What gets interesting as you get into the Law of Moses is the dealing with the idea of a woman as a wife also being a possession of the husband.
1. If a slave is given a wife for instance the wife still belongs to the owner unless the slave decides to bond himself to his master permanently.
2. Divorce is only one way -- it is almost like giving up title to a car today the way the law for divorce reads in the law.
3. Up till now wives are given and taken but there is almost no provision in the Bible for a woman to decided by her choice who she is to marry and the opposite is true for men.
4. The handmaiden laws and customs meant that in a sense the handmaiden was property of the mistress unless she gave that handmaiden to her husband -- then she became his.
Now this would change as we go along, but up till now what is presented by the Bible both in example and the law is women as a special kind of property. With some rights but not as much as men. We are still far from the end of this study, but if we were to stop here we would have to conclude women are a kind of property. Protected and valued, but property nonetheless.
Next: Other Laws Regarding Marriage and Women
I remember reading something long ago about Jewish customs in OT times, and the book talked about arranged marriages, and it's true that they were arranged - but it was rare when the female was ever forced to marry someone she didn't want. Just a thought. :)
ReplyDeleteWe simply do not have a instance of a woman saying -- 'I object' and being told it they would do something else at this point -- Leah, the handmaidens and the slave wife law seems to point to at least a society in which women 'accepted their fate' with a great deal of acceptance. Very different from our own.;-)
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