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:
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