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14 - Jewish Private Life: Gender, Marriage, and the Lives of Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Judith R. Baskin
Edited by
Judith R. Baskin  and
Kenneth Seeskin
Judith R. Baskin
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Kenneth Seeskin
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
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Summary

Until recent times, Jewish roles in both the private and public realms of life were significantly determined by gender. In the rabbinic vision of the ideal ordering of human society, which guided Jewish life for almost two millennia, special position and status-conferring obligations were reserved for eligible males, while females were seen as a separate and secondary category of human creation. Nevertheless, both females and males are essential for human continuity, and Judaism has traditionally understood marriage as the desirable state for all adults. Marriage has provided a means of Jewish continuity, a haven for personal intimacy, and a family setting in which children could be raised to adulthood and educated in traditional values and rituals. Moreover, in a system of theological imagery that envisions marriage as the closest approximation of the intimacy that can exist between human beings and God, the relationship between wives and husbands has assumed sacred significance.

Wherever Jews have lived, wives have assumed domestic nurturing roles, providing for the daily needs of their husbands and children, and overseeing the early educations of their offspring. Women have also labored with their spouses in the economic support of their households. Prior to the modern period, vocational endeavors were understood as a domestic activity. Wives worked closely with their husbands in crafts and trades, and some undertook business activities that supplemented economic resources or wholly supported their families so that husbands could devote themselves to learning.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture , pp. 357 - 380
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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