Women in Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Law

Studia Antiqua, Dec 2003

By Carol Pratt Bradley, Published on 01/29/16

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Women in Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Law

STUDIA ANTIQUA • Women in Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Law Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studiaantiqua Part of the Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Bradley, Carol P. "Women in Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Law." Studia Antiqua 3, no. 1 (2003). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studiaantiqua/vol3/iss1/5 Women in Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Law Carol Pratt Bradley The place of women in ancient history is a subject of much scholarly interest and debate. This paper approaches the issue by examining the laws of ancient Israel, along with other ancient law codes such as the Code of Hammurabi, the Laws of Urnammu, Lipit-Ishtar, Eshnunna, Hittite, Middle Assyrian, etc. Because laws reflect the values of the societies which developed them, they can be beneficial in assessing how women functioned and were esteemed within those cultures. A major consensus among scholars and students of ancient studies is that women in ancient times were second class, oppressed, and subservient to men. This paper approaches the subject of the status of women anciently by examining the laws involving women in Hebrew law as found in the Old Testament, and in other law codes of the ancient Near East. Such topics as marriage and divorce, vows, widowhood, dowries, inheritance rights, and laws of sexual purity—including incest, rape, and adultery—are all examined. Etan Levine calls for a “holistic approach to history whereby women, as well as men, are the subjects of inquiry and the measures of significance.”1 He also calls for a different approach than that of scholarly tradition which either misunderstands or ignores Carol Pratt Bradley is a senior majoring in Marriage, Family, and Human Development, with a minor in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. She will graduate in April 2004. 1 Etan Levine, “On Exodus 21, 10 ‘Onah and Biblical Marriage,” Zeitschrift Für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 5 (1999): 133. women. Levine seems unable, however, to view the status of women beyond that found in former scholarship, based on four main criteria. First, in Levine’s view, the Hebrew word bet’ab, meaning the father’s or patriarch’s house, automatically indicates the inferior status of the wife. The second deals with the terms “give a wife” and “take a wife,” which Levine feels make the woman an object in marriage. A third criteria that Levine feels indicates the subservience of women is the purchase of a wife, which in his view then established the power of the husband over the wife. Fourth, the husband was ba’al, or master, lord and owner of his wife, a wife being listed among her husband’s possessions.2 But do these interpretations irrefutably signify the inferior status of women anciently? Concerning this topic, examples of scholarly opinions include: “The dominant impression left by our early Jewish sources is of a very patriarchal society that limited women’s roles and functions to the home.”3 In another scholarly opinion: “If one were to look at scripture alone, it would seem that marriage is a right exercised by a man and that a woman he marries is simply there for his use.”4 These perspectives reflect the viewpoint that male dominance in a society inevitably indicates female inferiority and subservience. But is that assumption, so pervasive within the study of women in ancient times, accurate? Is there another way to view ancient society? Although most scholars concur with the opinions previously cited, some do not. Carol Meyers offers a different perspective of the nature of relationships in the ancient world. In her opinion, 2 Ibid., 135, 136. 3 “Women NT,” in vol. 6 of The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 957–8. 4 David Novak, Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000), 133. women were a vital, intricate part of the fabric of ancient life. She warns against judging ancient history by modern assumptions and standards: Just as the family was inextricably connected with its landholdings, so too were individual family members economically and psychologically embedded in the domestic group. . . .5 In the merging of the self with family, one can observe a collective, group-oriented mind-set, with the welfare in the individual inseparable from that of the living group. . . . In assessing the participation of adult woman in family labor, it is important to avoid the trap of looking at female household work as somehow less important than male tasks. . . . [B]oth males and females worked in the household . . . the boundaries of a woman’s world were virtually the same as those of a man’s in . . . early Israel. . . .6 Men’s and women’s labors together were marked by their . . . interdependence.7 Scholars often comment on the isolation of women within the confines of their own homes, as noted earlier. But Meyers refutes this: W (...truncated)


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Carol Pratt Bradley. Women in Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Law, Studia Antiqua, 2003, Volume 3, Issue 1,