
a woman is a bodily defect.”219
Indeed, even a deviation in the “normal” size or cleavage of a woman’s
breasts were grounds for divorce without kethubah:
Rabbi
Nathan of Bira learnt: (The space) of one handbreadth between a woman’s
breasts. Rabbi Aha the son of Raba intended to explain in the presence
of Rabbi Ashi that this statement meant that ‘(the space of) a
handbreadth’ is to (a woman’s) advantage, but Rabbi Ashi said to him:
This was taught in connection with bodily defects. And what space (is
deemed normal)? Abaye replied: (A space of) three fingers. It was
taught: Rabbi Nathan said, It is a bodily defect if a woman’s breasts
are bigger than those of others.220
Not every
unwanted wife would have been divorcible without her kethubah under
these provisions, but very many would have been. The man suffered no
such disabilities.
Except
for the relatively infrequent exceptions mentioned above,221
even if a man’s wife did not fit into one of the enumerated categories
whereby she could be divorced without her kethubah being paid, in
mishnaic and talmudic times the husband could always divorce his
wife, regardless of her wishes. Early in mishnaic times there was a
dispute between those rabbis following Shammai and those following
Hillel. Both lived in the first century B. C. E. The Shammaites were of
patrician background and tended to be more conservative in their
judgments, whereas the Hillelites tended to be of plebeian stock and
more liberal. In the dispute over the grounds for divorce the former
were more restrictive and the latter quite unlimited in their
interpretations of those grounds. The basic biblical text about which
the dispute raged was: “When a man has married a wife, but she does not
win his favour because he finds something shameful in her, and he writes
her a note of divorce, gives it to her and dismisses her ...”222
The Mishnah comment on this text is as follows:
The
School of Shammai say: A man may not divorce his wife unless he has
found something unseemly in her, for it is written, Because he hath
found in her indecency in anything. And the School of Hillel say
(He may divorce her) even if she spoiled a dish for him, for it is
written, Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.
Rabbi Akiba says: Even if he found another more beautiful than she, for
it is written, And it shall be if she find no favour in his eyes.223
Akiba was
very consistent in this matter for it was also he who taught, against
the earlier teachers who were Shammaites, that a menstruous wife could
continue to adorn herself, so as not to give her husband a reason for
finding another woman more beautiful than her and hence divorce her:
“The early Sages ruled: That means that she must not rouge nor paint nor
adorn herself in dyed garments; until Rabbi Akiba came and taught: If
so, you make her repulsive to her husband, with the result that he will
divorce her!”224
That the
more permissive view, the Hillelite view, soon prevailed was borne out
by remarks by at least two first century C. E. Jews, who not only
espoused the Hillelite view, but also seemed to know of no other view.225
Josephus stated the Jewish law on divorce thus: “He who desired to be
divorced from the wife who is living with him for whatsoever cause-and
with mortals many such may arise-must certify in writing.”226
That he practiced this doctrine was borne out by his remark about
divorcing one of his four wives: “At this period I divorced my wife,
being displeased at her behaviour.”227
Philo also spoke of “parting from her husband for any cause whatever.”228
The triumph of the permissive view was also attested to by the
discussion of the dispute in the Babylonian Talmud, where it is clear
that even a non-reason, a whim, is sufficient to make a divorce valid:
“Rabbi Papa asked Raba: If he has found in her neither unseemliness nor
any (lesser) thing, (and still divorces her), what are we to do
(according to Beth Hillel)? He replied ... what is done is done.”229
Thus,
outside of the rare exceptions referred to, and the possibility of the
penalty of having to pay the kethubah, a man could always divorce his
wife for any reason whatsoever, or even on a whim. The reverse was not
possible. The Mishnah itself stated this point quite clearly: “The man
who divorces is not like to the woman who is divorced, because the woman
goes forth with her consent or against her will, whereas the man
divorces her only with his own free will.”230
Although
it was impossible for a wife to divorce a husband, there were
circumstances when a wife could claim the right to a divorce before a
Jewish court-this was clearly an advance in the rights of the wife from
earlier biblical times to rabbinical times. Abrahams described the power
of the court as follows: “The Court could scourge, fine, imprison, and
excommunicate him, and had practically unlimited power to force him to
deliver the necessary document freeing his wife.... But in case of his
determined contumely, there would be no redress, as the Court could not
of its own motion dissolve a marriage.”231
The
Mishnah provided very few grounds for a wife to make a claim for a
divorce: “And these are they for which they compel him to give divorce:
one afflicted with a skin disease, or one who has a polypus, or one that
collects,232
or one who mines copper-ore, or a tanner.”233
In later, Amoraic, times, an additional ground was also granted by some
rabbis, namely, if the marriage was childless, it being demonstrable
that the fault might be the husband’s and the wife wanted to have
children to support her in her old age.234
At the same time it had to be made certain that the divorce was not
sought by the woman either because of money or “because she set her eyes
on another.”235
Again, no such limitations were set on the desires of the man.
Furthermore, “in all such cases where the wife was concerned as the
moving party, she could only demand that her husband should divorce her;
the divorce was always from first to last in Jewish law the husband’s
act.”236
According
to Josephus there were a number of instances in Herod’s family when the
wife divorced the husband.237
However, in the following passage Josephus makes it clear that such
actions were clearly against Jewish law-they were possible only in the
very strongly Hellenistic-influenced circles, for in Hellenistic custom
the woman could initiate divorce as well as the man:
Some time
afterwards Salome had occasion to quarrel with Costobarus and soon sent
him a document dissolving their marriage, which was not in accordance
with Jewish law. For it is (only) the man who is permitted by us to do
this, and not even a divorced woman may marry again on her own
initiative unless her former husband consents. Salome, however did not
choose to follow her country’s law.238
Because,
as Rabbi Abrahams put it, “in case of his determined contumely, there
would be no redress, as the Court could not of its own motion dissolve a
marriage,”239
at least two very tragic problems would occasionally arise. The Mishnah
stated that if a husband “became a deaf-mute or if he went out of his
mind he may never set her free.”240
The same Mishnah also stated that the husband may not divorce an insane
wife, though he could divorce her if she became a deaf-mute. The
difference is that in the former case the wife, though normal, could
never again hope to lead a normal married life and would be hard put to
provide for herself in a male dominated economic world. In the latter
case, when the husband is normal, the man could always take another
wife, and so lead a normal married life. The second problem perhaps
occurred more often: “in case of desertion, the wife could not obtain a
divorce ... the Court could not grant a divorce to the wife if the
husband had merely vanished and left no trace, unless they saw valid
grounds for presuming death.”241
Both of these tragic cases still plague Orthodox Judaism today.
There
were of course a few who decried divorce, the earliest of whom was
probably the minor prophet Malachi (fifth century B.C. E.), who said:
You weep
and moan, and you drown the altar of the Lord with tears, but he still
refuses to look at the offering or receive an acceptable gift from you.
You ask why. It is because the Lord has borne witness against you on
behalf of the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her,
though she is your partner and your wife by solemn covenant. Did not the
one God make her, both flesh and spirit? And what does the one God
require but godly children? Keep watch on your spirit, and do not be
unfaithful to the wife of your youth. If a man divorces or puts away his
spouse, he overwhelms her with cruelty, says the Lord of Hosts the God
of Israel. Keep watch on your spirit, and do not be unfaithful. (Mal.
2:13-16)
These are
very moving and powerful words against divorce. At the same time, at
least three things ought to be noticed about them. For one, the prophet
repeatedly decries divorcing the wife of one’s youth, perhaps implying
that the taking of a second wife without divorcing the first one would
not be so objectionable. Secondly, what might be more important, these
lines follow immediately upon several others which condemn the marrying
of foreign wives, who might lead the men away from the worship of Yaweh.
If these verses were not interpolated later, as some few scholars
believe, then the inveighing against the divorce of the wife of one’s
youth, presumably Jewish (a body of Jews had just returned from exile at
about this time), was perhaps strongly motivated as a defense against an
invasion of idolatry by way of newly taken, Canaanite, etc., wives.
Shortly afterwards Ezra and Nehemiah even insisted on the divorce and
driving out of all foreign wives and children for that very reason:
“Now, therefore, let us pledge ourselves to our God to dismiss all these
women and their brood, according to your advice, my lord” (Ez. 10-3). in
any case, the words of Malachi were not understood in subsequent Jewish
law as forbidding either polygamy or divorce. Indeed, one talmudic
interpretation was as follows: “In Israel God has granted the
possibility of divorce, but not among the Gentiles; there he hates
divorce!”242
There was
also the objection to polygamy in the Damascus document which some
scholars construe to be an objection to divorce and remarriage as well.243
There were likewise a few rabbinic voices objecting to divorce, the
first one perhaps being Rabbi Eleazar (270 C. E.) who, while he
misquoted the above cited words of Malachi, nevertheless decried
divorce: “Rabbi Eleazar said: If a man divorces his first wife, even the
altar sheds tears, as it says, ‘And this further ye do, ye cover the
altar of the Lord with tears.... “244
The next objector was Rabbi Johanan (279 C. E.): “For a hateful one put
away:’ Rabbi Judah (150 C. E.) said: (This means that) if you hate her
you should put her away. Rabbi Johanan says: It means, He that sends his
wife away is hated.”245
There was one further talmudic objection: “Rabbi Shaman ben Abba said:
Come and see with what great reluctance is divorce granted; King David
was permitted yihud (with Abishag), yet not divorce (of one of
his wives).”246
It should
be noted that the rabbinic objections to divorce began only in the
middle of the third century C. E., and were extremely rare. Montefiore
comments: “There are a few stock passages which Strack-Billerbeck
are fair enough to quote (p. 320) against divorce, especially against
divorcing a first wife, the wife of one’s youth.... But it would not
appear that such passages are numerous, though it is rather nice that
Tractate Gittin (on Divorce) ends with this saying of Rabbi Eleazar and
the quotation from Malachi 2:13-14.”247
Perhaps
this analysis of divorce as far as it reflected the status of women in
the formative period of Judaism, the centuries just before and after the
beginning of the Common Era, can best be summed up in the words of one
Orthodox and one Liberal Jewish scholar. Ze’ev Falk, an Orthodox Jew, in
the following passage evaluated in the first place the status of women
in the context of biblical divorce laws, but his statement basically
applies to the rabbinic period as well, as the final sentence of the
passage-and his following pages-indicate:
Two
characteristics of the biblical law of divorce set it apart from
present-day family law. There was no consideration for the woman’s
wishes, as far as the future of the marriage was concerned, nor was
there public supervision of divorce. The husband alone had the power to
decide whether the union should be severed, and if he disliked his wife
there was nothing to prevent him from expelling her from the home. The
wife, however, was unable to eject her husband, since she had been
purchased by him, and not he by her; it was he who had taken her to
wife, and he who put her out. Such a restriction of the rights of woman
was a feature characteristic of biblical law, and may perhaps not have
existed to such an extent among other Semitic peoples. The Jewish
attitude did, however, change with the passage of time, so that in
certain circumstances the wife was allowed to demand a divorce from her
husband. Nevertheless, the original law still stood firm and unshaken.,
and laid down that the husband was free to divorce his wife arbitrarily
without taking her opinion into consideration.”248
It is
interesting to note the author’s self-critical stance toward his own
tradition here, which also specifically included an unfavorable
comparison of the Jewish divorce customs with those of the surrounding
Semitic peoples. The same judgment would also have to be made in a
comparison with the divorce customs of the Egyptian, Hellenistic and
Roman neighbors.
The
Liberal Jew, C. G. Montefiore, is similarly critical in his evaluation:
Rabbinic
divorce, however, mitigated in practice and in theory, rested upon two
fundamental improprieties. (a) Divorce was the act of the man. Though
the woman in certain circumstances could claim it, her claim, if the man
was obstinately contumacious, could not be enforced. In the last resort,
the man could divorce his wife; the woman could not divorce her husband.
Thus Rabbinic divorce rests upon inequality. The man has a power which
the woman has not. Whether Jesus felt and attacked this inequality, this
inferiority of the woman to the man is not entirely certain. (b) But
what did obviously arouse the antagonism of Jesus was the second
impropriety. A man could divorce his wife, according to Rabbinic law,
for many reasons over and above infidelity.... According to Jewish law,
the woman could not divorce the man. It is this disparity which is the
second great blot in the Jewish law of divorce. The woman, in true
accordance with Oriental conceptions, is the subordinate of the man. The
Jewish law-to its credit be it said-made some improvements in her
insecure and unequal position; but she remained, and remains,
religiously and legally, the inferior.249
CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION
Although
the two traditions on women-the pre-lapsarian, positive one, and the
post-lapsarian, negative one-continued throughout formative Judaism, the
former grew weaker and the latter stronger during the period. Simply
stated, the clear conclusion from the analysis of the foregoing evidence
is that in the formative period of Judaism the status of women was not
one of equality with men, but rather, severe inferiority, and that even
intense misogynism was not infrequently present. Since the sacred and
secular spheres of that society were so intertwined, this inferiority
and subordination of women was consequently present in both the
religious and civil areas of Jewish life.
In
drawing this conclusion, it must also be recalled that Judaism was not
simply following the pattern of the societies and cultures around it. On
the contrary, it appeared to be running quite counter to the trends of
at least the surrounding (Egyptian), Hellenistic, and Roman cultures.
Not infrequently Jewish and Christian writers have attempted to argue
that women’s lot in Judaism or Christianity was not any worse, or
indeed, was even better, than in Greek and/or Roman society. However,
the “evidence” then presented is usually something dealing with ancient
classical Greece or the early Roman republic, whereas the appropriate
evidence to be looked at should have been from the Hellenistic and
imperial Roman periods, i. e., 300 B. C. E. to 300 C. E. In those
societies, for all of the disabilities many women suffered, the status
of women not only was significantly higher than in the then contemporary
Judaism, but it also generally improved throughout the period.
The
question can be asked whether the inferior status of women in the
formative period of Judaism was simply a continuation of feminine
inferiority already present in pre-exilic Hebrew religion and society,
or whether it represented a decline from a higher status of women in
antique pre-exilic times through post-exilic to rabbinic times. Though
the status of the wives of the patriarchs and of a judge like Deborah
appears to be much higher than that of the Jewish women of the time and
society of Ben Sira and Rabbi Eliezer, the scholarly answer to that
question awaits further thorough analysis of the ancient period.1
Whatever
the facts are concerning the relationship between the status of women in
ancient Hebraic society and in the period here under analysis, on the
basis of evidence at least it can be stated that the inferior status of
women, and even misogynism, appear to have intensified and broadened
from the return from exile in the sixth century B. C. E. through late
biblical times and into rabbinic, talmudic times. The developments that
worked in women’s favor, e. g., the gradual elimination of the execution
of adulteresses, and the doing away with the trial by ordeal of the
suspected adulteress, were relatively few and were at least
counter-balanced by further negative developments, e. g., the increasing
restrictions of women in the temple and the synagogue, the introduction
of harem-like customs in Alexandrian Judaism and to a somewhat lesser
extent in the cities of Palestine, the misogynism of the Essenes, the
teaching to the masses by the rabbis of the violent misogynism of Ben
Sira, and their own.
This
conclusion, of the dominance of a severely inferior status of women and
even an intense misogynism in the formative period of Judaism, is in no
way weakened or deflected by evidence that there existed at the same
time sincere human affection toward wives (and toward children and
others too, for that matter) or that there were some domineering Jewish
women. Human history on a one-by-one basis defies any absolute
categorization. But the evidence still staggeringly indicates that
formative Judaism’s societal and religious structures placed
women in a position decidedly inferior and subordinate to men.
Since the
development of Judaism in this formative period has had an
overwhelmingly determinative influence on the subsequent history of
Jewish life, and since the subordinate position of women, and even
misogynism, was so profoundly and intimately bound up with Judaism in
this formative period, the inferiority of women and misogynism have also
tended to have an overwhelming influence in the subsequent history of
Judaism. It would be necessary to research carefully and
unapologetically the history of the condition of women in Judaism
following talmudic times to see in detail the influence the inferior
status and the misogynism of the earlier period had, and the play of
reinforcing and countervailing forces,2
plus the reforming efforts, particularly in modern times.
These
reforming efforts, of course, have a long history (e. g., the Ashkenazic
efforts to eliminate polygamy, starting in the Middle Ages), but they
became particularly strong with the rise of Reform Judaism in the
nineteenth century. Pretty well following the rising and falling of the
general feminist movement in modern Western civilization, the movement
for equality and justice for women within Judaism also had limited
success, and only in the 1970s is it beginning to receive popular
support. Nor are these reform efforts limited to the Reform branch of
Judaism; rather, they spill over into Conservative Judaism, and
even-though to a much more limited extent-into Orthodox Judaism.
