Wedded to the past?

Two important additions to the study of Jewish marriage customs in the ancient world and what we call the "Talmudic period" have come out in the past few years: Three years ago, Michael Satlow of Brown University published "Jewish Marriage in Antiquity," and more recently, Adiel Schremer of Bar-Ilan University published "Man and Woman He Created Them."

Schremer examines the institution of marriage in Jewish society in the late Second Temple period and the days of the Mishna and Talmud, i.e., in the fifth and sixth centuries C.E. Satlow begins his study some 500 years earlier. Both write mainly about the Jewish communities in Eretz Yisrael and Babylonia. While there were other centers of Jewish life at this time, Schremer and Satlow focus on these two communities because it is well known that they were home to groups of respected scholars who considered themselves the successors of the Pharisees and the tannaim (Jewish scholars and teachers). But there is probably a practical reason, too: Very little source material has come down to us from these other communities. Wherever possible, however, both authors, and especially Satlow, look at outside sources: the literature of the Dead Sea sect, the books of the apocrypha, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, the New Testament, inscriptions on stone and papyrus.

Schremer follows in the footsteps of the social historians. His interest lies not in the theory of marriage, but in how it was practiced. He tracks down rabbinic sources that discuss the realities of married life at that time. While Satlow is also interested in this kind of data, he gives pride of place to ideology. In certain issues, at least, he believes that valuable information can be gleaned from sources outside the rabbinic canon, such as women's archives that have somehow survived.

Schremer begins by posing a number of seemingly simple questions, which he then proceeds to answer. The first chapter of his book, exploring the importance of marriage, is actually more on the theoretical side, but the next two chapters do bear out his stated goal of addressing the nitty-gritty. At what age did Jewish men and women marry, he asks? In Babylonia, men married in their teens or early 20s, and women, soon after reaching puberty. In Eretz Israel, it was not at all unusual for men to marry at 30, taking wives who were around 20. In principle, Satlow agrees, at least as far as the upper classes were concerned.

Schremer goes on to discuss how a marriage partner was selected and by whom (usually by the parents, at least in Babylonia, with great attention paid to lineage); whether there was a preference for relatives (yes), and if so, how close (not too close, as was customary in Iranian society). He talks about the incidence of remarriage, about the economic aspect of marriage agreements (dowry, groom's payment), and about the various approaches to marriage (as a partnership, as a framework for having children, as a vehicle to happiness and self-fulfillment, etc.).

Different path

Satlow pursues a different path. His book has three pivots: the decision to marry (Why? How?), the marriage act (matchmaking, ceremonies, "unconventional" unions such as yibum, levirate marriage, or second marriage), and married life (finances, ideal marriage).

Schremer's chapter on (yes!!) polygyny - the practice of having more than one wife at the same time - is one of the most interesting in the book. He challenges the conventional belief that polygyny was not customary among the Jews in the Talmudic period. Even if the phenomenon is rare, he argues, a society can still be polygynous. If a society does not have a large pool of unmarried men, and does not practice selection and killing of male infants, obviously not all men can take numerous wives. For anthropologists, even if one in five men is married to more than one woman, the society is polygynous. Schremer brings convincing proof that the Jewish societies in Babylonia and Eretz Israel socially recognized the phenomenon of men taking more than one wife.

Satlow also maintains that polygyny existed among the Jews, but his argument is different. He bases his conclusion on non-rabbinical sources: the Dead Sea Scrolls, Roman law and the archive of Babatha, a wealthy woman whose personal papers were discovered by Prof. Yigal Yadin in Nahal Hever.

Both authors recognize that a monogamous thread runs through Talmudic literature, but Schremer argues that even those who felt that monogamy was preferable to polygyny did not believe that monogamy was an imperative - only that it was better. Satlow differentiates between Babylonia and Eretz Israel. Polygyny may have been legitimate in Babylonia, but the idea that developed in Eretz Israel during the Roman period, perhaps through Christian influence (although Schremer does not accept this), was that marriage should be modeled after Adam and Eve - one man and one woman. The fact that this was the case in the Greek and Roman world was an added incentive. How much this affected real life is hard to say, but Satlow is convinced that it left traces in the literature.

Schremer's conclusions are interesting, and his book will appeal to those who are looking for an impressive, well- organized piece of scholarship. Each discussion is built up using a wide variety of source material, with appropriate quotations selected in the wake of careful textual study. Satlow's book contains fewer quotations (although not necessarily fewer references), but it makes up for that with its fine prose, diversity of sources and keen insight.

Schremer does not always distinguish between different generations in the lengthy period of time he covers in this book, which is surprising. Everyone knows that studies of the "rabbinic period," as if it were some kind of static era, are of dubious value. Being more specific would have saved a few raised eyebrows, not to mention making it clearer to readers that a source from the first century B.C.E. and a source from the fifth century C.E. are not the same. Establishing a time frame for the various rabbis he mentions would have been helpful, too. One doubts that the average reader knows the chronology of tannaim and amoraim (Talmudic scholars) by heart. This information is essential, all the more so in the work of scholars like Schremer (and Satlow!), whose point of departure is that the names in Talmudic literature are authentic and historically accurate.

Some people are liable to accuse Satlow's book of being too academic for the lay reader and too generic for the scholar. Others may balk at some of his conclusions regarding the ideological and physical interaction of Jews and non-Jews.

Does the knowledge imparted in these two excellent but very different books help the reader understand only the past, or is there also some insight for the present? Schremer does not address this question. He seems to feel that the role of the historian is to do his best to supply reliable information about the past, without delving into its significance for the present. Satlow, on the other hand, believes that his questions and findings are directly related to the issues that concern us today: What is a family? What is marriage? Is there such a thing as a "Jewish" marriage, or is matrimony the same for all, Jew or gentile? Do these findings have any bearing on contemporary issues such as same-sex marriages in the Jewish community?

Is there a solid, tangible "Jewish" element that runs like a thread through the marriages of Jews throughout the ages? On that question, the two authors may not agree. On marriage as an institution open to interpretation by each generation, chances are they will agree. Reading the books of these two important scholars is recommended, if only for that.

Evyatar Merinberg's book "Niddah," on the menstrual cycle in Judaism and Christianity, was recently published in France.