Anthropology holds both nature and nurture responsible for the behavioural differences between the genders. Or to use an astral idiom, manliness is only half due to men's Martian provenance and femininity only half to women's Venusian. For the rest, other luminaries, celestial and terrestrial, determine what is masculine and feminine in any given society. The rabbis had their own aetiologies for distinctively male and female demeanours. These were based, no doubt, on a blend of empirical observation and hand-me-down wisdom.

Earlier we had occasion to note how intimately halakhah in general is predicated on its understanding of what makes people tick. Thus it will come as no surprise to find women's halakhah building on what might be called a rabbinic psychology of women. This psychology assumes, among other things, the proclivity of women to compassion, inquisitiveness, indolence, flightiness and ostentation. It further assumes that a woman will put up with the trashiest of husbands rather than risk spinsterhood, and that a wife will never dare falsely tell her husband (leastways to his face) ‘you divorced me’. Each of these postulates of muliebrity impacts the Talmud's halakhic thinking and teaching.

Compassion

Disciples must not give instruction in the presence, or even in the vicinity, of their masters. According to 2Kgs 22:14, King Josiah's courtiers went to seek religious council from Huldah.