Though
the tendency of Orthodox Judaism in recent centuries has been to resist
changes in general, and concerning the status of women in particular,
the Orthodox tradition really goes beyond tolerating change and
adaptation. The whole point of rabbinism is to make the word of God, the
Torah, apply in a realistic, effective way to contemporary Life; “change
and adaptation” in that sense is its raison d’être. Hence, even
though formative Judaism in the past severely subordinated women, it is
quite possible under new circumstances that Orthodox Judaism could
change its interpretation and application of Torah so as to eradicate
all practices and understandings that assume the inferiority of women.
Indeed,
just this sort of thing happened in the critically important mishnaic
period: for example, Rabbi Jochhanan ben Zakkai eliminated the use of
the trial by ordeal of the suspected adulteress (Sotah), even though
this practice was not simply a rabbinic extension or application of a
more general biblical command, but rather was a very explicit biblical
command. He felt circumstances had changed sufficiently to warrant
eliminating the practice; he merely was careful, in good rabbinic
fashion, to provide a corroborating biblical quotation to support his
radical decision.
If there
were sufficient will, the same sort of authentic rabbinic
reinterpretation and adaptation-even very radical reinterpretation and
adaptation, judging from the past-could eliminate all misogynism and
subordination of women even in Orthodox Judaism today. This, in fact, is
exactly what the Orthodox rabbi Ze’ev Falk, Professor of Matrimonial Law
at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, calls for in his courageous,
scholarly article on “The Position of Woman in the Halacha,”3
in which he begins to outline how it should be accomplished within the
authentic tradition of Halacha. The article itself must be read for the
development of the specific examples Falk uses to illustrate his point,
but the statement of his basic principles, usually cast in the form of
questions, deserves to be quoted here:
Therefore
it is to be asked whether agreement can be reached between the Halacha
and the new framework of values, or whether the Halacha can exist only
within the ancient societal norms. Clearly the Halacha cannot maintain
itself unchanged indefinitely since many of its presuppositions have
been overturned and loyalty to it hardly can be expected from a woman
who claims personal happiness and equality before the law. In my book on
marriage and divorce I outlined the transition from the Oriental Jewish
society to the European, as it took place at the time of Rabbenu Gershom
(965-1028 C. E.). Now in our generation as well a similar transition has
become apparent, from the traditional to an urban-industrial order of
society. We must ask again whether those learned in Halacha will succeed
in constructing the form demanded by the new structure and whether they
possess the creative power and freshness to be signposts despite the
vagaries of the times.
Falk
focuses the question still more sharply: “Does the possibility exist
today to correct the position of the woman in the Halacha so as to adapt
it to her position in the modern family, in contemporary society and in
the state, which have made the equality of women their goal?” The
answer, he says, is clear: “It is sufficient to point out that the
Halacha in the Mishnah is explained within the context of the
sociological givens; the conclusion is therefore near at hand: the
Halacha would be different if and when these givens in the meantime were
to change.”
Falk
frames the question even more precisely in the “religious” sphere:
To be
sure, ‘women have no pleasure’ when they do not participate in the
community prayer or when they have no opportunity to attend the prayer
and the reading.... Where a woman has a knowledge of Torah that is
superior to men’s we must not forego her capabilities, but we must find
a way to have her take part in the worship service. When we have gone so
far as to have women as active participants in the various areas of
life, it is particularly senseless to forego their contribution
specifically in religious things.
Fortunately, Jewish women themselves who treasure much of the Jewish
tradition have begun to become aware of their inferior status and have
begun to work to change it.
The
‘Jewish Women’s Movement’-if you can call those women who have been
thinking, talking, and meeting together throughout the country over the
past year or two a movement-is still young.... Ezrat Nashim, perhaps the
first group publicly committed to equality for women within Judaism,
began as a study group within the New York Havurah in September, 1971.
Seeking to determine what position women have held in traditional
Judaism, why, and what possibilities there were for change, a number of
women began studying Talmud and other sources. Within a few months-after
discovering that the concern for equality within a traditional Jewish
framework was widespread-the group decided to ‘go public,’ and in March,
1972, appeared at the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of
America to confront the rabbis of the Conservative Movement.4
The call
for equality for women was so well received that already in 1973 the
Conservative Movement decided to allow women to be counted in a
minyan in the United States.
In
February, 1973, over 500 women from the United States and Canada met in
New York for the first Jewish women’s conference. “As a result of the
conference, many new groups have been formed, a number of regional and
local conferences have been held, a national newsletter has been
started, and Network is organizing a National Women’s Speakers Bureau.”5
At the conference Judith Plaskow Goldenberg spoke of the tension within
the sensitized Jewish woman: “Can we-how can we-assure ourselves in
advance that if we are true to our own experiences we can remain in
continuity with tradition.”6
To begin
to answer that question, and others, a special anthology on the Jewish
woman was published in 1973. A key portion dealt with the problem of
retaining the Jewish tradition in its best sense and eliminating its
subordination Of women and its misogynism:
The
dynamic character of the halacha-the legal code-has made it not only
possible, but mandatory, for Jews in every age and culture to create an
appropriate balance between the traditions of the past and Jewish ideals
for the future. One such ideal is tselem elohim-the image of
God-in which human beings were created. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a)
describes the image of God in terms of the absolute equality, absolute
value, and uniqueness of every person. The many laws and customs denying
women independent legal status and equal participation in prayer, study,
and ritual prevent the evolution of halacha toward its own ideals. The
authors of the following articles, while pursuing different methods of
change, nevertheless recognize the centrality of halacha and the need to
couple the mechanisms of change with the sensitivities and values of
Judaism in order to achieve equality of rights and obligations for
women.7
This
rising consciousness among Jewish women, and some men, is even reflected
on the political level in Israel. On January 8, 1974, a headline in the
New York Times read: “Israel Feminist Wins Big Electoral Upset.”
The story was about Shulamit Aloni, a lawyer and former member of the
Knesset, who was elected, along with another feminist, to the Knesset.
Ms. Aloni had already exhibited a serious interest not only in the
feminist cause,8
but also in how to deal with problems of marriage and divorce within the
halacha.9
It is
this author’s hope that the attainment of full equality for women within
Judaism will proceed as rapidly and creatively as possible and that this
study will have contributed a small bit toward that goal by presenting
as carefully as possible one of the main sources of the contemporary
status of women in Judaism, namely, the status of women as developed in
the formative period of Judaism. There are many things of great value
from the Jewish tradition, particularly from this formative period,
which should be treasured, applied, adapted and expanded today. But the
subordination of women and misogynism are not among them. These latter
should be seen clearly in their starkness and be judged as something to
be outgrown, as was slavery. Any attempt to gloss over these grim facts
will produce revulsion in the sensitive, and hypocrisy in the
not-so-sensitive. The sensitive will “drop out” of religious Judaism and
the not-so-sensitive will become more and more like the Christian
caricature of the Pharisee. The state of the second is even less human
and less Jewish than the first; but both are serious losses to humanity
and Judaism.
On the
other hand, it is hoped that this study will not be the source of morbid
breast-beating (though plenty of healthy self-criticism is surely in
order) or become a sort of club with which to beat the “establishment,”
without at the same time taking appropriate positive and creative action
to change that “establishment.” One such positive, creative action
already taken is the creation of “feminist seders” and other “feminist”
communal worship services.10
It is hoped that this study may be a true catharsis-and that the reader
would then move on positively to change her or his own life and the
surrounding societal patterns and structures.
The few
bright spots from the past, e. g., the extraordinary Beruria (surely she
should be the heroine for the Jewish feminist, and indeed a model
for all Jewish women-and men too!), should be treasured-for the
exceptions that they were. But it is to the broader principles of the
value of the human person, justice, and love of one’s neighbor that
contemporary Judaism will have to return to develop most of its Jewish
feminism, i. e., justice and equality for women.
Footnotes
1Apion,
II, 201.
21
Tim. 2:11 ff.
3Guillaume
Cardascia, “Le Satut de la Femme dans les Droits cuneiformes,” La
Femme. Recueil de la Société Jean Bodin, XI, I (Brussels, 1959), pp.
81-94.
4Paper
entitled “The Goddesses and the Theologians: Reflections on Women’s
Rights in Ancient Sumer,” read by Samuel Noah Kramer at the XXII
Recontre Assyriologique Internationale held in Rome, July, 1974. (Cf.
also “Scholars Told Sexism is Divine,” Philadelphia Inquirer,
September 3, 1974, where the paper was reported on in some detail.)
5Ibid.
6Cf.
Adam Falkenstein, Die Neusumerischen Gerichtsurkunden (Munich,
1956), esp. pp. 146-153.
7Cf. M.
Schorr, Urkunden des altbabylonischen Zivil-und Prozessrechts
(Leipzig, 1913), p. 15.
8Codex
Hammurabi 142. See James Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts
(Princeton, 1955), p. 172.
9Ibid.,
143, p. 172.
10Cf.
Driver and Miles, The Assyrian Laws (Oxford, 1935), paragraphs
12-23, and Codex Hammurabi 143. See Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 172, 181 f.
11Cf.
Cardascia, op. cit.
I pp. 93 f.
12Cf.
Jacques Pirenne, “Le Statut de la Femme dans l’Ancienne Egypte,” La
Femme. op. cit., pp. 64 f.
13Cf.
ibid., p. 70.
14Cf.
ibid., p. 73.
15Cf.
ibid., p. 75.
16Ibid.
I p. 76. He also goes on to say: “In Greece the status of women was far
from being as developed as in Egypt. One knows how the Ptolemies
attempted to restrict the Egyptian woman as were Greek women, i. e.,
placed under marital authority.” However., as will be seen below, that
attempt was largely unsuccessful. Rather, the reverse tended to happen.
17Ibid.,
p. 77.
18See,
e.g., i. J. Bachofen, Myth, Religion and Mother Right Selected
Writings of Bachofen, tr. by Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1967); Robert
riffatut, The Mothers, 3 vols. (New York, 1927); Elizabeth Gould
Davis, The First Sex (New York, 1971).
19Vern
L. Bullough, The Subordinate Sex (Baltimore, 1974), pp. 50ff.
20Plutarch,
Numa 3, 5 f.
21Plutarch,
Moralia, p. 240d (Gorgo).
22Aristotle,
Politics II, 6, 9, 11.
23Quoted
in Johannes Leipoldt, Die Frau in der antiken Welt und im
Urchristentum (Leipzig, 1954), p. 34.
24Ibid.,
p. 29.
25Ibid.,
p. 33.
26The
recent extensive article on “Frau” in the Reallexikon für Antike und
Christentum by Klaus Thraede often takes a somewhat revisionist
approach toward earlier scholarship which described the status of women
in the ancient world as quite restricted. Thraede, for example, argues
that Greek women were not nearly so restricted to household affairs as
previously portrayed, partly by referring to counter-evidence and partly
by stating that various instances of evidence put forward by his
opponents were either overvalued (e. g., the quotation from the works of
Demosthenes concerning hetaerae, concubines, and wives--col. 201)
or were to be dismissed as not reflecting reality (e. g., four
references to late wisdom literature in the Bible and to the Talmud that
men ought not converse much with women--col. 225). However, Thraede
himself offers no reason why he finds such evidence overvalued or not
reflective of reality; he simply states his claim flatly--a not very
convincing procedure. Also, in his counter-claim that Greek
women--contrary to previous scholars, mostly unnamed by him--did indeed
participate significantly in Greek society, Thraede unfortunately
largely fails to adhere carefully to the all-important distinctions in
place and time he usually does in his otherwise excellent article,
thereby making this aspect of his revisionist claim of ambiguous and
confused value.
27Leipoldt,
op. cit pp. 62 ff. It was Leipoldt who called my attention to this
phenomenon of heightened sensitivity in the ancient world.
28How
much more often do we find such expressions of joy in the Greek Luke’s
gospel than in the gospels of the other two, non-Greek, synoptics,
Matthew and Mark. Cf. John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible
(Milwaukee, 1965), p. 526: “The coming of salvation creates an
atmosphere of joy, mentioned much more frequently in Lk than in Mt-Mk
(1:4, 28, 58; 2:10; 10:17, 20f.; 13:17; 19:6, 37; 24:41, 52). There is
joy even in heaven at the repentance of sinners (15:7, 10, 32). Joy
breaks out in expressions of praise, again more frequent in Lk than in
Mt-Mk (Benedictus; Magnificat).” And it is only the New Testament
writers who are strongly influenced by Hellenism who report that Jesus
cried: “As he drew near and came in sight of the city he shed tears over
it” (Luke 19:41); “At the sight of her tears, and those of the Jews who
followed her, Jesus said in great distress, with a sigh that came
straight from the heart. ‘Where have you put him?’ They said, ‘Lord,
come and see. I Jesus wept” (John 11:33-35); “During his life on earth,
he offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in silent tears” (Letter to
the Hebrews 5:7).
29Leipoldt,
op. cit., p. 64.
30The
book of Tobit was written during the Hellenistic period, probably about
200 B. C. E. when all Palestine was under Greek rule: “The boy left with
the angel, and the dog followed behind” (Tobit 6:1). in Mark it was
reported: “Now the woman was a pagan, by birth a Syrophoenician, and she
begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter. And he said to her,
‘The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the
children’s food and throw it to house dogs. I But she spoke up: ‘Ah,
yes, sir, I she replied, ‘but the house dogs under the table can eat the
children’s scraps” (Mark 8:26-28). But McKenzie, op. cit., p. 202,
comments: “In the ancient Near East the dog was not kept as a pet and he
was rarely employed in hunting of as a watch dog. Most dogs have no
owners and are nuisances and scavengers which run about the streets. In
ancient Hebrew law the dog was an unclean animal, to which unclean flesh
might be thrown (Ex. 22:30). ‘Dog,’ ‘dead dog, ‘ ‘dog’s head’ were terms
of insult.”
31Leipoldt,
op. cit., pp. 64 f.
32Gerhard
Herrlinger, Totenklage um Tiere in der antiken Dichtung, in
Tübinger Beiträge zur Altertumwissen- schaft, VIII (19-3-0), pp. 30
f., 75 ff.
33Theodor
Birt, Aus dem Leben der Antike (Leipzig, 2nd ed. 1919) , pp. 134
ff.
34Klaus
Thraede, “Frau,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol.
VIII (Regensburg, 1970), col. 208, rejects
the likelihood of I. Bruns’ (Frauenemanzipation in Athen, Kiel,
1900) claim that there was a full-fledged women’s movement led by
Aspasia in Pericles’ Athens.
35Ibid.,
col. 198.
36Cf.
Claire Preaux, “Le statut de la femme a l’époque hellénistique,
principalement en Egypte,” La Femme.
Op. cit., pp. 127-175.
37See
Grace Macurdy, Hellenistic Queens (Baltimore, 1932).
38William
Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens (London, 1911), p. 71.
39Ibid.,
pp. 72, 85.
40Ludwig
Friedlaender, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms Vol.
I (8th, 1910), 449 ff. Already by 79
C. E., as one can see from the graffiti in Pompeii, the “domina” was
shortened to “domna.” “In English we still have the honorary title
“Dame,” and its variant, Madam, but normally a Germanic equivalent is
used, namely, Mrs. or Miss, or Ms. as abbreviations of “Mistress.”
41Cf.
S. Liebermann, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York, 1942), pp.
47-50.
42Preaux,
op. cit., p. 173.
43Wilhelm
Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionum graecorum. (Leipzig, 1915-),
Vol. 2, p. 802.
44M.
Wegner, Das Musikleben der Griechen (Berlin, 1949). pp. 159 f.
45Thraede,
op. cit, , col. 202.
46Dittenberger,
op, cit., vol. 1, p. 532.
47Thraede,
op. cit., cols. 204, 222 f.
48Pliny,
Natural History, referred to in Joan Morris, The Lady was a
Bishop (New York, 1973), p. xi.
49Dittenberger,
op. cit., vol. 3, p. 1177.
50Leipoldt,
op. cit., pp. 37 ff.
51O.
Rubensohn, Elephantine- Papyri (Berlin, 1907), number 1.
52E.g.,
see E. N. Adler, et al. The Adler Papyri (Oxford-London,
1939), Demotic Papyri no. 14, and Preaux, op. cit., p. 162.
53Thraede,
op. cit., col. 206. At this point Thraede adds the remark that
“on the contrary in the orient the wife, on the basis of a legal
contract, could be loaned out ... a procedure that would have been
impossible in Greece and which glaringly illuminates the differences of
the cultural levels.”
54See
H. Kreller, Erbrechtliche Untersuchung auf Grund der graeko
aegyptischen Papyrusurkunden (Leipzig, 1919). pp. 142 ff., 174 ff.,
307 ff., and R. Taubenschlag, The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt
(Warsaw, 1955), pp. 184 f., 201.
