Tradition and equality in Jewish marriage
Subtitle: beyond the sanctification of subordination
By: Melanie Malka Landau
Series: Continuum studies in Jewish thought
Publisher: Continuum International Pub. Group
Published: 2011
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781441138064; 9781441139337
Subjects: Marriage; Judaism; Marriage (Jewish law)
Description: "Often when people have become alienated from their religious backgrounds, they access their traditions through lifecycle events such as marriage. At times, modern values such as gender equality may be at odds with some of the traditions; many of which have always been in a state of flux in relationship to changing social, economic and political realities. Traditional Jewish marriage is based on the man acquiring the woman, which has symbolic and actual ramifications. Grounded in the traditional texts yet accessible, this book shows how the marriage is an acquisition and contextualises the gender hierarchy of marriage within the rabbinic exclusion of women from Torah study, the highest cultural practice and women's exemption from positive commandments. Melanie Landau offers two alternative models of partnership that partially or fully bypass the non-reciprocity of traditional Jewish marriage and that have their basis in the ancient rabbinic texts."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Laying the table; title: The legal effects of marriage; title: Rebellious women and husband-owned sexuality; title: Conditional marriage; title: Charting a path between acquisition and licentiousness through concubinage and derekh kiddushin (quasi-marriage).