Sexual Property and the Personhood of Women in the Old Testament, New Testament and the Mishnah

Consensus Volume 33 Issue 2 Theology and Context(s) Article 4 11-25-2011 Sexual Property and the Personhood of Women in the Old Testament, New Testament and the Mishnah Laura Sauder Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus Recommended Citation Sauder, Laura (2011) "Sexual Property and the Personhood of Women in the Old Testament, New Testament and the Mishnah," Consensus: Vol. 33 : Iss. 2 , Article 4. Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol33/iss2/4 This Articles is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact . Sauder: Sexual Property and the Personhood of Women Sexual Property and the Personhood of Women in the Old Testament, New Testament and the Mishnah Laura Sauder Intern, Grace Lutheran Church Winnipeg, MB A s Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued with the publication of The Woman’s Bible in 1895, “the biblical text is androcentric and … men have put their stamp on biblical revelation. The Bible is not just interpreted from a male perspective … [r]ather, it is manmade because it is written by men and is the expression of a patriarchal culture.”1 This has been a crucial insight for (feminist) biblical scholars who have followed since, seeking to uncover the stories and perspectives of women from within these male-centred texts. Recognizing that there are many different strands of composition within the biblical texts (both those that challenge and those that support the patriarchal norm), this paper will focus on the themes of women as sexual property and women’s personhood. In this pursuit, one of the important questions to keep in mind is whether those texts on this topic are descriptive or prescriptive. Because the biblical texts were written from male perspectives we must question whether what is attested about the lives of women reflects their lived reality or rather the desired male reality. Speaking to her work with early Christianity, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza writes, “androcentric texts and documents do not mirror historical reality, report historical facts, or tell us how it actually was … our early Christian sources are theological interpretations, argumentations, projections, and selections rooted in a patriarchal culture. Such texts must be evaluated historically in terms of their own time and culture and assessed theologically in terms of a feminist scale of values.”2 This dynamic will be crucial to keep in mind as we look at some of the specific biblical and Mishnaic passages that address women as sexual property. What do these texts mean for Christian and Jewish women today seeking to live faithfully? What do these texts tell us about the theological framework of the communities from which they arose? Sexual Property, Personhood, and the Old Testament Phyllis Bird writes, “the Israelite family was in all periods a male-headed household, in which descent and transmission of property (in particular, the patrimonial land, ‘inheritance’) were reckoned through males.”3 One of the significant consequences of this social arrangement is that women were “to some extent either aliens or transients within Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2011 1 Consensus, Vol. 33, Iss. 2 [2011], Art. 4 their family of residence.”4 As in many patriarchal cultures, women’s realm was in the home and men’s was in public. However, men were given legal authority over women even in the family. In general, the Israelite woman’s legal status placed her in a subordinate position to the man and placed limitations on her rights. For example, in the Decalogue, although it can be assumed that women were included in the community that was being addressed women are not addressed explicitly. As Bird writes, women are hidden “as legal persons behind the male citizen or husband addressed by the law.”5 Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of the Torah as it is presented in the Old Testament is that women are counted among a man’s possessions along with children, slaves, and livestock (e.g., Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21). According to Bird, however, women were not in fact considered “property” in spite of passages such as these. In support of her conclusion, there are examples within the Pentateuch that address “women’s rights” (e.g., Exodus 21:10; Numbers 27:1-11; 30:2-17). In these passages, women are treated as persons in regards to a wife’s right to maintenance, a daughter’s right to inheritance in the absence of sons, and “the varying capacity of daughters, wives, and unattached women to make binding religious vows.”6 It can also be argued that patriarchy is not part of God’s creation in Genesis; rather women and men are created as equals.7 And yet, in spite of these positive examples, the presentation of women in the Old Testament is still very much as subordinate to men. L. William Countryman also argues that women are viewed as sexual property in the Old Testament. He writes that “the principle of respect for sexual property, rooted in the institution of the household or family,”8 was prevalent in antiquity. Like Bird, Countryman affirms the “alien” or “transient” status of women. He writes, “Normally, [a woman] was transferred to the household of a husband at about the time of puberty, and from this time onward she lived in a kind of familial limbo, being a full member of neither household.”9 He argues that Old Testament views on adultery, incest and prostitution provide evidence for the status of women as sexual property. Countryman uses an example from Job to illustrate women’s status as sexual property. In Job 31, “Job invokes on himself a series of curses in conditional form: if I have committed such-and-such sin, may some appropriate punishment befall me.”10 One of these curses involves a reference to adultery. Job cries, “If my heart has been enticed by a woman, and I have lain in wait at my neighbour’s door; then let my wife grind for another, and let other men kneel over her” (Job 31:9-10). From a modern perspective it does not appear that the punishment necessarily fits the crime. Why should Job’s wife be punished for his sin? According to Countryman, this is because “the wife was a form of property; adultery was violation of the property of another and should therefore be punished with violation of one’s own.”11 Countryman claims that it is this connection with sexual property that places adultery in proximity to theft within the Ten Commandments12 (e.g., Exodus 20:14-15). http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol33/iss2/4 2 Sauder: Sexual Property and the Personhood of Women Sexual Property, Personhood, and the New Testament The New Testament provides us with another perspective of women as sexual property although not unrelated to that of the Old Testament. In the Synoptic Gospels, “one of the striking features of Jesus’ teaching … is the way in (...truncated)