55Cf.
C. Schneider, Kulturgeschichte des Hellenismus, I (Munich, 1967),
p. 80. see also Pirenne, op. cit., pp. 164 f., 174 f.
56Thraede,
op. cit., col. 199.
57Cf.
L. Mitteis, Reichsrecht und Volksrecht (Leipzig, 1891), p. 66.
58Cf.
Taubenschlag, The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt p. 177, and Preaux,
op. cit., p. 142.
59H.
J. Wolff, “Hellenistic Private Law,” in S. Safrai et al., The
Jewish People in the First Century (Philadelphia, 1974), vol.
I, pp. 538, 540, 542.
60Cf.
R. Taubenschlag, “La compétence du kyrios dans le droit
gréco-égyptien,” Archives d’histoire du droit oriental,
II(1938), pp. 293-314.
61Cf.
Taubenschlag, “La compétence,” pp. 293-314, and Claude Vatin,
Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de la IFT femme mariée a
l’époque hellénistique (Paris, 1970), pp. 250 f. and Wolff, op.
cit., p. 538.
62Preaux,
op. cit., p. 170.
63See
Chapter V, pp. 115-117.
64Z.
W. Falk, “Jewish Private Law,” S. Safrai et al., op. cit., p.
513.
65Cf.
Wolff, op. cit., p. 538.
66Ibid.,
pp. 540.
67E.
Ziebarth, Aus dem grieschischen Schulwesen (Leipzig, 1909), pp.
32, 50, 78; Th. Hopfner, Sexualleben der Griechen und Römer
(Prague, 1938), pp. 380-382.
68Cf.
Ernst Majer-Leonard, Agrammatoi in Aeqypto qui litteras sciverint,
qui nesciverint (Frankfurt, 1913).
69Preaux,
op. cit., p. 172.
70Cf.
Thraede, op. cit., col. 202, who lists a number of women poets
whose work is extant; he describes them briefly--and the variety is
quite broad, from the lyric and epigrammatic writing of Anyte of Tegea
mentioned earlier (some of her writing was even done on paid
commissions) to erotic verse--and gives references for further
information.
71Cf.
Leipoldt, op. cit., p. 53, where he also refers to Deubner, who
lists seventeen by name.
72Athenaios,
III, 95, pp. 122 f.; IV, 52, p. 161 cd. See also the Pythagorian prayer
which reveals something of their attitude toward women: “Honor be to the
woman on earth as in Heaven, and may she be sanctified, and help us to
mount to the Great Soul of the world who gives birth, preserves, and
renews--the divine Goddess who bears along all souls in her mantle of
light.” Quoted in Edouard Schure, The Great Initiates (New York,
1913), p. 92.
73Quoted
in Leipoldt, op. cit., p. 53. Cf. also Vatin, op. cit.
P. 37: “A une date incertaine, mais probalement posterieure, ce probleme
posé par l’existence de femmes dotées de pouvoirs politiques est évoqué
dans les textes pythagoriciens: ‘Ces qualités (réflexion et sagesse)
rendent la femme capable de belles actions vis a vis d’elle-même, de son
mari, de ses enfants, de sa famille; souvent aussi pour une cité, si une
telle femme gouverne des cités ou des peuples, comme on le voit dans la
monarchie.“
The reference is to Perictyonè, in Stobée, LXXXV, 19.
74Cf.
W. Nestle, Vom Mythos zum Logos (Stuttgart, 1942), pp. 473-96.
75The
Republic, V, 451d ff.
76Laws,
805c.
77Dialogues,
L, 3, 46. es
78Politics,
13131), 32; 1319b, 30 f.
79Ibid.,
1269b, 12/1271b, 19.
80Ibid.,
1254b, 17/9; 1259b, 1/17; 1260b, 16/8. Aristotle’s relatively low
estimation of women had a profound influence on later Christian theology
through the work of Thomas Aquinas; for a detailed analysis of Aquinas’
theology of woman see Gertrud Heinzelmann, Wir schweigen nicht
länger! We Won’t Keep Silence Any Longer! (Zürich, 1964, pp. 20-44,
79-99.
81N.
W. de Witt, Epicure and His Philosophy (Minneapolis, 1954), pp.
95 f.
82See,
e.g., Plutarch (46-120 C.E.).
83Leipoldt
, op. cit., pp. 57.
84Ibid.,
p. 61.
85Cf.
Leipoldt, ibid., pp. 56 f., states that the thought patterns of
the rabbis were strongly influenced by the Stoics, as for example, the
custom of making a teaching more vivid and attention-grabbing by casting
it in the form of a conversation; but the Stoics’ attitude toward women
are not similarly assimilated.
86Ibid.,
p. 57.
87Cf.
Thraede, op. Lit., col. 210.
88Leipoldt,
op, cit., p. 43, and Thraede, op. cit., col. 207.
89Leipoldt,
op. cit., p. 44.
90Mishnah, Abot 2, 2.
91A. D.
Nock, “Eunuchs in Ancient Religion,” Archiv fuer
Religionswissenschaft, vol. 23 (1925), p. 27; H. Bolkestein,
Theophrastos’ Charakter der Deisidaimonia (Giessen, 1929), pp.
68-70.
92Cyrillus
Alex. in Is. 2, 2, in Patrologia Graeca, 70, col. 441.
93Cf.
Guenter Haufe, “Die Mysterien,” in Johannes Leipoldt and Walter
Grundmann, eds., Umwelt des Urchristentums (Berlin, 1965), pp.
101-126, for details.
94Cf.
Preaux, op. cit.. p. 172.
95Flavius
Josephus, Jewish War 2, 20.
96Acts
16: 14 ff.
97Cf.
U. Türck, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft,
vol. 46 (1928), pp. 166 f. The influence of the Hellenistic women’s
liberation movement on Christianity can be seen in the writing of the
gospels: “Cerfaux calls Luke’s universalism as it stands the fruit of
the union of the primitive traditions with the Hellenistic Christianity
of Antioch and the preaching of Paul. Of a piece with Luke’s
universalism is the prominence given to women; more women appear in Lk
than in the other Gospels. In the Hellenistic world the social and legal
position of woman was higher than it was in Judaism” (McKenzie, op.
cit., p. 526).
98Jacques
Heurgon, Daily Life of the Etruscans (New York, 1964), p. 8.
99Cf.
ibid., p. 77.
100Ibid.,
p. 89.
101Ibid.,
p. 95.
102Ibid.,
p. 96.
103Ibid.,
p. 86.
104Cf.
J. P. V. Balsdon, Roman Women, Their History and Habits (London,
1962), pp. 2-6, and Robert Villers, “Le statut de la femme A Rome
jusqu’a la fin de la R6publique,” Le Femme.
Op. cit. 3 p. 188.
105Thraede,
op. cit., col. 212; cf. also col. 207 where it is noted that women
also bore witness within the widely popular mystery religions of
Hellenism. This ability of a woman to bear witness at that time in at
least significant portions of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds takes on
a special importance in view of the radical inability of women to bear
witness in the Judaism of the same time. See below, pp. 150-152.
106H.
Mattingly, Roman Coins (Chicago, 1962), p. 145.
107Quoted
in Guglielmo Ferrero, Die Frauen der Caesaren (Stuttgart, 1912),
p. 7.
108Cf.
Thraede, op. cit., cols. 213f. The evidence here applies only to
aristocratic women-for the rest there is silence. Jean Gaudemet, “Le
statut de la femme dans l’Empire romain,” Le Femme. op. cit., pp.
191-222, did not seem to be aware of the positive evidence Thraede
alluded to, for he wrote: “From the beginning of the empire the woman
acquired an independence of action and a legal capacity which went way
beyond ancient Roman customs. On the other hand, during the entire
empire she had no more official part in political and administrative
life than during the republic” (p. 191).
109Thraede,
op. cit., col. 223.
110Gaudemet,
op. cit., p. 198.
111Ibid.,
p. 201.
112Ibid.,
pp. 202, 204.
113Ibid.,
p. 208.
114“Gyne,”
in G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand
Rapids, Mich., 1967), vol. 1, p. 777.
115Although
many authors have alluded to the ambiguous attitude toward women
expressed in the Bible, I am particularly indebted to George Tavard,
Woman In Christian Tradition (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1973), for his
insightful explanation.
116Cf.
ibid., p. 5. Cf. also Anne McGrew Bennett, “Overcoming the
Biblical and Traditional Subordination of Women,” Radical Religion,
vol. 1, no. 2 (Spring, 1974), p. 283 where when speaking of the Adam and
Eve story she writes: “but it cannot be maintained that woman is
inferior even if she was created after man without admitting that man is
inferior to the creeping things because he was created after them.
Neither man nor woman in this story is said to be made ‘in God’s image.
I Furthermore, the word translated as ‘help meet’ or ‘helper’ is the
Hebrew word used of divine, or superior, help. The word never refers to
inferior help in the Bible.”
117Cf.
Tavard, op. cit., pp. 7 f. From a different perspective, Phyllis
Trible makes the same point: “The serpent speaks to the woman. Why to
the woman and not to the man? The simplest answer is that we do not
know.... ‘But the silence of the text stimulates speculations, many of
which only confirm the patriarchal mentality that conceived them. Let a
female speculate. If the serpent is ‘more subtle’ than its fellow
creatures, the woman is more appealing than her husband. Throughout the
myth she is the more intelligent one, the more aggressive one and the
one with greater sensibilities.... The initiative and the decision are
hers alone. She seeks neither her husband’s advice nor his permission.
She acts independently. By contrast the man is a silent and bland
recipient: ‘She also gave some to her husband and he ate, ‘ ... His one
act is belly-oriented, and it is an act of quiescence, not of
initiative. The man is not dominant; he is not aggressive; he is not a
decision-maker.... He follows his wife without question or comment,
thereby denying his own individuality. If the woman be intelligent,
sensitive and ingenious, the man is passive brutish and inept”
(“Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,’‘ Journal of the
American Academy of Religion, vol. 41, no. 1 (March, 1973, p. 40).
118Tavard,
op. cit., p. 17.
119Ibid.
1George
Tavard, Woman in Christian Tradition (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1973),
pp. 24 f.
2Cheryl
Exum, “Images of Women in the Bible,” Women’s Caucus-Religious
Studies Newsletter, vol. 2, no. 3 (Fall, 1974), p. 5.
3Phyllis
Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” Journal of
the American Academy of Religion, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 46 f.
4Thierry
Maertens, The Advancing Dignity of Woman in the Bible (DePere,
WE., 1969), p. 110.
5At
this point the Jerusalem Bible suggests that this refers to another
man’s wife, but since this section is post-exilic, it could well refer
to foreign women, for there was a fear of them as the corrupters of the
people of Yahweh by the followers of Ezra and Nehemiah. Indeed, their
fear of alien women was almost pathological, for they saw the Jewish men
as the fountains of Yahweh worship and goodness, but the alien women as
the sources of idolatry and evil; despite human affection or
years of marriage, the Jewish men were expected to drive away these
“evil” wives and children: “We have committed an offence against our God
in marrying foreign wives, daughters of the foreign population. Now,
therefore, let us pledge ourselves to our God to dismiss all these women
and their brood.” (Ez. 10:3) Cf. also Nehemiah’s action: “In those days
also I saw that some Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and
Moab.... I argued with them and reviled them, I beat them and tore their
hair out.... Are we then to follow your example and commit this grave
offense, breaking faith with our God by marrying foreign women? Now one
of the sons of Jehoiada, son of Eliashib the high priest, had married a
daughter of Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I drove him out of my
presence,” (Neh. 13:23-28).
6The
full text reads:
“Preserving you from the woman subject to a husband,
from the smooth tongue of the woman who is a stranger.
Do not covet her beauty in your heart
or let her captivate you with the play of her eyes;
a harlot can be bought for a hunk of bread,
but the adulteress is aiming to catch a precious life.
Can a man hug fire to his breast
without setting his clothes alight?
Can a man walk on red-hot coals
without burning his feet?
So it is the man who consorts with his neighbour’s wife:
no one who touches her will go unpunished.
7The
full text reads:
“Call Perception your dearest friend,
to preserve you from the alien woman,
from the stranger, with her wheedling words.
From the window of her house she looked out on the street,
to see if among the men, young and callow,
there was one young man who had no sense at all.
And now he passes down the lane, and comes near her corner,
reaching the path to her house
at twilight when day is declining,
at dead of night and in the dark.
But look, the woman comes to meet him,
dressed like a harlot, wrapped in a veil.
She is loud and brazen;
her feet cannot rest at home.
Now in the street, now in the square,
she is on the look-out at every corner.
She catches hold of him, she kisses him,
the bold-faced creature says to him,
‘I had to offer sacrifices:
I discharged my vows today,
that is why I came out to meet you,
to look for you, and now I have found you.
I have made my bed gay with quilts,
spread the best Egyptian sheets,
I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh,
with aloes and with cinnamon.
Come, let us drink deep of love until the morning,
and abandon ourselves to delight.
For my husband is not at home,
he has gone on a very long journey,
taking his moneybags with him;
he will not be back until the moon is full.
With her persistent coaxing she entices him,
draws him on with her seductive patter.
Bemused, he follows her
like an ox being led to the slaughter,
like a stag caught in a noose,
til he is pierced to the liver by an arrow,
like a bird darting into a snare
not knowing its life is at stake.
And now, my son, listen to me,
pay attention to the words I have to say:
do not let your heart stray into her ways.,
or wander into her paths;
she has done so many to death,
and the strongest have all been her victims.
Her house is the way to Sheol,
the descent to the courts of death.”
8Cf.
Jerusalem Bible, p. 977, note h.
9Roland
Murphey, Seven Books of Wisdom (Milwaukee, 1960), p. 122 , says:
“But in almost every discussion of wifely virtue the primary
consideration is the happiness that a good wife brings to the man. The
man of a different background, such as that of today, might with reason
say that little value is placed on woman as a person in the Old
Testament; in short, this is a man’s world.”
10E.g.,
Oepke’s article on gyne in G. Kittel’s Theologisches
Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament.
The Enclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971), vol. 16, col. 626,
notes: “The oft quoted last section of Proverbs (31:10-31) in praise of
the virtuous woman is somewhat ambiguous in that it still depicts a
situation in which the wife is definitely a subordinate.”
11Cf.
e.g., bBer. 17a: “Rab asked Rabbi Hiyya (both late Tannaitic rabbis):
Wherewith do women acquire merit? By sending their children to learn
(Torah) in the Synagogue, and husbands to study in the schools of the
Rabbis, and by waiting for their husbands until they return from the
school of the Rabbis.”
12
Somewhat later the rabbis stated clearly the custom of the husband
appropriating the results of the wife’s labor: “The finds of a woman and
the work of her hands belong to her husband, and he enjoys the usufruct
of whatever she inherits during her lifetime. Compensation for indignity
or damages for injury to her belongs to her. Rabbi Judah ben Bathyra
says, When in an unexposed part (in her body), two parts go to her and
one part falls to him; but when in an exposed part, two parts are his
and one part is hers. His must be given straightaway; but with hers land
must be purchased and he enjoys the usufruct thereof’ (Keth. 6, 1).
13The
book was originally written in 175-200 B. C. E. by Ben Sira and
translated into Greek by his grandson sometime after 132 B.C. E.; until
the end of the 19th century only the latter text was known. Since then
about two-thirds of the book has been found in Hebrew mss.
14John
L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee, 1965), article
on “Ben Sira.”
15Cf.
K. Thraede, “Frau,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum
(Stuttgart, 1972), vol.
VIII, cols. 208 f., and pp. 10-28 above.
16See
chapter IV, pp. 94ff.
17This
is the Jerusalem Bible translation; the RSV is similar. But the
New American Bible, 1970, probably drawing on Syriac mss. refers
to an unruly wife rather than a headstrong daughter.
18Unlike
the growing custom in Hellenistic and Roman society, Jewish women did
not usually mix with male society or eat with men-see below for further
discussion.
19Cf.
the Syriac translation--quoted in Johannes Leipoldt, Die Frau in der
antiken Welt und im Urchristentum (Leipzig, 1954) 9 p. 87.
The earliest rabbinical documentation takes
off from here and sharpens the point even further by applying the
prohibition to one’s own wife. Rabbi Jose ben Jochanan, probably from
the second century B. C. E. said: “Speak not much with the married
woman”; later rabbis added: “this was said of one’s own wife, therefore
how much more is it true of the wife of one’s neighbor” (Aboth 1, 5).
This will be discussed in detail below.
20If
such an understanding is accurate (see Jerusalem Bible, it would stand
in contradistinction with earlier Hebrew tradition which saw fornication
only as an offense against the father of the unmarried girl (cf. Dt.
22:28 ff.). Such a sexual asceticism might have been influenced
positively in that direction from the Stoic philosophy in the Hellenism
then spreading in Palestine-as was apparently the case among the Jewish
sect of the Therapeutae in first century Alexandria-or negatively as a
reaction against the greater sexual freedom displayed in much of
Hellenistic culture. The dualisms of the East which saw matter as the
principle of evil, and sex and woman as the most material of material
things, and hence to be rejected, may have played a role in this
development. Also, the traditional notions of the defiling character of
sex (including nocturnal emission) and women needed only to be further
developed to arrive at the idea of avoiding them both as much as
possible.
21See
Chapter VI, “Adultery,” for a discussion of the death penalty for
adultery
22McKenzie,
op. cit., p. 935, notes: “Both in Greece and in the Near East
there are numerous allusions to the popular belief that woman is by
instinct a nymphomaniac.
23Cf.
ibid., p. 929.
24Cf.
e.g., D. C. Simpson, “The Hebrew Book of Proverbs and the Teaching of
Amenophis,” Journal of Egyptian Archeology, vol. 12, (1926), pp.
239 ff.
25James
Pritchard (ed.). Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, 1955),
pp. 413, 420 f.
26Ibid.,
p. 427.
27Ibid.,
p. 438.
28E.
g., see bSan. 100b, where the rabbis urge the use of Ben Sira’s
misogynist teaching to instruct the multitudes.
29They
are also referred to as apocalyptic literature; see below, note. 51.
30The
following long passage from 1 Esdras 4:13-32 should also be noted here.
The setting of the story is at the court of Darius, King of Persia,
where the Jews were in exile (6th century B. C. E.). Three
pages dispute before the king as to what is the strongest. The first
argues for wine, the great leveler; the second for the king; the third,
Zerubbabel, the future leader of the Jews, for women:
“Then the third, that is Zerubbabel, who had spoken of women and truth,
began to speak: ‘Gentlemen, is not the king great, and are not men many,
and is not wine strong? Who then is their master, or who is their lord?
Is it not women? Women gave birth to the king and to every people that
rules over sea and land. From women they came; and women brought up the
very men who plant the vineyards from which comes wine. Women make men’s
clothes; they bring men glory; men cannot exist without women. If men
gather gold and silver or any other beautiful thing, and then see a
woman lovely in appearance and beauty, they let all those things go, and
gape at her, and with open mouths stare at her, and all prefer her to
gold or silver or any other beautiful thing. A man leaves his own
father, who brought him up, and his own country, and cleaves to his
wife. With his wife he ends his days, with no thought of his father or
his mother or his country. Hence you must realize that women rule over
you!
“‘Do you not labor and toil, and bring everything and give it to women?
A man takes his sword, and goes out to travel and rob and steal and to
sail the sea and rivers; he faces lions, and he walks in darkness, and
when he steals and robs and plunders, he brings it back to the woman he
loves. A man loves his wife more than his father or his mother. Many men
have lost their minds because of women, and have become slaves because
of them. Many have perished, or stumbled, because of women. And now do
you not believe me?
“‘Is not the king great in his power? Do not all lands fear to touch
him? Yet I have seen him with Apame, the king’s concubine, the daughter
of the illustrious Bartacus; she would sit at the king’s right hand and
take the crown from the king’s head and put it on her own, and slap the
king with her left hand. At this king would gaze at her with mouth
agape. If she smiles at him, he laughs; if she loses her temper with
him, he flatters her, that she may be reconciled to him. Gentlemen, why
are not women strong, since they do such things?”’ Zerubbabel then goes
on to argue that the truth is nevertheless the victor over all.
This would seem to be an early version of the notion that behind
every great man is a great woman; it does not indicate that women had a
high status. On the contrary, women seem to have been relegated to
bearing men-who then did all the important things in the world-and being
the object of men’s sexual desires. Women’s humanity and their sexuality
were co-extensive. Not so with men.
The book is part of the apochrypha, not the pseudepigrapha. It is found
in the Septuagent Greek Bible, but not in the Massoretic Hebrew text.
Jerome included it in his Latin Vulgate translation, but since the
Council of Trent in the 16th century the Catholic Church has not
included it in the regular part of the Bible.
First Esdras is largely the story of the return of the Jews from exile
and the subsequent events, mostly all found in the canonical book
Ezra-Nehemiah. Hence, it is largely either derived from Ezra-Nehemiah,
or vice versa, or both are from a common or parallel sources. It is
judged to have been composed in the 2nd century B. C. E. (cf.The
Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, New York, 1965, p. and
quite likely in Egypt (cf.-John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible,
Milwaukee, 1965, p. 42). Since this story is missing from the
Ezra-Nehemiah account, it probably was added from non-Jewish sources, e.
g., Egyptian: “The story probably originated outside the Jewish
community as a popular tale praising the relative strength of wine,
kings, and women (the original order was perhaps kings, wine, and
women). The praise of the strength of truth (4:33-41; compare 3:12) was
added later in the transmission of the story, perhaps by a Greekspeaking
editor (this part of the story has close parallels to Greek thought and
literature)” (Oxford Bible, pp. 5 f.).
The alternate theory is that this story was earlier in the Ezra-Nehemiah
account, but then excised: “Although our O. T. has lost the story of
Zerubbabel and the Praise of Truth, there is no doubt that there is
something ‘unbiblical’ in the orations. In the course of the growth of
the O. T., compilers and revisers have not unfrequently obscured or
omitted that to which they took exception, and some light is thus often
thrown upon other phases of contemporary Palestinian or Jewish thought”
(R. H. Charles (ed.), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament, Oxford, 1913, vol. I, p. 19).
In either case, if the story could be said to reflect a high status for
women, the reflected reality was not in Palestinian Judaism, and in the
second theory, even that reflection was removed by the redactor of the
canonical Ezra-Nehemiah.
31Cf.
also Charles, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 9-11.
32Charles,
op. cit., vol. II, The Pseudepigrapha, pp. 123 ff.
33Testament
of Simeon 5:3. For this and the texts and commentary on the
other pseudepigrapha see ibid.
34Ibid.,
p. 146.
35bYeb.
103b.
36bAZ.
22b.
37bShab.
146a.
38Note
the title of address. It is also interesting that the author develops
the Genesis quotation in this connection (“and your desire shall be for
your husband and he shall be your master”--Gen. 3:16) even further in
the direction of making the woman still more inferior to the man: “and
thy wife shall tremble when she looketh upon thee.... I did not create
thy wife to command thee, but to obey” (Charles, op. cit., p.
134).
39Ibid.
p. 137.
40Ibid.
pp. 142 f.
41Ibid.
p. 142.
42Ibid.
p. 145.
43Ibid.
44Could
this partly be a psychological revenge for the obvious fact that women
are the apparent source of new human life, a sort of uterus envy, in
Freudian terms?
45Ibid.,
p. 141.
4630:17-18.
Text in ibid., p. 450. Paul in II Cor. 11:3 and I Tim. 2:14
follows the same tradition. IV Ezra, a pseudepigraphal Jewish work
composed around the end of the first
century C. E., lays the blame simply at Adam’s feet: “For the first
Adam, clothing himself with the evil heart, transgressed and was
overcome; and likewise also all who were born of him” (3:21, text in
ibid., p. 563). The rabbis repeatedly said that Eve caused the death
of Adam, that she brought death into the world, for which she was
manifoldly punished, including the curse of menstruation. See chapter
IV, pp. 87ff.
47Ibid.,
p. 143. The variant version is as follows: “And while they were walking,
lo! suddenly there came a beast (a serpent) and attacked and bit Seth.
And as soon as Eve saw it, she wept and said: ‘Alas, wretched woman that
I am. I am accursed since I have not kept the commandment of God. I And
Eve said to the serpent in a loud voice: ‘Accursed beast! how (is it
that) thou hast not feared to let thyself loose against the image of
God, but hast dared to fight with it? I The beast answered in the
language of men: ‘Is it not against you, Eve, that our malice (is
directed)? Are not ye the objects of our rage? Tell me, Eve, how was
thy mouth opened to eat of the fruit?”
48Cf.
ibid., p. 8. Leonhard Rost, Einleitung in die altestamentlichen
Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen einschliesslich der grossen
Qumran-Handschriften (Heidelberg, 1971), p. 100, suggests the author
was probably an Essene.
John L. McKenzie, op. cit. , agrees with
Charles that the author was a Pharisee.
49Charles,
op. cit., p. 1.
50Ibid.,
p. 9.
51For
a detailed discussion of this influence see R. H. Charles, The Book
of Jubilees (1902), pp. lxxiii-lxxxvii; also D. S. Russell, The
Method and Message of Jewish Apocapyptic (London, 1964), pp. 28ff. :
“The evidence points rather to the fact that Apocapyptic was a fairly
strong current in the mainstream of Judaism in the years immediately
before and after the beginning of the Christian era.... Even though the
writing of these books might have been confined to relatively restricted
circles within Judaism and the initial reading and study of them to
certain defined strata of Jewish society, their influence would make
itself felt from an early time on in the life of the Jewish people as a
whole.”
52See
above, note 31.
53Later
in the book in connection with the story of Tamar and Judah it was
stated by the author that if a man had sexual intercourse with his
mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, both the man and the woman should be
burned (41:25-27), but nothing was said about punishing the man in other
cases; there is merely a commendation of Judah for having attempted to
follow the charge of Abraham by burning Tamar (41:28). Likewise, the
severe condemnation and punishment, including the man, described in
chapter 30-see above, chapter I, pp. 20ff.-was directed only at
intermarriage with non-Jews.
54Cf.
Charles, op. cit., p. 282.
55Testament
of Benjamin, 9:2. See the note in Charles, ibid., p. 358,
for further references to the salvation of the Gentiles as taught in the
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.
56Testament
of Reuben, 4:6.
57Fragment
of Testament of Levi (vss. 16, 17), found in Charles, op. cit.,
p. 364.
58Cf.
Proverbs 31:3; Ben Sira 26:19-22.
59Cf.
also Jubilees 20:4; see above, p. 51.
60Another
ms. tradition has the following reading: “He that hath a pure mind in
love, looketh not after a woman with a view to fornication; for he hath
no defilement in his heart.”
61See
Charles, op. cit., pp. 299, 192, for further references to where
and how the use of these allurement techniques by women brought about
the fall of angels-and men.
62For
a detailed discussion of the image of woman in pseudepigraphal
literature and its influence on early Christian writers see Bernard P.
Prusak, “Woman: Seductive Siren and Source of Sin?” Rosemary Ruether
(ed.), Religion and Sexism (New York, 1974), pp. 89-116.
1Apion,
11, 201.
2“Queen
Salome Alexandra,” in The World History of the Jewish People-The
Hellenistic Age, ed. by Abraham Schalit (Jerusalem, 1972), pp.
249-252.
3Berlin,
1930, pp. 261 f.
4See
Charles, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 174 ff.
5See
Rost, op. cit., p. 46.
6See
chapter II, p. 36.
7The
highly respected Jewish scholar Solomon Zeitlin corroborated this point
when he paraphrased the Talmud (Ab. Zarah 25b): “Judith had no army. She
had charm and beauty and with this she was sure she could conquer the
enemy by beguiling Holofernes. The Talmud well said that woman had an
army with her, that is sex. This is her main armor” (In an introduction
to Morton S. Enslin, The Book of Judith. E. J. Brill, Leiden,
1972, p. 14).
8Jerome’s
Vulgate version adds (15:11). in a rather mixed up metaphor, that in
acting so continently Judith “behaved like a man” (quia fecisti
viriliter).
9Mary
Gendler, “The Vindication of Vashti,” The Jewish Woman. Response,
18 (Summer, 1973), pp. f.
10Aviva
Cantor Zuckoff, “The Oppression of the Jewish Woman.” ibid. , p.
49, made a similar point when she wrote of Esther: “In doing so she must
act aggressively toward her own husband. She must engage in the same
type of behavior that was condemned in Vashti-assertiveness, willingness
to risk her life for her values, aggressiveness. But since she’s doing
this not for herself but for her people, and with Mordechai’s approval
and on his orders, it is condoned. Esther’s aggressiveness is praised
and she becomes a role model for Jewish women.
“Esther’s aggressiveness is approved because it is altruistic, as were
the actions of Deborah, who judged the people, and Judith, who cut off
the head of the Syrian Greek general besieging her city. What it all
adds up to is that it’s good for Jewish women to be strong and
aggressive when the Jews are in danger and she’s acting in the people’s
interest, in other words, when it’s ‘good for the Jews. If we go through
the Bible and legends carefully, we see that whenever Jewish survival is
at stake, the Jewish woman is called upon to be strong and aggressive.
When the crisis is over, it’s back to patriarchy.”
11Esther
is difficult to date, but probably was written in the second century B.
C. E.
12Gendler,
op. cit. , p. 158. She added an interesting proposal at the end
of her articles: “I propose, then, that Vashti be reinstated on the
throne along with her sister Esther, together to rule and guide the
psyches and actions of women. Women, combining the attributes of these
two remarkable females-beauty softened by grace; pride tempered by
humility; independence checked by heartfelt loyalties; courage;
dignity-such women will be much more whole and complete than are those
who simply seek to emulate Esther. The Lillith, the Vashti in us is
valuable. It is time that we recognize, cultivate and embrace her!”
13See
chapter VI, pp. 197ff. and note 153 for chapter VI. It was also the same
Rabbi Simeon who had eighty women hanged for witchcraft.
14Klausner,
Jesus p. 261. Essenes- -Qumran
15Emil
Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi
(Leipzig, 4th ed., 1907), vol.
II, p. 673. After a full discussion of all the suggested and possible
influences on the Essenes, Schürer stated: “Two things nevertheless can
as a result of our investigation be affirmed: 1) Essenism is first and
foremost a Jewish configuration, and 2) its non-Jewish characteristics
are mostly from contact with the Pythagorian-oriented tradition of the
Greeks” (p. 680). Apparently, however, Pythagorian feminism (see
Thraede, op. cit., col. 208 f.) did not influence Essenism.
16There
have been some attempts to argue that the Essenes did not live a
celibate life (e.g. , Hans Hübner, “Zölibat in Qumran?” New Testament
Studies, vol. 17, 1970-71, pp. 153-157), but the weight of scholarly
opinion still agrees with the traditional evidence which stated clearly
that the central group did lead a celibate life. Schürer suggests that
one should not attempt to reject the evidence for the celibate life of
the Essenes merely on the a priori grounds that it was foreign to
Judaism: “The rejection of marriage is of course something heterogenous
to genuine Judaism. But even this can be explained on Jewish premises:
Since the marriage act as such makes man unclean and necessitates a
levitical purification bath, the effort to attain the highest possible
degree of purity and holiness could very well lead to the complete
rejection of marriage” (Schürer, op. cit. , p. 674). For a
similar opinion see, William Hugh Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumran
Scrolls for the Bible (New York, 1964), p. 80.
17Natural
History, quoted in Yigal Yadin, The Message of the Scrolls
(London, 1957), p. 185.
18Life,
11.
19Antiquities,
XVIII, 21.
20Theodor
H. Gaster, The Scriptures of the Dead Sea Sect (London, 1957), p.
75. A little later Gaster continued: “The fact that two words
(viz., ‘pit’ and ‘trap’) are used to describe the net in which they will
be caught alludes to the whorish practice of taking two wives at the
same time, the true basis of nature being the pairing of one male with
one female, even as it is said (of Adam and Eve), ‘A male and a female
created He them’ (Gen. 1:27), and of those that went into the ark, ‘In
pairs they entered’ (Gen. 7-9). Similarly, too, it is said concerning a
prince: ‘He shall not take more than one wife’ (Deut. 17:17).” Here we
see that, apparently for all Jews, the normally permitted polygamy was
to be rejected, perhaps even divorce and remarriage while the first wife
was still alive; cf. also Andre Dupont-Sommer, Die essenischen
Schriften vom Toten Meer (Tübingen, 1960), and Brownlee, op. cit.,
p. 87. Gaster also added: “This principle is totally new in Judaism; it
is found again in the gospel (Mt. 19:3-9; Mk. 10:2-12).”
21Jewish
War, 11, 120.
23Hypothetical
11, 14-17.
24Philo
with an English Translation, trans. and ed. by F. H. Colson London,
Cambridge, Mass., 1954), vol. IX, p. 442.
25See,
e. g., Proverbs 7:5-27 (see above, pp. 33, 184 note 7), Testament of
Reuben 5:3ff. (p. 67).
26See
pp. 65f.
27John
Strugnell, “Flavius Josephus and the Essenes: Antiquities XVIII. 18-22,”
Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. LXXVII (1958), p. 110.
