Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Abbreviations
- PART I MONOGAMY
- 1 The Sources
- 2 Pro-CD Arguments
- 3 Anti-CD Arguments
- 4 Indeterminate Arguments
- 5 Make-or-Break Argument
- 6 Which Way Does the Evidence Point?
- 7 Gen 1:27–29 Revisited
- PART II COMMANDMENTS (MIṢVOT)
- PART III INTRINSIC EQUALITY
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index of Authors (Medieval & Pre-modern)
- Index of Citations from Rabbinic Literature
- Index of Names (Hebrew Bible)
- Index of Names (Talmudic)
- General Index
2 - Pro-CD Arguments
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Abbreviations
- PART I MONOGAMY
- 1 The Sources
- 2 Pro-CD Arguments
- 3 Anti-CD Arguments
- 4 Indeterminate Arguments
- 5 Make-or-Break Argument
- 6 Which Way Does the Evidence Point?
- 7 Gen 1:27–29 Revisited
- PART II COMMANDMENTS (MIṢVOT)
- PART III INTRINSIC EQUALITY
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index of Authors (Medieval & Pre-modern)
- Index of Citations from Rabbinic Literature
- Index of Names (Hebrew Bible)
- Index of Names (Talmudic)
- General Index
Summary
1) Besides its basic meanings (bind, constrict, show hostility, vex), Hebrew ṣrr can also denote the act of ‘rivalling’ or being a rival. Thus ṣrr's derivative noun ṣrh (pl. ṣrt), like its Akkadian cognate ṣerretu, stands for ‘rival’ – particularly a rival-wife (see 1Sam 1:6; M. Yev. 1.1 and passim). Accordingly, liṣror comes into its own if the focus of Lev 18:18 is rival wives. But if the focus is sisters, liṣror would seem otiose. Nor does it help that it is absent from the ‘woman and her daughter’ prohibition (18:17).
2) Verse 18 ends with the qualifying phrase be-ḥayyehah (in her lifetime), implying that with the wife's death, the union ceases to be unlawful. This provision is extraordinary; nowhere does Torah teach that affinity to one's spouse's kin dissolves with the spouse's death. As noted, the Talmud sided with the ‘builders’, taking the subject of Lev 18:18 to be biological sisters. Hence, rabbinic texts allow marriage to a deceased wife's sister. This exceptional leniency stands out like a sore thumb, as Maimonides's code will illustrate:
Once a person enters into matrimony with a woman six of her relatives become forbidden to him and each of the six remains in the category of ‘ervah for ever – whether or not the marriage is consummated; even after it ends in divorce; during his wife's lifetime and after her death. These are the six. Her mother, her maternal grandmother, her paternal grandmother, her daughter, her daughter's daughter and her son's daughter. … In addition, his wife's sister becomes ‘ervah to him until his wife dies. […]
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- Information
- The Status of Women in Jewish Tradition , pp. 9 - 16Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011