Brides and Blemishes

Queering Women's Disability in Rabbinic Marriage Law

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8201161
AutoresJulia Watts Belser (0000-0003-0354-4962, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen84
Número2
Páginas401-429
Fecha de publicación2016-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jaarel/lfv070
OpenAlexW2467149273
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas37

Rabbinic literature situates marital intimacy at the nexus of desire and disablement. While analysis of disability in Jewish thought has primarily focused on the limits that disability places on men's capacity to fulfill specific religious obligations, a feminist intersectional analysis of disability discourse in rabbinic marriage law illuminates the deeply gendered nature of disability. While notions of male disability focus particularly on the occupational stench of low-class work, rabbinic texts conceptualize women's disability in primarily visual terms. In the sensory anthropology of rabbinic desire, women are led by the nose—while men are drawn by the eye. This article uses Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theory of the queer closet to probe the charged, sexual dimensions of knowledge and ignorance at the heart of rabbinic marriage. Rabbinic law aims to protect the husband from the possibility that a blemished bride might pass, while simultaneously guarding against the immodest gaze.

Closet · Ignorance · Judaism · Nexus (standard) · Political science · Queer · Sociology · Theology · Disability Rights and Representation · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious Freedom and Discrimination