28John
M. Allegro, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan, vol. V.
Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford, 1968), pp. 82-84. See also Brownlee, op.
cit. , pp. 77-80 for a detailed discussion of the Genesis Aprocryphon
scroll and the implications there of the subordination of the female
sex.
29Jewish
War, II, 160-161. The existence of this “third order” of married Essenes is
confirmed by references in some of the Dead Sea documents, e.g. , the
“Manual of Discipline for the Future Congregation of Israel,” (QSa),
where it says: “All that present themselves are to be assembled
together, women and children included. Then all the provisions of the
Covenant are to be read out loud to them, and they are to be instructed
about all its injunctions” (Gaster, op. cit. , p. 285). At this
point Lohse commented: “Here the married members of the community and
their families are spoken of. According to Josephus there were married
Essenes. Also in the Damascus Document several references to members who
were married and had children are made” (Eduard Lohse, Die Texte aus
Qumran Darmstadt, 1971, p. 286). There were also remains of women
and children found in what is presumed to be a somewhat outer graveyard
of the Qumran community. Cf. Dupont-Sommer, op. cit., pp. 71 ff.
30See
above, note 17.
31Four
and a half to over six feet.
32De
Vita Contemplativa, vss. 32-33. Cf. James Hastings, A Dictionary of
the Bible (New York, 1902), vol. IV, p. 975.
33See
chapter IV, 2, “Segregation in Temple and Synagogue.
34See
chapter IV, 4, “Women Studying Torah.”
35See
K. Thraede, “Frau,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum.
(Stuttgart, 1972), vol. VIII, cols. 208 f.
36De
Vita Contemplativa, vss. 85-87.
37They
believed “the acquiring of slaves was contrary to nature, which indeed
has brought all humans into the world as free men” (Leipoldt, Die
Frau , p. 8 6). In this they were also similar to the Essenes who
also rejected slavery
38Ibid.
39See
below, pp. 120f.
40Cf.
pp. 42, 52, 53.
41See
below, pp. 161-163.
42For
detailed documentation see the chapter on “Die Schriftgelehrten,” in
Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem zur Zeit Jesu (Goettingen, 1958), pp.
101-114.
43Tos.
A. Z. 3, 103 464, quoted in ibid. 3 p. 138.
44Cf.
ibid., p. 122.
45Ibid.,
p. 138.
46Antiquities
XVIII, 15. Cf. also XVI, 41: “There was also a group of Jews ... called
Pharisees by whom the women (of Herod’s court) were ruled.
47Ibid.,
XVIII, 17.
48This
quotation is from Genesis Rabbah 18, 2; the text continues by giving
proof-texts for each of the characteristics for a wife. A somewhat
parallel passage is found in the Babylonian Talmud, bYeb. 62b, where to
the characteristics of goodness, joy and blessing are added Torah, a
protecting wall, and peace; proof-texts are also provided.
49bSan.
22a. Except for the first two statements listed here, all these
reflections refer to “first” wives, or the wife of one’s youth, which
would not only seem to show an appreciation of a first love, but would
also seem to presuppose the possibility, or perhaps even the likelihood,
of at least “successive” if not simultaneous polygyny.
50See
above, p. 36.
51bSan.
22b.
52See
above, pp. 40f.
53Samson
Raphael Hirsch, Judaism Eternal (London: Soncino Press, 1959),
vol. II, pp. 57 f.
54Ibid.,
pp. 49-96.
55Ibid.,
pp. 51, 55, Cf. George Foot Moore, Judaism vol. II (New York,
1971), p. 126, where the famous Presbyterian scholar makes the following
strikingly inaccurate statement in an overly apologetic spirit: “The
legal status of woman under Jewish law compares to its advantage with
that of contemporary civilizations, and represents a development of the
biblical legislation consistently favorable to woman.”
56The
latter by buying her more clothes and ornaments than he does for himself
(cf. bShab. 62b and Rashi’s comment on bSan. 76b; there is a possibility
that here the motivation of vicarious conspicuous consumption as
analyzed by Thorsten Veblen may play a role).
57All
these quotations are from bYeb. 63a-b.
58Ibid.
If divorced, the kethubah, pledged by the man, would have to be repaid,
and the husband could not manage it financially. See below, pp. 157ff.
59Genesis
Rabbah 17, 7.
60Ibid.
, 17, 8.
61bB.
M. 59a.
62Ibid.
63bShab.
25b.
64Louis
Finkelstein, Akiba (New York- Philadelphia, 1962). p. 80; see
below, pp. 112ff.
65Git.
9 , 10. See below, pp. 161f.
66bNid.
45b.
67GenR.
18, 1.
68Hirsch,
op. cit., p. 95.
69Cf.
Jakob Winter (trans.), Sifra Halachischer Midrasch zu Leviticus
(Breslau,
70bBer.
l7a.
71bSotah
47b.
72Hirsch,
op. cit.., p. 94.
73See
below, pp. 150 ff. for a more thorough discussion of adultery.
74Hirsch,
op. cit., p. 93.
75Ibid.,
p. 94.
76bGit.
89.
77Hirsch,
op. cit.. P. 95.
78Aboth
2, 7. It was doubtless true that there was a goodly amount of
superstition and appeal to magic and the occult among women of ancient
Judaism, but clearly the men were not exempt from such practices, quite
common among uneducated peoples of all times and places. However, the
additional restriction on women’s education, particularly religious
education, in Judaism and their almost total exclusion from any
significant active participation in the orthodox religious cult (both to
be discussed in detail below, pp. 83ff.), enhanced the tendency of women
to engage in such unorthodox religious practices.
79Sotah
3, 4.
80See
above, pp. 42, 49f. , 53f. , 63f. , 187 note 22.
81bKeth.
65a.
82bShab.
152a. This teaching is attributed to a “Tanna,” i.e., a rabbi of the
early period, the time before the Mishnah was finally edited in the
second century C.E.
83Apparently
the rabbinic tradition found this an impressive saying, for it is quoted
in at least three different rabbinic collections: Terum 15; and pKid. 42
66b, 32; and Soferim 41a, in The Minor Tractates of the Talmud,
ed. by A. Cohen (London, 1971), p. 288.
84bShab.
33b. It is interesting to note a contemporary Jewish scholar’s use of
this statement. In commenting on women’s not being allowed to bear
witness in Judaism, Raphael Loewe stated: “No reflection on their
veracity is hereby intended, but merely (to cite an operative phrase)
‘because they have light, i. e., flighty minds”, (Raphael Loewe, The
Position of Women in Judaism, London, 1966, p. 24).
85bKid.
80b. Somewhat later, in the period of the amoraim, of the Talmud
proper, i. e. , between 200 and 500 C.E., this thought was carried
further in the direction of the thought, “every woman a gossip,” the
implication being that men are not (though in the Semitic world of the
Near East it would seem that talking is a major male preoccupation):
“Rab [late second, early third century C. E. ] said: Hence (it is
proved) that women are fond of talking” (bBer. 48b). “Ten measures of
gossip descended to the world: nine were taken by women and only one by
the rest of the world” (bKid. 49b).
86bKid.
82b; cf. also bSan. 100b.
87bNid.
3 lb.
88Third
century.
89Last
generation of Tannaim, i. e., late second, early third century.
90Midrash
Rabbah, Genesis, trans. by H. Freedman (London, 1951), p.
383--referred to from now on in the traditional manner, i.e.. GnR. 45,
5. This ancient midrash material was collected between the editing of
the Palestinian and the Babylonian Talmuds, i. e., around 400 C. E., by
Amoraim rabbis, but the rabbis quoted in it are almost all Tannaim, i.
e., 200 C. E. and earlier
91GnR.
18, 2. Cf. DtR. 62 “(the Midrash Rabbah on Deuteronomy) where the Tanna
Rabbi Levi is said to have characterized women as “greedy, inquisitive,
envious, and indolent” and other rabbis added that women were “querulous
and gossips.”
92Tos.
Ber. 7, 18.
93pBer.
13b; bMen.
43b.
94Seder
Eliahu Rabba, edited by M. Friedmann (Jerusalem, 1960). chapter 10,
p. 48.
95The
fact that the massively authoritative commentary on the New Testament
from talmudic and midrashic sources written by the Christian scholar
Paul Billerbeck does not allude to the relationship between the
threefold prayer and Paul’s statement in Gal. 3:28 might suggest some
doubt concerning the validity of maintaining the relationship. But the
evidence, internal and external, is so strongly in favor of a clear
connection that Billerbeck’s omission can only be attributed to
oversight. Both a Christian scholar and a Jewish scholar have made
comments to this effect. The Christian Hans Kosmala wrote: “Billerbeck
unfortunately did not recognize the connection between Gal. 3:28 and the
Jewish benediction formula and likewise did not refer to it (Kommentar
111, 557 ff.)” (Hans
Kosmala, “Gedanken zur Kontroverse Farbstein-Hoch,” Judaica, IV,
3 (1948), p. 229).
The Jewish scholar Raphael Loewe wrote: “All three are controverted by
St. Paul (Gal. 3:28) in his famous ‘neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor
free, male nor female...The formulations in the two talmudic passages
are patient of the interpretation that Rabbi Meir (or Judah) was
insisting on the authenticity of the liturgical use of an already
current benedictional formula. Possibly something of the sort was known
to Paul, who controverted it; and the insistence of Meir (Judah) may
thus itself be apologetically aimed at Christianity through
recontroversion of St. Paul. Strangely, (H. L. Strack and) P.
Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch,
III (1926), pp. 557 f., have nothing too say of obvious parallel to
Gal. 3:28" (Loewe, op. cit., p. 43).
96In
contemporary prayer books women are often also invited to recite the
prayer, usually with the following substitute for the phrase about
praising God for not having made the one praying a woman: Praised be God
who has created me according to his own good pleasure. (Cf. S, Singer,
Authorised Daily Prayer Book, p. 5, and I. Abrahams, Companion
to the Authorised Daily Prayer Book, 1922, p. xvi.) Many Jewish
communities (Reform and some Conservative) have, of course, done away
with the prayer in modern times, i. e., since the Enlightenment. The
English Jewish scholar, C. G. Montefiore comments: “No amount of modem
Jewish apologetic, endlessly poured forth, can alter the fact that the
Rabbinic attitude towards women was very different from our own. No
amount of apologetics can get over the implications of the daily
blessing, which orthodox Judaism has still lacked the courage to remove
from its official Prayer Book. ‘Blessed art thou, 0 Lord our God, who
hast not made me a woman’” (A Rabbinic Anthology, Philadelphia,
1938, p. 507).
97E.g.,
see bSan. 100b where the Talmud defends vigorously the use of Ben Sira’s
misogynist passages in teaching the masses.
98Montefiore,
Rabbinic Anthology, p. xviii.
1Sotah
3, 8.
2Kid.
1, 7.
3Sukka,
2, 8: “Women and slaves and children are exempt from Succoth”-a
revealing grouping of persons, which will be discussed below, pp. 117
ff.
4Tassels
and prayer straps specified for the recitation of certain daily prayers.
5Tos.
Kid. 2, 7, 224, 1, which one would have thought would be the one thing
women should read.
6Sukka,
2, 8: “Women and slaves and children are exempt from Succoth”-a
revealing grouping of persons, which will be discussed below, pp. 117
ff.
7Jalq
Shim on Sm 78. It might be noted that this teaching is extraordinarily
similar to Paul’s in I Cor. 7:32-34: “An unmarried man can devote
himself to the Lord’s affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the
Lord; but a married man has to bother about the world’s affairs and
devote himself to pleasing his wife: he is torn two ways. In the same
way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the
Lord’s affairs; all she need worry about is being holy in body and
spirit. The married woman, on the other hand, has to worry about the
world’s affairs and devote herself to pleasing her husband. “ One main
difference, of course, is that here Paul makes no distinction between
the husband and the wife.
8For
just one example cf. R. Loewe, op. cit., pp. 41 ff. It is,
however, not clear why, especially in light of the significantly better
work attendance record women often have, men were not also thought to be
liable to occasional prohibitive physical disabilities, or why they
would not also have similarly onerous householder’s or worker’s
obligations-unless the wife was expected to work so the husband could
have the leisure to study, as apparently was the case with the “perfect
wife” of the Book of Proverbs (31:10-31), or the “model” wife of Rabbi
Akiba, or hundreds of thousands of Orthodox wives over the centuries and
at present at Mea Shearim-see above, pp. 36 f.
9Kid.
1, 7.
10Cf.
bKid. 29a.
11bKid.
34a.
12Zuckoff,
“The oppression of the Jewish Woman,” op. cit. , pp. 49 f.
13Ber.
3, 3.
14Tos.
Ber. 53 17; cf. bBer.
20b.
15bBer.
20b.
16bSuk.
38a. The reference is to the recitation of the Hallel psalms during the
feast of Succoth. On the same page of the English translation (p. 172)
the editor explains the reference to women or children as making “use in
divine service of inferior or second rate deputies.”
17Ber.
7, 2. This is similar to the principle that women, and children, and
slaves, are not counted toward a minyan; see below, p. 92.
18bBer.
45a-47b. If a group of women are at meal they may invite each other; the
same with a group of slaves; but slaves may not invite women or vice
versa “because it might lead to immorality.”
19bBer.
4, 7b; cf. also below, pp. 118 f.
20Women
were ritually unclean during and after menstruation, etc.
21Shah.
2, 6.
22Tos.
Shah. 2, 10 (112); pShab. 2, 5b, 34; bShab. 31b, 32a; GnR. 17, 8.
24pShab.
2, 5b, 34. See above, pp. 47 ff. for other traditions, some earlier,
also maintaining that Eve caused the death of Adam.
25A
not dissimilar discussion was held by Christians for a long time about
whether non-Christians can merit by their good acts-some still maintain
the negative.
26bA.
Z. 3a.
27Loewe,
op. cit., p. 44.
28Ibid.
3 p. 45. Actually Regina Jonas was ordained a Reform rabbi in Germany in
the 1930s; she was killed by the Nazis. in 1972 and 1974 Sally Preisand
and Sandy Eisenberg Sasso were ordained, respectively, in the U. S. This
pattern of logic, the non-obligation of women vis a vis certain
prescriptions of the Law equals the non-allowance of the same, would, if
applied elsewhere, have drastic results, for example: Americans are not,
as in many communist countries, obliged to vote; therefore, they are not
allowed to vote.
29Josephus,
Antiquities, XV, 418 f.
30Middoth
2, 5.
31Josephus,
Jewish War, V, 5, par. 198 f.
32Josephus,
Apion, II, 103; cf. Lv. 12: 2 ff.
33Irene
Brennan, “Women in the Gospels.” New Blackfriars (1971), p. 293.
34Josephus,
Antiquities, XVI, 164.
35Loewe,
op. cit., p. 44, notes that “separate seating arrangements in the
synagogue probably go back to the origins of that institution in
antiquity.”
36Cf.
Jeremias, op. cit., p. 248.
37Ancient
Synagogues in Palestine and Greece (London, 1934), pp. 47 ff.
38pSuk.
55b.
39In
the French translation Le Talmud de Jérusalem by Moise Schwab
(Paris, 1883), vol. VI, pp. 43 f.
40Cf.
Mekh. Shirah 10, 44a, Midrash Lekah Tov to Ex. 15:30, quoted in article
on “Song of the Sea,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971),
vol. 14, col. 1072.
41Isaiah
Sonne, “Synagogue,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (4
vols.), (New York, 1962), vol. IV, pp. 486-87. To today this separation
is maintained in all Orthodox synagogues, and many Conservative ones.
The custom was also taken over into Christianity and persists in many
Orthodox Christian churches and in some more conservative Protestant and
Catholic communities-indeed the current Code of Canon Law in the
Catholic Church, issued in 1918, states in canon 1262: “In keeping with
ancient discipline, women in the church should be separated from the
men.” Islam has a similar custom of separation in the mosque.
42Loewe,
op. cit., p. 45.
43Cf.
Aboth 3, 6.
44bBer.
47b.Cf. also below, pp. 117 ff.
45The
order used, i. e. , first a child and second a woman, and the word
“even” are by themselves revelatory of the relative status of women in
the synagogue.
46Tos.
Meg. 4, 11, 226, 4.
47bMeg.
23a.
48Der
jüdischen Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung
(Frankfurt a. M., 1924), p. 170.
49Op.
cit.,
vol. III, p. 467.
50Cf.
Leipoldt, Die Frau in der Antiken Welt pp. 96, 252; Jeremias,
op. cit. , p. 248; Schürer, op. cit. , vol.
III, pp. 88 f.
51The
ancient Mishnah put it this way: “He who is not versed in Scripture and
in Mishnah and in good conduct is of no benefit to the public weal”
(Kid. 1, 10).
