Premarital Cohabitation in Ancient Judea
The Evidence of the Babatha Archive and the Mishnah ( Ketubbot 1.4)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20291586 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tal Ilan (0000-0003-1909-2788, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1993 |
| Volume | 86 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 247-264 |
| Publication date | 1993-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Harvard Theological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0017-8160 • E-ISSN: 1475-4517 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0017816000031229 |
| OpenAlex | W2023234188 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 9 |
This article discusses one aspect of matrimonial practice in second-century CE Judea: whether a man and a woman could or would cohabit before they were officially married. I shall examine a marriage contract from the Babatha archive discovered in the Judean desert; this contract contains a clause that specifies that a couple had lived together for some time before the marriage contract was drawn up. This statement may be perceived as contradicting the picture of matrimonial practices derived from Jewish legal sources. In dealing with such contradictions it is possible to adopt either an apologetic or a provocative approach. This article professes to apply a provocative approach to the problem by accepting the content of this clause at face value and suggesting a fresh interpretation to a passage from the Mishnah. This mishnah attests different matrimonial practices in Galilee and Judea and suggests that premarital cohabitation was sometimes practiced in Judea, but certainly not in Galilee. The Palestinian Talmud interprets the mishnah, obviously apologetically, by assigning the Judean practice of premarital cohabitation to the aftermath of the Bar Kokhbah revolt, as a result of the imposition of the jus primae noctis (“the right of the first night”). The contract from the Babatha archive predates the Bar Kokhbah revolt, however, and thus attests a Judean practice of premarital cohabitation that is not connected to the Roman decree. In the article I shall suggest two possible interpretations for this practice. I shall conclude by arguing that the jus primae noctis in Jewish sources belongs, as has been shown for all other instances of the motif, to folklore and not to history
Cohabitation · Judaism · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Torah · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · History · Law · Philosophy
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| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
| Citation span | 1994 - 2019 (26) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |