Women's Rights
in
Old Testament Times

by
James R. Baker

Signature Books; Salt Lake City
© 1992 by Signature Books.

Table of Contents:

Preface
1. Twelve Ancinet Legan Documents
2. The Law of the Keeper
3. Rachel's Household
4. Metronymic Marriage
5. Sarai/Sarah's Household
6. Rebekah's Household
7. Potiphar's Wife
8. David's Household
9. The Inheritance Rights of Wives
10. The Daughters of Zelophehad
11. Miscellaneous Cases
Author

XI.

Miscellaneous Cases

The Rape of Dinah

Dinah, Jacob's daughter by Leah, was naive about the customs in Shechem, where Jacob settled after escaping from Laban. Driven by curiosity, she left the security of her father's tents and went out to “see the daughters of the land.” Instead she was noticed by Shechem, son of Hamor, the ruler of Shechem. Shechem took Dinah “and lay with her,” but instead of considering her a one-time conquest, “his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife” (Gen. 34:1-4).

Was this a rape or a seduction? Verse 2 reads: “Shechem. . . saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.” Josephus uses the words “defiled her by violence.”¹ Louis Epstein describes her ordeal as “rape.”² William Smith in his Bible dictionary says she was “violated by Shechem.”³ Keil and Delitzsch in their commentary say she was seduced,⁴ and Alfred Edersheim calls Dinah “blameworthy.”⁵ However, defiled in Hebrew is “ana” meaning to “be bowed down,” “afflicted,” and, in the sense in which it is used regarding Dinah, “humbled,”⁶ which sounds more like rape than seduction.

According to Middle Assyrian laws codified a little later than this account, if a man raped an unbetrothed maiden, he could be forced to marry her and to pay a bride-price to her father. If the father did not wish to give his daughter to the rapist, he could take the bride-price and penalty and marry her to anyone he wished.⁷ Such laws suggest the possibility of marriage by rape. Community pressure would be on the father to accept a nobly born son such as Shechem as a son-in-law. In the eyes of the community, Dinah would be “damaged goods” to any other other suitor.

Hamor, Shechem's father, arranged a meeting with Jacob attended by all of Dinah's brothers. Hamor asked not only for Dinah's hand in marriage for his son but also for other marriages between the families. Shechem, rather than being an unwilling bridegroom, offered to pay “what[ever] ye shall say” (Gen. 34:8-12).

At this point Jacob's sons took over the negotiations and “deceitfully” agreed to the marriage on the condition that all the men of Shechem would submit to circumcision. They all consented, believing that Jacob's prosperity would bring wealth to them and to their town (Gen. 34:23). Jacob, unaware of his sons' intentions, consented by his silence.

On the third day after the circumcisions when all the men of Shechem were too sore to defend themselves, Simeon and Levi swooped down on the town and killed them all. Dinah was already in Shechem's house, for the two brothers “took Dinah out of Shechem's house” after they had slain Hamor and Shechem. This can only mean that payment of the bride-price, which included the circumcision of Shechem, concluded a formal marriage, and Dinah had accompanied Shechem home as his bride. However, Shechem's pain would not have permitted him to consummate the marriage, and Simeon and Levi annulled it when they killed the young groom. After Levi and Simeon had killed the males of the city, the other sons of Jacob sacked the town and took all women and children captive (Gen. 34:25, 27-29).

Jacob was angry at his sons and told them: “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land” (Gen. 34:30). No law prescribed death for rape of an unbetrothed maiden, not to mention destruction of a whole town—even though communal responsibility was an accepted legal principle of the times.

In anger and fear (Gen. 35:1), Jacob moved his family to Bethel and then to Bethlehem, where Rachel died (v. 19). Finally he settled in Hebron but nothing more is mentioned of Dinah in the sacred text.

Pharaoh's Daughter

Little is known about the daughter of Pharaoh—not even her name. But few people are unaware of the roll she is said to have played in adopting⁸ the baby that was to become known as the preeminent Hebrew lawgiver, Moses.

Before we meet Pharoah's daughter, we are introduced to the circumstances of Moses' birth. He is said to have been born in Egypt at a time when Pharaoh had ordered the extermination of male Hebrew babies (Ex. 1:16, 19, 22). In this environment Moses was born to Amram and Jochebed, both of the tribe of Levi. Jochebed nursed Moses for three months, as long as she dared. Knowing the habits of the daughter of Pharaoh, she then put Moses into a little waterproof basket and floated him down the Nile when she knew the princess would be bathing. She left little to chance and sent Miriam, Moses' sister, to watch him from the bullrushes along the shore.

Pharaoh's daughter discovered the infant and, disobeying her father's edict, saved him. Miriam made herself known at this time and volunteered to find a wet nurse for the child (Ex. 2:7). Contract wet nursing was a common practice, especially with adopted infants.⁹ The princess thus accepted the services of the Moses' biological mother. This Hebrew baby must have been quite a palace secret.

Therefore, through fortuitous circumstances, Jochebed was engaged to raise her son in his infancy and was paid wages to do so. At the end of her contract, which may have been anywhere from two to five years,¹⁰ Jochebed returned Moses to Pharoah's daughter and “he became her son. And she called his name Moses” (Ex. 2:10). By naming him, and publicly announcing him as “her son,” she would have been unmistakably adopting the child, bestowing on him all the rights and duties of a son of the daughter of Pharoah.

Zipporah

When God threatened to kill Zipporah's firstborn son because her husband Moses had failed to circumcise him, Zipporah instantly performed the rite herself with a sharp stone (Ex. 4:25). Zipporah's boldness was perhaps due in part to the fact that her marriage with Moses was a metronymic one.

One late afternoon in the desert of Midian, seven sisters, tending their flocks, were driven from the community well by other shepherds (Ex. 2:16). A stranger, an Egyptian by dress and apparently well trained in martial arts, intervened on behalf of the women and watered their flocks. When they reported this incident to their father, Jethro, he rebuked his daughters for their lack of hospitality and sent them back to invite the stranger to his tent.

Moses accepted their invitation and stayed forty years, marrying Zipporah, one of Jethro's daughters. The scriptures do not mention a bride-price or dowry, the absence of which is one evidence of metronymic marriage. Second, “Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian” (Ex. 3:1), not under contract like Jacob, for it is never raised as an issue. Moses became a member of Jethro's household. A third indication that this was a metronymic marriage is that when God commanded Moses to go to Egypt and free Israel from bondage, Moses asked Jethro's permission: “Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said unto Moses, Go in peace” (4:18).

After Moses had delivered Israel from bondage, Jethro brought Zipporah and their sons to Moses in the desert (Ex. 18:1-5). It appears that Jethro then terminated Moses' obligation to him as his metronymic father-in-law. Jethro returned to Midian (v. 27), and there is no record that they ever saw each other again. By relinquishing whatever rights he had, Jethro was released from the responsibility for supporting Zipporah and her two children in the harsh desert of Midian.

The Unnamed Concubine

The book of Exodus records the case of a Hebrew daughter sold by her father to another Hebrew. In this case the sale appears to have been a form of marriage arrangement. It was not uncommon for a father to arrange for a daughter under the age of puberty to join the family of another as a servant, expecting that when she reached puberty she would marry the master. The sale price then included payment for her services as a servant and a bride-price, and it may have been paid as cash or as relief for a debt owed by the father to the master.

This contract differed from a normal marriage contract because the master had options: If he decided he did not want to marry the girl, he could marry her to his son. If his son did not want to marry her, they had to set her free. Consideration was paid for the contract, but the arrangement lacked some of the requirements of a chief-wife marriage, because the daughter in those circumstances would come to the betrothal without a dowry. Therefore, she would be a concubine or secondary wife.

The daughter was not treated like a son sold into servitude. Such a son was usually sold for a specified time and then freed to pursue his life. If no agreement established a certain time for service, male slaves for debt were freed at the end of six years or at the Jubilee, whichever came first.¹¹ A female Hebrew slave could “not go out [free] as the menservants do” at the end of six years but after six years became betrothed to the master (Ex. 21:7).¹² If the daughter was not betrothed to the master at puberty as expected, she was to be made available for redemption, for “he hath dealt deceitfully with her” (v. 8). She could not be resold even to another Hebrew.¹³ Her redeemers included her father, near kinsmen, or any suitor. They needed only to repay the master the money he had paid less the value of her service.¹⁴

Since the daughter had been sold into servitude, the master could betroth her to any of his sons and was then required to “deal with her after the manner of daughters” (Ex. 21:9). This appears to mean that the master would have to provide her with a dowry. Having a dowry, however, suggests that she would probably have been a chief wife of the son.

The biblical statute describes a situation in which the master marries the daughter and then later marries a second wife. Because the daughter's marriage benefits were threatened, we can presume that the new wife had a higher status and was probably a chief wife. A wife's marital expectation of support included food, clothing, and an opportunity to bear children. Once a standard was set in a marriage, nothing was to be diminished. If a daughter was deprived of her marriage expectations, she could dissolve the marriage by divorcing her husband. If she did divorce him, she was not obligated to repay the bride-price or in this case the purchase-price paid her father. She was then free to remarry as she wished.

Interestingly, this concubine had a right of divorce for cause—if her support or her marital rights were diminished. It is unlikely that a chief wife had fewer rights in this regard.

Although treatment of women in the Old Testament seems harsh—to say the least—compared to modern standards, it is clear that women were protected in unsuspected ways. If a woman insisted—often through intrigue—on her rights and privileges, she could sometimes fare as well as a man. In some ways women were granted more authority, respect, and independence than today. Considering the fact that male scribes were generally responsible for transmitting these texts, it is surprising that so much remains about women outwitting and dominating men. In fact, the importance of women asserting themselves in the face of opposition may be the most instructive moral of these stories. In this sense, they are essential to preserve and understand.

Notes:

1. Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” in Josephus: Complete Works, trans. William Whiston (1960; rprt. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1972), 43.

2. Louis M. Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc. 1967), 179.

3. William Smith, A Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), 146.

4. C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), 1:311.

5. Alfred Edersheim, Old Testament Bible History (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984), 139.

6. William Gesenius, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, eds. F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 776.

7. “In the case of a seignior's daughter, a virgin who was living in her father's house, whose [father] had not been asked (for her in marriage), whose hymen had not been opened since she was not married, and no one had a claim against her father's house, if a seignior took the virgin by force and ravished her, either in the midst of the city or in the open country or at night in the street or in a granary or at a city festival, the father of the virgin shall take the wife of the virgin's ravisher and give her to be ravished; he shall not return her to her husband (but) take her; the father may give his daughter who was ravished to her ravisher in marriage. If he has no wife, the ravisher shall give the (extra) third in silver to her father as the value of a virgin (and) her ravisher shall marry her (and) not cast her off. If the father does not (so) wish, he shall receive the (extra) third for the virgin in silver (and) give his daughter to whom he wishes.” Middle Assyrian Law A 55, in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, including Supplement, 1969), 185.

8. Moses was an adopted son, yet the law code he developed has no provision for adoption. Following this lead modern common law has no provision for adoption. It is covered only in statutory law.

Black's Law Dictionary defines “adopt” as “to take into one's family the child of another and give him or her the rights, privileges, and duties of a child and heir” (Henry C. Black, Black's Law Dictionary [St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1968], 70). This definition fits the adoption of Moses.

9. The laws of Eshnunna dating from about 1900 B.C. contain interesting provisions concerning wet nursing. A father was required to pay a wet nurse three years' worth of barley, oil, and wool. If he did not pay the goods, he was required to pay a huge penalty of ten minas of silver for her services (Laws of Eshnunna 32, in Pritchard, 162; Laws of Eshnunna 32, in Reuven Yaron, The Laws of Eshnunna [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1969], 37, 169). Unpaid wet nurses could sell the nursling into slavery to recover their wages.

The Code of Hammurabi exposed a different problem when it imposed a penalty on the nurse who had a child die in her care. She was required by the statute to inform any new client that a child had died in her care. If she failed to do so, her breast would be amputated to prevent her from causing the death of another child; Code of Hammurabi 194, in G. R. Driver and J. C. Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 2:77; see also 1:406.

10. Ibid.; see also Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, 2B:26; they say the Israelite custom was to nurse three years.

11. M. Mielziner, The Institution of Slavery Among the Ancient Hebrews (Cincinnati: Bloch Printing Co., 1894), sec. 5.

12. Ibid., sec. 12.

13. Ibid., sec. 8.

14. Ibid., sec. 11.