52The
Encyclopaedia Judaica article on “Woman” states: “There was
general agreement that a woman was not obliged to study Torah. As a
result few women were learned. “
53Sotah
3, 4. Shalom Ben-Chorin, Mutter Mirjam (Munich, 1971), p. 98,
explains Rabbi Eliezer’s angry statement as follows: “He speaks from sad
experience with his famous wife Ima-Shalom.... This Ima-Shalom appeared
to have been what elsewhere is called a bluestocking.” It is difficult
to see how on the basis of what is known about Imma Shalom she can be
either called a bluestocking or that she could therefore have caused the
outburst. See below, pp. 104 ff.
54bSotah
21b.
55pSotah
3. 4. Cf. also bYoma 66b.
56“Gedanken
zur Kontroverse Farbstein- Hoch,” Judaica (1948), pp. 225-27.
57Here
the English Soncino edition comments: “The duty of Torah study is not
obligatory upon a woman; therefore she cannot acquire so much merit even
if she does so” that is, to warrant a three year postponement. See
above, p. 119.
58bSotah
21a.
59bKid.
29a.
60bKid.
29b. “How do we know that she (the mother) has no duty (to teach her
children)? Because it is written we-limaddetem (and ye shall
teach), (which also reads) u-lemadetem (and ye shall study):
(hence) whoever is commanded to study, is commanded to teach; whoever is
not commanded to study, is not commanded to teach. And how do we know
that she is not bound to teach herself? Because it is written,
we-limaddetem (and ye shall teach) u-lemadetem (and ye shall
learn): the one whom others are commanded to teach is commanded to teach
oneself; and the one whom others are not commanded to teach, is not
commanded to teach oneself. How then do we know that others are not
commanded to teach her? Because it is written, ‘And ye shall teach them
your sons’-but not your daughters.”
It should also be noted that in the Mishnah’s discussion about what a
man who has taken a vow not “to derive any benefit from his fellow”
(Ned. 4, 2). may nevertheless do for his fellow it is stated that the
vow-maker may teach the sons and daughters of his fellow Scripture (Ned.
4, 3). However, the word daughter is missing in many editions; secondly,
it is Scripture, not the full Torah that is mentioned; thirdly, and most
importantly, it is merely said that he may teach Scripture-again the
lack of obligation.
61Kallah
50b. The Minor Tractates of the Talmud, vol. II, p. 402.
62bShab.
147b.
63Loewe,
op. cit., p. 30.
64Sefer
ha-mizwoth (Ausgabe Zolkiew, 1855), fol. 45c. Quoted in Kosmala,
op. cit. . pp. 226 f. The assumption that the study of Torah was
not a matter for women is stated, implied or assumed time and again
throughout rabbinic writing. Let two brief examples suffice here. In
giving reasons why croup comes into the world the Talmud states: “Let
women prove it!” The English edition notes here: “Who are not bidden to
study (bKid 129b), and yet suffer from croup (cf. Sot. 3, 4)” (bShab.
33b). Again, “Torah and kingship ... apply neither to women nor to
slaves.” In fact, according to the same teaching even “Covenant ... does
not apply to women!” (bBer. 49a).
65
C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology
(Philadelphia, 1960), pp. xviii-xix.
66Cf..
e.g., Hans Bietenhard, Die Mishnah (Berlin, 1965), vol.
III, p. 7 1.
67bYeb.
46a. Valeria the proselyte is also mentioned in bR.H. 17b and Gerim 60b,
Minor Tractates of the Talmud, vol. II, p. 606. In the latter
place she is referred to as Queen Valeria, but the story is the same as
in the other references. There are basically seven references to Beruria
in the Babylonian Talmud, none in the Palestinian Talmud, and one
reference in the Tosephta.
68bPes.
62b and bA. Z. 18a.
69In
keeping with his suggestion that Beruria is a proselyte Leipoldt stated
that, “this woman would be more readily understandable if she were a
Greek.” Jesu
Verhätnis zu Griechen und Juden,
p. 21.
70bPes.
62b.
71Tos.
Kelim B. K. 4, 17.
72Tos.
Kelim B. M. 126.
73bEr.
53b.
74Anne
Goldfeld, “Women as Sources of Torah in the Rabbinic Tradition,”
Judaism (Spring, 1975), pp. 245-256.
75bBer.
10a.
76Ibid.
77B.
M. Lerner, The Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud Translated Into
English With Commentary, A. Ehrman, ed. (Jerusalem, 1965 ff.), Ber.
10a, p. 189.
78Midrash
Prov. 30, 10.
79bA.
Z. 17b-18a.
80bEr.
53b.
81bA.
Z. 18a.
82Ad
loc.
Translated into German in Kosmala, op. cit., pp. 231 f. In giving
the translation of the Rashi recorded legend Kosmala notes: “Beruria is
in every way an extraordinary woman; but she has not become the rabbis’
ideal of a Jewish wife. Specifically because of her self-awareness and
her superiority she was for them unbearable. It is therefore not at all
surprising that a scandalous story was told about her so as finally to
morally annihilate her. She is supposed to have ended her life in an
ignominious fashion. We find the legend about her handed on exactly a
thousand years later by Rashi (in his commentary on A. Z. 18b. The
Talmud itself of course deftly refers to an ‘incident about Beruria,’
from which probably we can conclude that already at that time a dark
story was told about her.). The story is to my knowledge nowhere
translated, and in more recent Jewish writing is only infrequently
referred to.” In a footnote to the English Soncino translation of the
Babylonian Talmud (Abodah Zarah, London, 1935, p. 94) the editor gives
the gist of the scandalous legend and says, “the incident as related in
Kid. 80b is to the effect . . . “ but Kid. 80b makes no reference to it
all, nor does any of the rest of the Talmud.
83bSan
74a; idol worship, sexual immorality, and murder.
84For
a similar opinion, see the modern Jewish scholar Henry Zirndorf, Some
Jewish Women (Philadelphia, 1892), p. 173: “Now, in the light of all
that we positively know to be true concerning Rabbi Meir and his
distinguished wife, the improbability of this occurrence is too obvious
for demonstration. Without attempting any critical elucidation,
therefore, I shall conclude by simply recording my conviction that this
calumny ought no longer to be permitted to tarnish the memory of the
pure and noble-minded Beruria.
85The
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia article on “Woman”; see below, p. 140. See
also Raphael Loewe, op. cit., p. 30, who along with Beruria mentioned
Imma Shalom, “who if they were not exactly rabbinical scholars knew
enough of the academic aspect of Jewish scholarship for their sayings to
have been recorded in the talmudic literature.
86See
above, p. 94.
87Cf.
bShab 116a.
88Cf.
The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1904), vol. VI, p. 562.
Italics added.
89The
other references to Imma Shalom in the Talmud are bB. M. 59b; bEr. 63a;
bNed. 20b.
90New
York, 1943, vol. 10, p. 565,
91Op.
cit.,
P. 99.
92See
note 53.
93Cf.
Zirndorf, op. cit., pp. 243-252, where she is referred to as
Homa, apparently from later sources.
94Cf.
bBaba batra 12b and bYeb. 34b.
95bBer.
62a.
96bKet.
85a.
97bKeth.
65a; cf. also bYeb. 64b.
98bBer.
51b. See below, pp. 124 f.
99bHul.
109b.
100See
above, p. 106.
101Ben-Chorin,
op. cit., p. 99.
102Zirndorf,
op. cit., p. 200.
103bEr.
53b.
104bMeg.
18a. Parts of these reports are also recorded in bNazir 3a (concerning
“curling hair”) and bRosh Hashanah 26b (concerning “at intervals”). Cf.
also pShebiit 9, 1 and pMeg. 2, 2.
105Susan
Wall, “Forgotten Jewish Women in Jewish History,” The Jewish Digest
(November, 1974), p. 9.
106Zirndorf,
op. cit.) p. 198.
107See
above, note 104.
108bMoed
katan l7a.
109bKeth.
104a.
Henry Zirndorf, op. cit. , pp. 203 f. , explained the passage thusly:
“According to a prevailing belief of the times, so long as the sick man
heard these impassioned prayers-and as he lay in the upper chamber he
could scarcely help hearing them-it was impossible for him to draw his
last breath. This belief is no conclusive proof of faith in miracles;
the prolongation of life through intense momentary excitement is readily
explained on psychological, and perhaps also on physiological grounds.
But, however this may be, on the roof stood the maid-servant ... trying
in vain to make her voice heard below. Then, seizing a jug all of a
sudden, she threw it in the midst of the earnest crowd of suppliants. A
dreadful pause ensued and, in the inimitable language of the Talmud,
‘the soul of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch reposed.
110Ben-Chorin,
op. cit., P. 99.
111Blackman,
op. cit., vol. III, p. 348. Herbert Danby, The Mishnah
(Oxford, 1964), 296, translates the word perushah “a woman who is
a hypocrite.” Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees (Philadelphia,
1962), vol. H. p. 837 confirms this understanding when he says: “Rabbi
Joshua ben Hananya, one of the leading plebian scholars of his day (i.
e., from about 80-118 C. E.), used to say, ‘A pious fool, a clever
knave, an ascetic woman, and the sufferings of the Pharisees destroy the
world’ (Mishnah Sotah 3 , 4). It is interesting to notice that in this
statement the Hebrew word rendered by ‘sanctimonious’ is perushah,
meaning literally a ‘Pharisaic woman.’ Since Rabbi Joshua himself was a
leading Pharisee, however, it is clear that what he was objecting to
was, in reality, the wife whose piety expressed itself in a reluctance
to normal marital life as degrading or impure. The monogamous plebians
were less inclined to tolerate such abstinence in their wives than the
provincials and patricians, among whom plural marriage was not unusual
(cf. further the views of the Hillelites in Mishnah Ketubot 5. 6; Niddah
10, 1; and see also ibid. 2, 4). The word perushim occurs
in passages where it cannot possibly have any other meaning than
‘ascetics’; see, e.g., Baba Batra 60b.” Following Finkelstein, the
quotation in question would have a misogynist rather than pro-feminist
meaning.
112It
is interesting to note that just before the remark about the pharisaical
woman Ben-Chorin writes: “Christian theologians have gladly seen here a
turning-point and have spoken of a religious liberation of the woman by
Christianity. This interpretation however is not tenable, for we are
moving here entirely on Jewish ground in a preChristian time.” (He is
referring to the various women mentioned in the gospels and their
relationship to Jesus.) There is surely a strong element of truth in
this charge as far as Christianity is concerned; as far as Jesus, the
Jew, is concerned another Jewish scholar, C. G. Montefiore, has the
following pertinent remarks: “It would seem indubitable that in his
relations with, and in his effect upon, women Jesus was highly original”
(The Synoptic Gospels, New York, 1968, vol. II, p. 438). “The
implied attack upon the inferiority of women in Oriental society, and
upon the unjust power of divorce given to men, was of the highest
importance and value. Thus, upon the whole, we have to recognize that
his (Jesus’) words have been of service towards a higher conception of
womanhood” (ibid., p. 67). “Was not Jesus the champion of woman?” (ibid.
, vol. I. , p. 281). “There can be little doubt that in Jesus’s attitude
towards women we have a highly original and significant feature of his
life and teaching” (ibid. , p. 389). “The relation of Jesus to women
seems unlike what would have been usual for a Rabbi. He seems to have
definitely broken with orientalism in this particular.... But certainly
the relations of Jesus towards women, and of theirs towards him, seem to
strike a new note, and a higher note, and to be off the line of Rabbinic
tradition” (Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teachings, London, 1930, pp.
217 f.). In commenting on the gospel according to Matthew 5:31 f., on
the theme of divorce: “In these verses the originality of Jesus is made
manifest. So far, in the Sermon on the Mount, we have found nothing
which goes beyond Rabbinic religion and Rabbinic morality, or which
greatly differs from them. Here we do. The attitude of Jesus towards
women is very striking. He breaks through oriental limitations in more
directions than one. For (1) he associates with, and is much looked
after by, women in a manner which was unusual; (2) he is more strict
about divorce; (3) he is also more
merciful and compassionate. He is a great champion of womanhood. And in
this combination of freedom and pity, as well as in his strict attitude
to divorce, he makes a new departure of enormous significance and
importance. If he had done no more than this, he might justly be
regarded as one of the great teachers of the world. Mr. H. Loewe,
generously anxious to champion the Rabbis, and to weaken any difference
between their teaching and that of Jesus, if the teaching of Jesus
appears superior to theirs....” (ibid., pp. 46 f.). The accuracy
of Montefiore’s judgement will be the task of further study.
113Op.
cit.,
p. 99.
114Ibid.,
pp. 98 f.
1158:8.
116Keth.
5, 6.
117bKeth.
62b.
118Ibid.
119bKeth.
61b.
120bKeth.
63a. Parallel in bNed. 50a.
121Akiba
(New York- Philadelphia, 1962), p. 135.
122Ibid.
, p. 80.
123bEr.
22a. For that matter, in bMeg. 16b it says: “The study of the Torah is
superior to the honoring of father and mother,” and even: “The study of
the Torah is superior to the saving of life!”
124Cf.
Ferdinand Weber, Jüdische Theologie (Leipzig, 1897), pp. 30 f.
125Or
as was apparently also exhibited by the story about Rabbi Eliezer ben
Hyrcanus: Imma Shalom, his wife, said: “He (my husband) ‘converses’ with
me neither at the beginning nor at the end of the night, but (only) at
midnight, and when he ‘converses,’ he uncovers a handbreath and covers a
handbreath, and is as though he were compelled by a demon. And when I
asked him, what is the reason for this (for choosing midnight), he
replied, So that I may not think of another woman, lest my children be
as bastards” (bNed. 20b).
126bBer.
17a. In bSotah 21a it says: “they have their sons taught
Scripture.” See above, p. 96.
127See
above, pp. 94 ff. There is also a legend that Ben Azzai married one of
the daughters of Rabbi Akiba, but shortly afterward divorced her and
remained unmarried thereafter.
128bYeb.
63b.
129For
example, Marcus Lehman, Akiba (New York, 1956), and Finkelstein,
op. cit. . e. g. , p. 23: “She must be recognized as one the most
remarkable women in the whole of Jewish tradition. ff.
1“Education,”
in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 6, col. 397.
2Loewe,
op. cit., pp. 22 f.
3pPea
1, 1, 15c. In a later period (fourth century C. E.) in Babylonia there
was a reference to the foster mother of Rabbi Abaye who had a knowledge
of medical remedies. (“Abaye,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 2,
col. 45).
4Kid.
4, 13: “A woman may not be a teacher of children.”
5bKid.
82a.
6See
the footnote on p. 422 of the Soncino English translation.
7Shab.
4, 1; see also Sifre Dt. 190 on 19:17 (46d 52).
8Yeb.
16, 7. See also R. H. 1, 8, where it states: “These are they that are
ineligible (to bear witness concerning the new moon): a dice player, a
usurer, pigeon-flyers, traffickers in Seventh Year produce, and slaves.
This is the general rule: any evidence that a woman is not eligible to
bring, these are not eligible to bring.” In the medieval period
Maimonides also provided a list of types of persons who could not
testify: women, slaves, minors, lunatics, deaf, blind, wicked,
contemptible, relatives and interested parties. (Yad, Edut 9:1).
9bB.
K. 88a.
10Josephus,
Antiquities, IV, 219.
111,
82 (ed. Wilna 1898, 49a).
12Cf.
bEr. 100b where ten curses are listed, differing somewhat from the
above, including not listing the curse on bearing witness. The midrash
NuR 10 (157c) refers to there being seven curses, but does not list
them.
13Loewe,
op. cit., p. 24.
14Cf.
also bB,K. 14b where it states: “... on the evidence of witnesses who
are free and persons under the jurisdiction of the Law (bnai brith)
.. ‘Free man’ excludes slaves; ‘persons under the jurisdiction of the
Law,’ excludes heathens.”
15Boaz
Cohen, Jewish and Roman Law (New York, 1966), pp. 128 f. In his
small volume, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times (Jerusalem, 1964), p.
112, Ze’ev W. Falk merely says that women “did not act as witnesses.”
16Cohen,
op. cit., pp. 128 f. See above, pp. 6 f., 17, 22.
17Ber,
3, 3. See bBer. 20a for a development on this Mishnah teaching.
18Suk.
2, 7.
19See
above, pp. 87 ff.
20B.
M. 1, 5.
21Hag.
1, 1.
22R.
H. 1, 8.
23See
above, p. 84.
24Kid.
I , 1. Danby, in his English translation of the Mishnah notes here that
according to the twelfth century commentary of Maimonides and the
fifteenth century commentary of Bertinoro, the sexual intercourse must
be “in the presence of witnesses” but that according to the nineteenth
century commentary, Tiferet Yisrael, by Israel Lipschutz, “not
literally, but that there must be witnesses to their being alone
together, and to his saying, Thou art betrothed to me by this
intercourse.
