Marriage in the Matriarchal Period

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Marriage in the Matriarchal Period

• Chief WifeSecondary wife
• Concubine
• Handmaid
• Slave-wife

Abram giving counsel to Sarai (detail),by J.
James Tissot (1836-1902), Jewish Museum, New York
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Chief-Wife

• Bride-price (mohar) paid to the brides father.
  Alternative payment service in fields or in war.
• Mohar compensates for loss of daughters labor.
•  

3

• Presents also
• given to the bride.

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Polygyny

• A man could have as many wives as he could
  support, usually only one.

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Marriage Contract (ketubah)

• Protection for women
• Written document given to wifes keeping
• Wifes property rights in
• case of divorce or the death
• of the husband.
• Discouraged divorce.

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Dowry

• Given by the brides
• father to her.
• Would remain her
• possession.

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Taking a Wife

• taking a wife marriage
• No ceremony known
• Leviticus 18 prohibits certain close relations
  from marrying, e.g., brother and sister
• Girls typically
• married at 12-13

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Concubine (pilegesh)

• 1) Free woman taken as wife
• 2) Any woman married without exchange of property
  or contract
• 3) Most were slave-wives freed at death of owner
• Note confusion with Latin concubina Hebrew
  pilegesh was legally married, but Latin concubina
  was not.
• 4) Children of pilegesh can be heirs if the
  father recognizes them.

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Handmaid or Womans Personal Slave (amah)

•  A wife had complete authority to sell or free
  her slave or give her as a slave wife.

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Slaves

•  Sources
• Debtors -- Prisoners of War
• Foreign captives -- Dowry transfer
• In a foreign war, an Israelite could take any
  woman as a slave-wife, but could not sell her
  later.
• Deuteronomy 2110-14 "When thou goest forth to
  war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God
  hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou
  hast taken them captive, And seest among the
  captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire
  unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy
  wife Then thou shalt bring her home to thine
  house and she shall shave her head, and pare her
  nails And she shall put the raiment of her
  captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine
  house, and bewail her father and her mother a
  full month and after that thou shalt go in unto
  her i.e. rape her or engage in consensual sex,
  and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.
  And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her,
  then thou shalt let her go whither she will but
  thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou
  shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou
  hast humbled her."

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Slave-wife

• A wife may give her
• personal slave to her
• husband for purposes
• of procreation.
• Children of a slave-wife could be heirs if the
  chief-wife had no children and she allowed it.

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Code of Hammurabion uppity slave-wives

• If a slave wife despised her mistress after
  becoming pregnant, the mistress could brand her
  with a slave mark and return her to the rank of
  slave.
• Alternative punishments
  scouring her mouth with 1 quart salt,
  flogging.

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Adultery

• Earlier Capital offense for both (Deuteronomy
  22 22 and Leviticus 20 10)
• Later Compulsory divorce (no 2nd marriage)
• Possible penalties of adultery for a free married
  woman death, slavery, mutilation (nose, ears),
  public nakedness, shaving.
• Adultery in Egypt was considered a great sin
  punishable by death.
• Consensual relations between a man and someone
  elses concubine were considered adultery.

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Divorce

• Easy for a man impossible for a woman
• Most common cause childlessness
• Deuteronomy 24 1 specifies indecency (open to
  interpretation by rabbis)

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Bibliography

• Baker, James R. Womens Rights in Old Testament
  Times. 1992. (Examines the stories of OT women in
  the light of twelve ancient legal documents,
  including the Code of Hammurabi)
• http//www.womensearlyart.net/ruth/bibimages/tisso
  t_abramsarai.html
• Web Gallery of Art at http//gallery.euroweb.hu/
• The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and
  searchable database of European painting and
  sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque
  periods (1150-1800), currently containing over
  12,100 reproductions.