Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religions (6 page)

As we enter the Persian period, during which much of the TaNaKh reached its current form, the process of marriage in particular seems to have undergone greater formalization. Based on the evidence of fragmentary papyri from Elephantine, a Jewish garrison in Egypt, we may conclude that marriage was a multistaged process: the bridegroom first asked the woman’s male guardian for the bride and then declared “she is my wife and I am her husband.” A dowry was set and a written contract was then drawn up (Doc. 1–14). This contractualizing trend in marriage would continue through the Greco-Roman period and into Rabbinic Judaism.

It is likely that over the course of the Biblical period, as Jews became a dispersed minority and came into close contact with other peoples (even in 4

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Yehud itself), greater emphasis was placed on endogamy as critical to preserving the covenant—as exemplified in the fifth-century bce account of the expulsion of foreign women and their children by Ezra the Scribe and his renewal of the covenant with the Jews of Jerusalem (Ezra 9–10). A close connection between living the covenant and endogamous marriage, however, may not yet be in-ferred: the Elephantine papyri attest to exogamous marriage, so we may have here a parallel tradition to that in Jerusalem or a more exceptional situation given the lack of Jewish females in the garrison. In any event, it appears that both the more conservative agricultural society in which Jews lived and the growing sense of Jewish exclusiveness and covenantal status as they carved out a minority identity contributed to emerging Jewish attitudes towards sex, marriage, and family.

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The establishment of Alexander’s empire in the fourth century bce brought Jews into direct and sustained contact with Hellenism, although the extent of that influence is very hard to gauge and was likely diverse across the empire.

Jews generally remained in rural settings, although Jerusalem and other cities in Judea (as the Greek province was now called) grew in size and importance, and had substantial Jewish populations. During this time a substantial Jewish population lived in the “diaspora,” the world outside the land of Israel, in contact with local Gentiles and other groups created by the cosmopolitan character of Greek cities. Nevertheless, within the multiethnic environment of the Greco-Roman and Sassanian Babylonian empires, Jews shared several practices—circumcision, dietary restrictions, and Sabbath observance—that they were able to regard themselves, and be regarded by others, as a distinct people.

On the intellectual level the consequences of contact with Hellenism were felt in many circles, but most keenly among Egyptian Jewry. Philosophical ideas penetrated deeply into Jewish self-understanding, producing an entire genre of wisdom literature that emphasized virtuous conduct, including respect for one’s parents, the marriage ideal with the proper behavior of husbands and wives, sexual temperance, and the importance of educating and disciplining one’s children. The Wisdom of Ben Sira, known more commonly by its apocryphal title Ecclesiasticus, is paradigmatic of this literature (Doc. 1–15). In contrast to the covenantal context of the Biblical sources, these texts linked familiar Jewish values to wisdom as an expression of divine illumination independently worthy of human pursuit. Biblical notions of purity, including restrictions on food and sex, found natural analogues in certain Greek notions of ascetic discipline and moral wisdom and were so interpreted by Jewish philosophers such as the first-century ce Egyptian allegorist Philo of Alexandria. Such efforts were no doubt
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intended both to strengthen religious observances among Jews and to defend Judaism against its pagan detractors. This literature, all in Greek, entered the legacy of early Christianity, which embraced these ideas and their language of expression as its own.

On the social level, in the absence of a central institution to impose a single pattern of behavior, various types of Jewish communities evolved in this period.

As we noted, common custom united “natural communities” of Jews (that is, those born to Jewish parents), who were rather open to “God-fearers” and other non-Jews participating in communal life. At the same time, “intentional Judaic communities” grew up, particularly in Judea but elsewhere as well, that had what they took to be “correct” interpretations of Jewish Scripture and stricter standards of behavior, which helped determine insiders and exclude others.

These communities, such as Qumran, which we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls, saw themselves as God’s chosen, living the ideal form of the covenant on this earth. Their rigorous, highly structured, and disciplined communal life allowed some members to marry, but only monogamously, and preferred sexual abstinence (Doc. 1–16). This sectarian community, like others in the Land of Israel, was extremely concerned with purity, and emphasized a strict sexual morality. Philo, in his book
On the Contemplative Life,
describes a similar community, the Therapeutae of Egypt, which were separate male and female Jewish communities living simple lives, dedicated to reflection on the Torah and philosophy. Joining husbandless and childless, these women were free to develop their minds and spirits in the ways of Wisdom.

These philosophical or ascetic “elites,” however, were not representative of most contemporary Jews, whether in Judea or the diaspora. Generally speaking, Jewish families were virtually identical in their structure and dynamics to those around them. The overwhelming majority lived in what we termed “natural communities,” in regular contact with the non-Jewish world yet maintaining practices distinctive to their own ethnic group. By late antiquity intramarriage seemed to be the norm among Jews, with women marrying between the ages of fifteen and twenty, slightly later than the Roman norm of thirteen. Jewish nuptials, which were divided into betrothal and a later wedding ceremony, included a contract that stipulated both a dowry and specific obligations (continuing a trend we noted in the Persian period) and were followed by a wedding feast (Doc. 1–17). While we must be careful not to read Rabbinic views back to earlier times, the general impression we therefore have of the Jewish family in the intertestamental period is that of a monogamous patriarchal family, with children required to obey their parents and continue their family’s religious traditions. Marriage and divorce, regulated by increasingly specific law and custom, were affairs arranged almost exclusively by men, although evidence exists of these being initiated by women as well. Sex was only legitimate if performed within marriage, and while its primary purpose was procreation, it also served to appease urges that would otherwise lead to prostitution or adul-6

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tery. Other Greek attitudes toward sex, such as homosexuality and the representation of the human nude, find no echo in the Jewish material of this period that has survived.

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The literary legacy of the Rabbinic period, which dates roughly from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce to the rise of Islam in the seventh century, is extraordinary. Hundreds of scholars and tens of thousands of statements attributed to them fill texts of various literary genres, including legal codes and commentary, biblical exegesis, and homiletic advice. Several of the major texts, such as the Babylonian Talmud, are themselves anthologies of many sorts of Rabbinic utterances. As noted, this voluminous legacy came to be the basis of most medieval Jewish reflection on all matters of law and lore, yet we must resist the temptation to use these sources as evidence of contemporary reality. Aside from the literary redaction these texts underwent and the dubious reliability of some of their attributions, we currently lack independent corrob-oration of the relevance of these texts outside of Rabbinic circles. Indeed, the nature of the texts’ evolution, often anonymously redacted over the course of centuries, should make us wary of finding in these sources evidence of wide-spread contemporary phenomena. No doubt there were social trends and historic realities that underlay the Rabbinic statements, legal or otherwise—certainly within the Rabbinic class itself and possibly within a broader base.

However, in ways not dissimilar to the Hebrew Bible, we are on firmer ground if we eschew efforts to describe social reality of the late Roman/Byzantine and Sassanian Babylonian periods and instead seek to outline the views of sex, marriage, and family contained in the literature.

Since marriage was a status-effecting ceremony, it received much attention within Rabbinic circles, centered as it was on law: in the Mishnah (ca. 200 ce), Rabbinic Judaism’s earliest text, four of the seven tractates within the Order of Women deal with marriage and divorce. One may say, along with several historians, that the texts of Rabbinic Judaism situated marriage between the strict contractual notion held by Roman society, on the one hand, and the near sacramental, symbolic status that early Christianity gave it, on the other. Marriage was, to be sure, a contract between two individuals that entailed specific obligations and responsibilities one to the other: at that time women were in need of protection and material support, while men were in need of household assistance and a way to fulfill their commandment to procreate. Sex is presented as the husband’s conjugal duty to his wife, even to the point of enumerating the accepted frequency of intercourse a woman might insist upon. In discussing marriage, then, the language of the Mishnah rarely strays from the language of a legal arrangement between consenting parties, with the norm highly regulated
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and every eventuality anticipated and negotiated; similarly, divorce is portrayed as the consequence of one party failing to uphold its “part of the bargain,”

including the ability to bear children—extending the procreative aspect of marriage we saw in the intertestamental period (Docs. 1–18 to 1–26).