25Kid.
1, 2.
26Kid.
1, 3.
27Kid.
1, 4.
28Kid.
1, 5.
29Ber.
7, 2.
30See
above, pp. 145.
31Minyan.
See above, p. 92.
32bBer.
47a.
33A
Rabbinic Anthology, p. xviii.
34Keth.
1, 10.
35B.
M. 1, 6,
36bBer.
3b.
37bB.
Q. 119a.
38Keth.
9, 4.
39Tos.
Suk. 4, 1 (198,6); see above, pp. 89 ff.
40The
example of Queen Alexandra (76-67 B. C. E.) does not seem to have had
much effect on the pious upper class or the rest of the population.
Perhaps that was because being ruled by a queen was thought of as not
Jewish but Hellenistic, since there were Seleucid and Ptolomaic queens;
it was ironic, of course, that Queen Alexandra was supportive of the
Pharisees.
41Ecclesiasticus
42:11-12; cf. also 26:10.
42IV
Maccabees 8:6-8. The commentary in Charles op. cit. vol II, p.
684, notes: “No seducer of the desert. This is a curious instance of the
Jewish belief that evil spirits haunted the waste, to which we have the
references in the New Testament. It seems hardly credible to us, but the
Jews did actually believe that out in the desert there were demons who
would lie in wait for women and lead them astray. The Australian Arunta
similarly hold that certain rocky places in their deserts are the
habitation of wanton spirits, and that women venturing near them may
become mothers, apparently without knowing it.”
43Flaccus,
89. This of course matches with the evidence given above, especially the
advice offered by Ben Sira, and also with the rabbinical story about
Juda not recognizing his daughter-in-law Tamar; see below, note 62.
44De
specialibus legibus, 111, 169. At this point Philo added
another indication of the lower estimate of women’s abilities:
“Organized communities are of two sorts, the greater which we call
cities and the smaller which we call households. Both of these have
their governors; the government of the greater is assigned to men under
the name of statesmanship, that of the lesser, known as household
management, to women” (ibid., 170).
45Ibid.,
171.
46Keth.
6, 6.
47A
contemporary of Akiba, hence, latter first century C. E.
48bGit.
90a. Parallel passages in: Tos. Sotah 5, 9 (302); pSotah 1, 17a, 32; NuR
9 (152b). The concern about spinning in the street is that the woman may
have to bare her arm to do the work.
49GnR
8, 12. The Genesis Rabbah is an early collection of midrashic materials
produced by Amoraic rabbis in Palestine, i. e., the generations
immediately following the editing of the Mishnah, hence, in the third
and fourth centuries C. E.
50It
might be added that in the Talmud (bYeb. 76b-77a) it is stated: “It is
customary for a man to meet (wayfarers); it is not customary for a woman
to meet (them).” In a footnote on the following page (519) the editor of
the English Soncino edition remarked: “Respectable women remain at home
and do not go into the open road even to meet members of their sex.”
51Leipoldt,
Frau in der antiken Welt, p. 90, remarks on this situation: “Such
a development must lead to the strict closing off of the women’s
quarters from the outside world, and thus a harem arises. That does not
happen in a day, nor everywhere, and where it does happen it is not
always equally so. But this line of development by and large succeeds.
Probably first in the city of Jerusalem, less so in the smaller
localities, and hardly anywhere in the villages. The freedom and
responsible position of an Abigail would have been impossible in earlier
Judaism. But a harem in a farmer’s house is nonsense (Unding) and
hardly feasible.
52By
woman here is meant a married woman; it is possible that a woman did not
cover her head before she was married. But since the usual marriage age
for a girl was 13, and marriagable virgins were usually restricted to
their homes, this distinction is not terribly significant here.
53For
an extremely thorough discussion of the whole question of the head
covering of Jewish women, complete with very detailed references and
documentation from various rabbinic sources see Billerbeck, op. cit.,
vol. III, pp. 427-436.
54In
commenting on the words of the Mishnah (Shab. 8, 3) concerning the
painting of one eye, Rab Huna (d. 297 C. E.) said: “Because modest women
paint (only) one eye” (bShab. 80a). The editor of the English
translation of the Soncino Press notes here: “They go veiled, leaving
only one eye visible. “ The Talmud then proceeds to speak of the
“adornment of two eyes” and how this “was taught in reference to small
towners. “ Again the editor of the English translation notes here: “Or,
villagers. Temptation not being so great there, it is safe even for
modest women to paint both eyes.” This comment is probably based on the
medieval commentator Rashi, who said: “Modest women who enter covered,
uncover only one eye so they can see, and they adorn it.... The women
living in the villages do not need to be so withdrawn, for there is not
so much banter and levity there .. . and they do not cover their faces
and adorn both their eyes” (quoted in Billerbeck, op. cit. , vol.
III, p. 430).
55pSotah
1, 16b, 28. Indeed, the Babylonian Talmud says, “A woman’s hair is an
immoral thing” (bBer. 24a).
56Keth.
7, 6.
57Tos.
Sotah 5, 9 (302); cf. bGit. 90a-b (see above, pp. 120 f. ).
58B.
K. 8, 6.
59See
Keth. 72a. Since, however, this Babylonian talmudic discussion stems
from the early fourth century C. E. in Babylon it is quite possible that
a certain laxness in this regard developed since the time of more
stringent custom in Palestine during the period before the destruction
of the Temple in 70 C. E.
60bYoma
47a. Cf. Billerbeck, op. cit., vol. III, p. 430, for the many
parallel passages.
61Billerbeck,
op. cit. , vol. III, pp. 428 ff.
62For
example, the Talmud tells a story about Tamar that would indicate it was
quite believable in rabbinic times that a woman would live at home with
her face so constantly covered that it would not even be seen by her own
relatives living there: “Every bride who is modest in the house of her
father-in-law is rewarded by having kings and prophets among her
descendants. How do we prove this? From Tamar, as it is written.... What
it means is that because she had covered her face in the house of her
father-in-law and he did not know her, she was rewarded... “ (bMeg.
10b). See Billerbeck, ibid., p. 431 for further examples.
63PesiqR
26 (129b).
64Billerbeck,
op. cit., vol. III, p. 434.
65Aboth
1, 5.
66Ibid.
67See
pp. 94 ff.
68See
above, pp. 112 ff.
69bEr.
53b. See above, p. 72.
70bNed.
20a. At this point the editor of the English Soncino edition adds a note
that, in view of the evidence gathered above, is rather ironic, though
it was not intended to be, but was probably written out of
embarrassment: “The present statement is not meant to be derogatory to
women, who were held in high esteem” (p. 57).
71bBer.
43b.
72bKid.
70a-b.
73bHag.
5b.
74At
this point the editor of the English Soncino edition notes: “I. e. , he
was ravenous in his desires like a newly-wed.
75See
above, p. 94.
76bNed.
20b. However, apparently the conversation was to be somewhat limited on
the side of the wife since in the Mishnah, when listing women who may be
divorced without their kethubah, it is stated: “Rabbi Tarfon (a first
century C. E. rabbi) says: Also if she be a loud-voiced woman. What is
here meant by a loud-voiced woman? Such a one who speaks in her house so
that her neighbors hear her voice” (Keth. 7, 6). In commenting on that
passage the Talmud asks what is meant by a loud-voiced woman and
responds: “In a Baraitha it was taught: one whose voice during her
intercourse in one court can be heard in another court” (bKeth. 72b).
77bKid.
70a. See p. 124.
78bBer.
51b.
79Billerbeck,
op. cit., vol. I. p. 882.
80bKid.
70a.
1Keth.
7, 7.
2bBer.
61a.
3bMeg.
15a.
4bNed.
20a.
5bA.
Z. 20a-b.
6All
these statements are from bBer. 24a. The latter has a parallel in bShab.
64b: “Whoever looks upon a woman’s little finger is as though he gazed
upon the pudenda.”
7A
woman during her period of menstruation and seven days following.
8bNed.
20a.
9Lazarus
Goldschmidt, Der Babylonische Talmud (Haag, 1933), vol.
IV, p. 877.
10Robert
Graves and Raphael Patai (eds.), Hebrew Myths (London, 1965), p.
65.
11Ibid.
, p. 68 f.
12bNed.
20a.
13Ibid.
14bYeb.
54a.
15Montefiore,
Rabbinic Anthology, p. xix.
16Article
on “Purity” in vol. 13, col. 1405.In Leviticus 11:43-44 purity and
holiness are clearly linked together: “You shall not contaminate
yourselves through any teeming creature. You shall not defile yourselves
with them and make yourselves unclean by them. For I am the Lord your
God; you shall make yourselves holy and keep yourselves holy, because I
am holy.”
17Cf.
bA. Z. 20b.
18Mary
Douglas, Purity and Danger, quoted in Rachel Adler, “Tum’ah and
Toharah,” The Jewish Woman. Response, (Summer, 1973), p.
118.
19Tos.
Yoma 1, 12.
20San.
9, 6.
21“Purity,”
op. cit., col. 1411.
22Cf.
“Niddah,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 12, cols. 1146 f.
23Ibid.,
col. 1141.
24Aboth
3, 19.
25Liz
Koltum, ed. , The Jewish Woman, op. cit., p. 125.
26Cf.
bShab. 13a.
27bNid.
66a.
28P.
xxii.
29“Niddah,”
Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 12, cols. 1141 f. In the same place it
is also noted that, “the halakhah as at present is that sexual
intercourse (and any other intimacies which may lead to it) is forbidden
from the time the woman expects her menses until seven clean days ...
have elapsed.... Thus the minimum period of separation is 12 days.”
30Ibid.,
col. 1144.
31Shab.
2, 6. See above, pp. 76, 87 f., and below, note 51.
32“Niddah,”
op. cit., col. 1147.
33Shab.
9, 1. The same teaching is repeated elsewhere in the Mishnah: A. Z. 3,
6.
34“Niddah,”
op. cit., col. 1147.
35Adler,
op. cit., p. 126.
36The
bShab. 13b version says simply: “in the days of thy menstruation.”
37When
she was not menstruating, but was going through the seven “unclean” days
afterwards. See bShab. 13b.
38ARN
1, 5. This translation is taken from Judah Goldin, trans., The
Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (New Haven, 1955), pp. 16 f.
Almost the identical story is repeated in the Babylonian Talmud, bShab.
13b; the former work reports only tannaitic teachings and is earlier
than the Talmud.
39After
her period of menstruation.
40bPes.
111a.
41See
Pliny, Natural History, XXVIII, 23; VII, 65. Cf. also J. G.
Frazer, The Golden Bough. Balder the Beautiful (London, 3rd. ed.
, 1923). vol. I. pp. 22 ff. for examples of the putative effects of
menstruous blood and customs concerning menstruants among the primitive
peoples of the world.
42Cf.
“Niddah,” op. cit. , col. 1146.
Perhaps a contemporary echo of this is the
current slang reference by women to menstruation as “the curse.”
43bShab.
13a. Cf. also Tos. Shab. 1, 14.
44Nid.
7, 4.
45On
“conversing” with one’s wife for the sake of cajoling her into sexual
intercourse see above, p. 124.
46Emphasis
added.
47ARN
1, 4. It should be noticed that this text is probably quite early since
it does not yet allow the woman to adorn herself during her menstrual
period, whereas she was allowed to do so by Rabbi Akiba in the first
century C. E. (Sifra, Mezora 9. 12).
48Segregated.
49bR.
H. 26a.
50Edited
in 1890 by C. M. Horowitz.
51It
is perhaps ironic that a menstruating woman should here be forbidden to
light the Sabbath light since the one rabbinical explanation given (in
several ancient sources) for the woman’s obligation to enkindle the
light is that she “put out” the light of the world, i. e., caused the
death of Adam; but in the same rabbinic passage the menstruation
regulations are said to be the woman’s punishment for having caused the
death of Adam, the blood of the world. See above, pp. 76, 87 f.
52Cf.
Baraita-de-Niddah, pp. 3 ff. and 17 ff.
53Cf.
“Niddah,” op. cit. , col. 1146
54Adler,
op. cit., p. 126.
55bKid.
29b.
56bYeb.
63b.
57bYeb.
63a.
58bSan.
76a,
59bKid.
7a.
60Many
Christian Fathers and broad strands of Christian theology also carried
the same notion forward to the present.
61The
Greek text reads: ep aletheias, in truth; the Vulgate reads:
Isola posteritatis dilectione,”only for the love of posterity (8:7).
62Probably
the first century before or after the beginning of the Common Era. See
above, pp. 51 f.
63Testament
of Issachar
2:3.
64Josephus,
Jewish War, 11, 161.
65Philo,
De Specialibus Legibus, III, 113.
66Josephus,
Against Apion, vol. 11, 199. The Loeb Classical Library edition
of the English translation by H. St. J. Thackeray (London & Cambridge,
Mass., 1961), p. 373, notes at this point: “Restriction not specified in
the Pentateuch, but implied by the Talmud (passages cited by Reinach),”
the reference being to Oeuvres complètes de Flav.
Josèphe traduites en Français sous la direction de Thèodore Reinach,
tome vii, fasc.
1 (Paris, 1902). Unfortunately this volume was not available to me to
check the references.
67Yeb.
6, 5.
68bYeb.
61b.
69bYeb.
65b.
70Yeb.
6, 6.
71bYeb.
63b.
72bYeb.
64a. This is a commentary on the earlier Mishnah: “If a man took a wife
and lived with her for ten years and she bore no child, he may not
abstain (any longer from the duty of propagation)” (Yeb 6, 6). See also
bYeb. 65a: “Our Rabbis taught: A woman who had been married to one
husband and had no children and to a second husband and again had no
children, may marry a third man only if he has children. If she married
one who has had no children she must be divorced without receiving her
kethubah.
73bKid.
82b.
74bNid.
31b.
75Ibid.
Cf. also Ber. 93; bBer. 31b; bB.M. 84b. Also, bNid. 71a, where it is
implied that boys are desired: “Twelve questions did the Alexandrians
address to Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah (first century C.E.).... What must
a man do that he may have male children? He replied: He shall marry a
wife that is worthy of him and conduct himself in modesty at the time of
marital intercourse. Did not many they said to him, act in this manner
but it did not avail them? Rather let him pray for mercy from Him to
whom are the children, for it is said, ‘Lo, children are a heritage of
the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. I What then does he teach
us? That one without the other does not suffice.
76See
the discussion above on pp. 118 ff. In this connection it is interesting
to note what Raphael Posner has to say: “Although the act of marriage
can be effected in different ways (see below, Legal Aspects) it has
become the universal Jewish practice to use a ring, except in a very few
oriental communities where a coin is used.... In some Reform and
Conservative congregations in the U.S. the ‘double ring’ ceremony is
practiced in which the bride also gives a ring to the groom and recites
a marriage formula. Since, according to the halakhah it is the
groom who is acquiring the bride, this innovation raises serious
halakhic doubts which, according to some authorities, even affect the
validity of the marriage” (“Marriage,” Encyclopaedia Judaica,
vol. 11, cols. 1041 f.).
77Loewe,
op. cit., p. 23. Leipoldt noted that in the Hebrew Bible and among the
rabbis the husband was referred to as the “lord of the woman (ba’al),”
and that in Jewish-Greek the married woman was called “the one under the
man (hypandros)”-giving the Testament of Reuben as a
reference. Cf. Leipoldt, Jesus und die Frauen, p. 43.
78See
Leipoldt, Die Frau in der antiken Welt, pp. 65 f. , where he
comments, “This polite phraseology found it more difficult to gain
entrance into the Semitic Orient.”
79Kid.
3, 7.
80Josephus,
Antiquities, XIX, 354.
81bSan
69a.
82Loewe,
op. cit., p. 23.
83Sotah
3, 8.
84Philip
Blackman, Mishnayoth (London, 1953), vol. III, p. 449.
85Ned.
10, 5.
86Keth.
8, 1.
87Ibid.
88Keth.
7, 8.
89Tos.
Kid. 1, 11 (336).
90Sifre
Lev. 19, 343.
91Keth.
4, 5.
92Ned.
10, 1 ff.
93Josephus,
Apion, 11, 201.
94Keth.
4. 4.
95Keth.
4, 6. The Talmud nuanced this rather bald mishnaic teaching by stating:
“Since he is only exempt from legal obligation he is, obviously,
still subject to a moral duty” (bKeth. 49a). It is interesting to note
that the same Gemara teaches that “(since it has been said that)
he is under no obligation to maintain his daughter only, it follows that
he is under an obligation to maintain his son.... For it was taught: It
is a moral duty to feed one’s daughters, and much more so one’s sons,
since the latter are engaged in the study of Torah; so taught Rabbi
Meir.” However, the reverse was also argued: “Rabbi Judah ruled: It is a
moral duty to feed one’s sons, and much more so one’s daughter, in order
to (prevent their) degradation.
96Keth.
4, 4.
97B.M.
13 5. Women, slaves and minors are here again treated jointly; see
above, pp. 117 ff.
98Keth.
5, 8.
99Keth.
4, 4.
100Keth.
4, 9. However, Keth. 4, 9, also states: “If she received injury he is
liable for her healing; but if he said, ‘Lo, here is her bill of divorce
and her Kethubah: let her heal herself,’ he has the right (to do so).”
101Keth.
4, 4.
102See
below, pp. 157 ff.
103It
is interesting that this is seen as a work the wife must do for the
husband.
104Keth.
5, 5.
105bKeth.
61a.
106See
above, pp. 34-36, 40f., 73 ff.
107Louis
Epstein, Marriage Laws in the Bible and the Talmud (Cambridge,
Mass., 1942), p. 4.
108bKid.
7a.
109Yeb.
4, 11.
110Keth.
10, 5. The reference in this quotation would seem to indicate at least a
sufficient incidence of multiple divorce on the same day some time
during the early rabbinic period in Jerusalem to warrant the instituting
of the procedure of putting the hour of the divorce in the written
document. In commenting in another place on the number of wives a king
should be allowed (18) the mishnaic Rabbi Judah limited the number, but
in an open-ended way: “‘Nor shall he multiply wives to himself
‘--eighteen only. Rabbi Judah says: He may multiply them to himself
provided that they do not turn away his heart.” Rabbi Simeon adds: “If
there was but one and she would turn away his heart he may not marry
her” (San. 2, 4). Cf. also Kid. 2, 7, where a man betroths himself to
three women at once.
111Epstein,
op. cit., p. 7.
112Ibid.
, pp. 12-17.
113The
school of Shammai was in favor of the fulfillment of levirite marriage,
whereas the school of Hillel was opposed to it.
114E.g.,
Keth. 10, 1-6; Git. 2, 7; Git. 3, 1; Kid. 2, 6-7;
Sotah 6, 2; Ber. 8, 4.
115In
1927 in the small village, Artas, near Bethlehem, of the 112 men in the
village, twelve, i. e. , about 10%, had more than one wife-eleven had
two and one had three. (H. Granqvist, Marriage Conditions in a
Palestinian Village, Helsinki, 1935, vol. II, p. 205.) When visiting
Israel in October, 1972, 1 was in the village of Deir Samit, a Muslim
Arab village of about 1,000 inhabitants west of Hebron. I met and had
dinner with seven married men of the village, two of whom had several
wives-one had three and the other was about to marry his sixth, though
he had divorced two of them so as to stay within the Muslim restriction
of four wives at once (which tradition probably stems from an amoraic
rabbinic recommendation). These last figures, of course, cannot be
extrapolated to yield a percentage for the entire village, nor can
either of the references be automatically transferred back to the
Palestine of 1900 years ago. However, it is somewhat amazing how much of
that 1972 village life was like what it must have been two millennia
ago; many of the customs, costumes, techniques (e. g. , a very primitive
pottery technique). instruments (e.g. , a stone age-like wooden plow),
etc. go back that far and even much farther. Hence, because the
situation is somewhat similar to, but at the same time different from,
anthropologists working with contemporary primitive tribes, these modern
observations of primitive Palestine can at least suggest possibilities
for what it must have been like in Palestine before the Roman
destruction 1900 years ago.
116The
Pharisees (Philadelphia, 1962), vol. II, p. 837.
117Josephus,
Antiquities, vol. XII, 186.
118Ibid.
3 XIII, 380.
119Cf.
ibid. , XIV, 300; XV, 319.
120Josephus,
Jewish War XVI, 477.
121Josephus,
Antiquities, XVII, 14. Cf. also Jewish War, I, 511, where
it is related how Herod presented to Archelaus, the father of his
daughter-in-law, “a concubine, named Pannychis.”
122Cf.
Josephus, Antiquities, XX, 85, where a reference is made to his
wives. In ibid. , XX, 89, reference is made to his wife or wives;
the manuscript tradition is mixed.
123Ibid.
I XVII, 341.
124bSuk.
27a.
125Josephus,
Life of Josephus, 414.
126Ibid.,
426.
127Term
referring to the two or more simultaneous wives of the same husband.
128bYeb.
15b. The names in the parallel passages, Tos. Yeb. 1, 10 and pYeb. 1,
3a, 48, differ in part. The Palestinian Talmud also records a story
about Rabbi Judah I (late second, early third centuries) who advised a
brother to take all twelve childless widows of his dead brothers in
levirite marriages, which he did, and fathered 36 children, who Rabbi
Judah then helped support (pYeb. 4, 6b, 35).
129bYeb.
65a. There was, of course, also the earlier opposition of the Essenes,
discussed above, p. 194 note 20.
130bYeb.
63b.
131bPes.
113a.
132bYeb.
15a.
133Cf.
Tos. Keth. 5, 1; pYeb. 6b; and Wilhelm Bacher, Die Agada der
Tannaiten (Strassburg, 1903), vol. 1, p, 343.
134See
C. G. Montefiore, Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teachings
(London, 1930), pp. 44-46, for a discussion of the
passage that is favorable to the rabbis.
136“Monogamy,”
Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 12, col. 259.
137bYeb.
44a. Herr also notes that “this would appear to be the source of the
Muslim law which permits only four wives. (“Monogamy,” op. cit,.
col. 259). He likewise adds: “In Germany and northern France polygamy
was rare, mainly due to the economic conditions and to the influence of
the Christian environment. it seems that at the beginning of the 12th
century, the Jewish communities issued a regulation which forbade
polygyny (among Ashkenasic, but not Sephardic, Jews). Later this
regulation became a herem (ban), attributed to R. Gershom b.
Judah (of the 10th century ... in the State of Israel it (polygamy) is
prohibited by law (the 1951 law on equal rights for women).” Raphael
Loewe, op. cit., p. 22, notes: “Jewry has never formally
repudiated polygamy and indeed amongst polygamous non-Jewish
environments it has sometimes been maintained (or readopted).
138Jeffry
Howard Togay, “Adultery.” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol, 11, col.
313.
139Ex.
20:13; Dt. 5:17.
140See
Gen. 38:24, where Judah ordered Tamar burnt.
141Chaim
Hermann Cohn, “Adultery,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. II, col.
315.
142Cf.
bSan. 74a.
143The
book was probably composed in the late sixth century B. C. E.
144Ezk.
16:37-41.
145Hos.
2:3. The book dates from the eighth century B.C.E.
146San.
7, 1. Beheading was listed as a fourth, but it was not used in cases of
adultery.
147San.
6, 3-4. Although during the Roman procuratorship the death penalty was
legally reserved to the Romans, stoning by an official Jewish body
apparently did occur at least once; the Acts of the Apostles relates how
Stephen was brought before the Council, “then they made one rush at him,
and flinging him out of the city, set about stoning him” (Acts 7:57 f.).
148According
to the Gemara bSan. 52a molten lead was used.
149San.
7, 2.
150San.
7, 3.
151bSan.
52b.
152P.
353. Parallel passages are pSan. 8, 24b and Tos. San. 9.
153Unless
this Eliezer ben Zadok lived earlier; cf. “Eleasar Be-r. Zadok,”
Encyclopaedia Judaica (Berlin, 1930), vol. 6, col. 445. The Mishnah
also states that Simeon ben Shetah (first century B. C. E. “initiator”
of the kethubah-see above, pp. 157 f.) “hanged eighty women” in Ashkelon
(San. 6, 4).
154bSan.
52b.
155San.
7, 3.
156Dt.
22:23-27.
157Togay,
op. cit., col. 314.
158Ibid.,
col. 313.
159Prov.
6:35. Cf. Cohn, op. cit., col. 315, and “Compounding Offenses,”
ibid., vol. V, col. 856; “Ehebruch,” Encyclopaedia Judaica
(Berlin, 1930), vol. VI., col. 254.
160Cf.
John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee, 1965), p.
701, under “Proverbs.”
161Compounding
offenses in general, except homicide, became possible in rabbinic times.
Cf. “Compounding,” op. cit.
162It
is interesting to note that according to the gospel of Matthew Joseph,
the betrothed spouse of Mary, mother of Jesus, wished to avoid this:
“Being a man of principle, and at the same time wanting to save her from
exposure, Joseph desired to have the marriage contract set aside
quietly” (1:19).
163In
general an adulteress was subject to the death penalty from age 12 years
and 1 day old, and adulterers at age 13 plus I day.
164Cf.
“Ordeal,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. XIII, col. 1448.
165This
is the translation of the New English Bible. Literally the Hebrew means
something like, “make your belly swell and thigh waste away.
166Sotah
1, 1.
167One
German Jewish scholar argued that she need not be divorced, since
it was feared she might have planned this as a device to obtain a
divorce so as to marry another-something that of course was allowed to a
man but not to a woman. Cf. “Ehebruch,” op. cit. , col. 256.
168Cf.
Sotah 1, 4-5.
169Blackman
says: “His opinion is rejected.”
170How
he would know it was beautiful if he did not see it is not explained.
171Sotah
1, 5. See above, p. 123 for a description of the dishevelling of the
hair and how one priest administered this ordeal to his own mother!
172Sotah
1, 6. Blackman comments here that, “this is really obligatory upon
women, whereas it is only voluntary for men.”
173Cf.
Blackman, op. cit., vol. III, p. 342.
174Sotah
3, 3-4. For a description of the ensuing discussion at this point in the
Mishnah about whether a woman should receive enough instruction in Torah
to learn that earlier meritorious living might postpone the effect of
the bitter waters-decided in the negative-see above, pp. 94 ff.
175Sotah
9, 9.
1761.
Abrahams, Studies in Phariseeism. and the Gospels (Cambridge,
1917), p. 74.
177bSotah
47b.
178The
extent to which the death penalty was actually inflicted is difficult to
determine, as is also the determination of exactly when it ceased being
imposed under Jewish law, for the Roman reservation of capital
punishment etc. did not prevent the two executions described above.
179Kid.
1, 1.
180Falk,
op. cit., p. 154.
181Cf.
Lev. 21:7, 14; Num. 30:10; Ez. 44:22.
182Falk,
op. cit., p. 154.
183Cf.
Abrahams, op. cit., p. 70.
184Ecclesiasticus
25:25.
185The
English Soncino edition notes here: “i.e., to the masses, in the public
lectures.
186bSan
100b.
187See
above, pp. 149 ff.
188bGit.
89a.
189bGit.
90a-b.
Parallel passages in Tos. Sotah 5, 9 (302) and pSotah 1, 17a, 32.
190Yeb.
6, 6.
191bYeb.
64a. Parallel passages in Tos. Yeb. 8, 4 (249) and GnR 45 (28b).
192Cf.
Keth. 7, 1-5.
193English
Soncino edition note: “Euphemism for vigorous exercise after intercourse
in order to prevent conception” (bKeth. 72a).
194Note:
There is no footnote 194 in the present book.
195Billerbeck,
op. cit., vol. I. p. 318.
196The
English Soncino edition comments: “Sc. who has not a bad wife mentioned
in the first version.”
197Note
ibid. : “Consequently one would not be suffering very long from
such a woman.”
198Note
ibid. “The second version.”
199Note
ibid. “Which the man cannot afford to pay. He cannot divorce her
unless he is in a position to meet his obligation!, (bEr. 41b).
200Dt.
22:28-29.
201Dt.
22:13-19. See above, pp. 151 f.
202Yeb.
14, 1.
203Keth.
4, 9.
204See
below for explanation of term.
205Keth.
4, 9.
206bShab.
14b.
207Keth,
8, 8; bKeth. 82b. Falk, op. cit. , p. 156, notes that, “Biblical
law, moreover, did not include any provision for the payment of a sum to
the divorcee.... Only in the post-exilic Aramaic (Elephantine colony)
papyri was a provision for payment of ‘divorce money’ included.” Yaron,
op. cit. , p. 53, states that this was due to Egyptian influence;
it should be recalled that this distant Jewish military outpost on the
upper reaches of the Nile in the fifth century B. C. E. remained
isolated and without apparent influence on mainstream Judaism.
208Cf.
e.g., bGit. 58a.
209GnR
17, 3.
210bYeb.
63b.
211Blackman
notes here: “His father or grandfather, but not his mother because a
woman and her daughter-in-law are often enemies.
212Keth.
7, 6.See also the partly parallel Tos. Keth. 7, 6 f.
213bKeth.
72b.
214Keth.
7, 7.
215bKeth.
73b.
216Tos.
Keth. 7, 8 f. (269).
217bKeth.
72a.
218Lev.
21:18-20. See also bBek. 43b.
219bKeth.
75a.
220Ibid.
Blackman, in his commentary on Keth. 7, 7, also mentions unbearable odor
and ugly unusual hair. See also Tos. Keth. 7, 8 f. (269) and pKid. 26,
62d, 18. If the matter came to a legal dispute, the wife and father of
the wife were not without legal defenses, as provided in Keth. 7, 8. and
the talmudic gemara on it; however, the weight of the law leaned heavily
on the side of the husband-see bKeth. 75b-76a and the notes on p. 475 of
the English Soncino edition.
221See
pp. 157 f.
222Dt.
24:1.
223Git.
9, 10.
224bShab.
64b. See also Sifra on Lev. 15:33.
225However,
the dispute between the two schools was reflected in the gospel
according to Matthew 19:3. where Jesus was asked, “is it lawful to put
away one’s wife for every cause?”
226Josephus,
Antiquities, vol. IV, 253.
227Josephus,
Life, 426. See above, pp. 146 f.
228Philo,
De Specialibus Legibus, 111, 30.
229bGit,
90b.
230Yeb.
14, 1. This eventually was changed in Western Europe during the Middle
Ages when the wife’s consent to the divorce was required when legally
acceptable grounds for the divorce were missing, although “if a man
chose to ignore the law and divorce according to his lights his act was
irreversible. The wife could not demand that her husband reinstate her,
merely because he had divorced in contravention of the ban.” Ze’ev Falk,
Jewish Matrimonial Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1966), p. 142.
231Abrahams,
op. cit. . p. 75.
232Excrement
of dogs.
233Keth.
7, 10.
234bYeb.
65b.
235bYeb.
117a.
236Abrahams,
op. cit., p. 72.
237See,
e.g., Antiquities, XVIII, 136; XX, 142, 146, 147.
238Ibid.
, XV, 259 f.
239Abrahams,
op. cit., p. 75.
240Yeb.
14, 1.
241Abrahams,
op. cit., p. 77.
242pKid.
1. 58c, 16, as paraphrased in Heinrich Baltensweiler, Die Ehe im
Neuen Testament (Zurich, 1967). p. 37.
See Billerbeck, op. cit., vol. I, p. 312.
243See
p. 194 note 20.
244bGit.
90b. Parallel in bSan. 22a.
245bGit.
90b.
246bSan.
22a.
247C.
G. Montefiore, Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teachings (London,
1930), pp. 47 f.
248Falk,
Law in Middle Ages, p. 113.
249C.
G. Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels (New York, 1968--reprint of
the 2nd ed. , NO), pp. 226, 234.
1For
an initial probing of the related question on the level of world
religions see: Leonard Swidler, “Is Sexism a Sign of Decadence in
Religion,” Women and Religion: 1972, ed. by Judith Plaskow
Goldenberg (American Academy of Religion, 1973), pp. 53-62.
2Already
scholars like Ze’ev Falk, Jewish Matrimonial Law in the Middle Ages
(London, 1966), have begun to do this sort of thing. Of course a
great deal of Jewish history still awaits careful, unapologetic
research.
3Originally
appearing in Hebrew, the article is translated into German: “Die
Stellung der Frau in der Halacha,” Freiburger Rundbrief, XXV
(1973).
4Martha
Ackelsberg, “Introduction.” in: Liz Koltum, et al., The Jewish Woman.
Response, 18 (Summer, 1973), p. 7.
5Ibid.,
p. 8. The national newsletter is Lilith’s Rib, P.O. Box 60142,
1723 W. Devon, Chicago, III. 60660. The First number appeared in May
1973.
6Judith
Plaskow Goldenberg, “The Jewish Feminist: Conflict in Identities,” in
ibid., pp. 14 f.
7Editorial
comment in ibid., p. 67.
8Shulamit
Aloni, “Israeli Women Need Women’s Lib!” Israel Magazine (April, 1971),
pp. 58-68.
9Shulamit
Aloni, “Comment on Marriage Law in Israel,” (1965), mimeo.
10See,
e.g. , Arlene Swidler, Sistercelebrations (Philadelphia, 1974),
where both a feminist seder and a ceremony for the naming of a girl are
printed along with an explanation by their authors.
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