But in the nonlegal Rabbinic material, collected in aggadic compilations and in Talmudic commentary on the Mishnah, we begin to observe appreciation of the broader aspects of marriage. In perhaps explicit response to Christianity’s tepid endorsement of marriage as “better . . . than burning with vain desire” (1 Corinthians 7:9), Rabbinic sources elevate the institution to an independent good, an ideal that partakes in the basic foundation of the created order and sees man and woman as “complete” only if married. Marriage and family are part of the “sanctification of Israel,” a theme underscored in the liturgy that grew up around the betrothal and marriage ceremonies, which also employed the religious motifs of divine creation and a restoring of destroyed Jerusalem (Docs. 1–27 to 1–29). Indeed, we sense the Rabbinic tradition delib-erately made the home the central locus of religious life: most Rabbinic rules of purity revolved around food and sex, Sabbath and holiday celebrations were to include meals with one’s family, and respect for one’s parents was coupled with the demand that parents—not professional teachers—be responsible for the children’s basic religious education. Whether this move was intended to rival other existing institutions, such as the Temple or synagogue, or was only promoted in response to their loss is impossible to know. But the aggadic discussions of marriage and family helped underscore the critical role the traditional family played in ensuring Jewish life in diaspora (Docs. 1–30 to 1–35).

Most interesting, we find in Rabbinic sources a move away from the more ascetic view of sexuality found in Hellenistic Jewish texts that Christianity endorsed and developed. Procreation and conjugal duties aside, the Babylonian Talmud and other texts of that culture speak of romantic sex between a married couple in remarkably frank and uninhibited ways (Doc. 1–36). According to these male-addressing texts, even as physical contact with one’s wife had to abide by strict rules of menstrual impurity
(niddah),
it nevertheless had to be infused with warmth, playfulness, and an appreciation of the woman’s desires.

To be sure, Rabbinic views, no different than Jewish views of other periods, were influenced by their environment. For instance, the polygamy allowed by Biblical law was discouraged in the “West” (Palestine and Asia Minor) where first Roman and then Christian insistence on monogamy made this position harder to defend; Babylonian Jews knew of no such pressure, and polygamy was clearly tolerated there. Similarly, in spite of their strong endorsement of marriage, Palestinian sources seem to allow the delay, if not suspension, of marriage in favor of certain higher intellectual goals such as Torah study—a delay never sanctioned by Babylonian sources.

Even as we cite Rabbinic sources on our subjects, we cannot forget their highly crafted, dialogic character. These texts include both multiple genres— 8

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law, folklore, and homiletics—and multiple opinions on all manner of subjects—monogamy and polygyny, ascetic and more indulgent sexuality, strict and lenient grounds for legitimate divorce—making it difficult to reach firm historical conclusions based on this literature. Yet it is precisely the multivocal nature of Rabbinic texts, particularly the Talmuds, that will allow the diverse schools of the Middle Ages to each claim origins in these canonical sources.

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The rise of Islam in the seventh century, politically centered in Baghdad, brings with it the ascendancy of the Babylonian Talmud for the majority of world Jewry. Although Jewish communities will rise, flourish, and decline throughout the Near East, North Africa, and Europe over the course of the next thirteen centuries, until the modern period most will see their religious practice governed by, or at least rooted in, this Rabbinic text.

In spite of the common Talmudic basis, three factors contributed to the emergence of variation, at times significant. First, varying traditions of Talmudic interpretation evolved, often regionally based, leading to different rulings and applications of Rabbinic dicta. Over time these amalgamated into two general cultural spheres—Sefardic (Spain and the Mediterranean) and Ashkenazic (central and eastern European)—that differed in many respects on the full range of legal and philosophic matters, including sex, marriage, and family.