A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom
Authors: Marilyn Yalom
Tags: Family & Relationships, Social Science, History, womens studies, Marriage, Marriage & Long Term Relationships, Civilization
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Gershom ben Judah of Worms in 1040 put an end to the practice among German and French Jews, Sephardic Jews maintained the right to polygamy for almost another millennium. An all-inclusive ban was not pronounced until the mid-twentieth cen- tury, after the formation of the State of Israel.
A considerably more limited example of Jewish acculturation to European modes is found in a thirteenth-century Hebrew-French wed- ding song, intended for performance during the marriage festivities of a Jewish couple. The song, written in both Hebrew and Old French and representing the voices of the bride, bridegroom, and chorus, combines images from traditional Hebrew nuptial poetry and the French feudal warrior world. A line from Isaiah evoking the sun and the moon as sym-
bols of the two lovers is followed by the military command “Surrender your castle”—an order derived from medieval warfare, which estab- lishes the central metaphor of the groom’s assault on the bride’s fortress. In the translation by medievalist Samuel Rosenberg, French and Hebrew (the latter indicated in italics), sacred and secular, licentious
and dignified allusions playfully vie with one another:
To the Hill of frankincense
Our hatan [groom] has come. Light of the sun, light of the moon! Surrender your castle,
For in his hand is a blood-red sword.
If you resist his advance, No one can save you.
. . . .
Gazelle, graceful dancer,
I have come to court you
Or else in a great war
I will come to defy you—
....
My armed and raging passion
Will beat its way along your path.
Let me just die now.
....
The bridegroom’s voice came forth
And to his attendants said
Even a beautiful song grows stale.
— Lift hatan and kallah [bride] up on their thrones! 13
This admixture of Hebrew and local culture was a given in the lives of European Jews, who sought to preserve their religious identity despite the restrictions imposed upon them by Christendom.
From the Middle Ages onward, when priests began to participate more regularly in wedding ceremonies, the church gained greater pres- ence in all aspects of marriage, beginning with the conjugal bed, where consummation was mandatory if the union was to be considered bind- ing. According to Christian doctrine, spouses were supposed to copu- late only for the benefit of procreation. This position, taken by the
fourth-century church fathers, had become dogma by the Middle Ages. Intercourse, for the sheer sake of pleasure, was vehemently denounced. Wives, especially, were admonished to avoid enjoying themselves; it was sufficient to welcome one’s husband as a passive recipient, but to share his ardor was expressly forbidden. 14 Sexual relations were consid- ered a debitum conjugale —a solemn duty that each spouse owed the other, but not an approved pleasure in its own right, as we hold today. For most couples, whether they followed such instructions reli- giously or not, they would have been made to believe that sex, even in marriage, carried the taint of original sin. While a few Christian thinkers, like the fourth-century churchmen Jovinian and Saint John Chrysostome, had defended marriage and argued that a wife was not an obstacle but an aid to salvation, and that married life was just as worthy as the celibate one, it was the more sinister view of their younger con- temporaries, Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine, that had won out. Medieval theology insisted that flesh was prone to evil, and that mar-
riage was, at best, a necessary evil.
Christian theologians presented married life as a lesser state than either widowhood or virginity, since chaste widows and virgins abstained from sex. Saint Jerome had stated unequivocally: “Let mar- ried women take their pride in coming next after virgins.” 15 This value judgment was made graphically clear in a twelfth-century German manuscript ( Der Jungfrauspiegel, preserved by the Rheinisches Lan- desmuseum in Bonn) that shows, allegorically, three levels
A considerably more limited example of Jewish acculturation to European modes is found in a thirteenth-century Hebrew-French wed- ding song, intended for performance during the marriage festivities of a Jewish couple. The song, written in both Hebrew and Old French and representing the voices of the bride, bridegroom, and chorus, combines images from traditional Hebrew nuptial poetry and the French feudal warrior world. A line from Isaiah evoking the sun and the moon as sym-
bols of the two lovers is followed by the military command “Surrender your castle”—an order derived from medieval warfare, which estab- lishes the central metaphor of the groom’s assault on the bride’s fortress. In the translation by medievalist Samuel Rosenberg, French and Hebrew (the latter indicated in italics), sacred and secular, licentious
and dignified allusions playfully vie with one another:
To the Hill of frankincense
Our hatan [groom] has come. Light of the sun, light of the moon! Surrender your castle,
For in his hand is a blood-red sword.
If you resist his advance, No one can save you.
. . . .
Gazelle, graceful dancer,
I have come to court you
Or else in a great war
I will come to defy you—
....
My armed and raging passion
Will beat its way along your path.
Let me just die now.
....
The bridegroom’s voice came forth
And to his attendants said
Even a beautiful song grows stale.
— Lift hatan and kallah [bride] up on their thrones! 13
This admixture of Hebrew and local culture was a given in the lives of European Jews, who sought to preserve their religious identity despite the restrictions imposed upon them by Christendom.
From the Middle Ages onward, when priests began to participate more regularly in wedding ceremonies, the church gained greater pres- ence in all aspects of marriage, beginning with the conjugal bed, where consummation was mandatory if the union was to be considered bind- ing. According to Christian doctrine, spouses were supposed to copu- late only for the benefit of procreation. This position, taken by the
fourth-century church fathers, had become dogma by the Middle Ages. Intercourse, for the sheer sake of pleasure, was vehemently denounced. Wives, especially, were admonished to avoid enjoying themselves; it was sufficient to welcome one’s husband as a passive recipient, but to share his ardor was expressly forbidden. 14 Sexual relations were consid- ered a debitum conjugale —a solemn duty that each spouse owed the other, but not an approved pleasure in its own right, as we hold today. For most couples, whether they followed such instructions reli- giously or not, they would have been made to believe that sex, even in marriage, carried the taint of original sin. While a few Christian thinkers, like the fourth-century churchmen Jovinian and Saint John Chrysostome, had defended marriage and argued that a wife was not an obstacle but an aid to salvation, and that married life was just as worthy as the celibate one, it was the more sinister view of their younger con- temporaries, Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine, that had won out. Medieval theology insisted that flesh was prone to evil, and that mar-
riage was, at best, a necessary evil.
Christian theologians presented married life as a lesser state than either widowhood or virginity, since chaste widows and virgins abstained from sex. Saint Jerome had stated unequivocally: “Let mar- ried women take their pride in coming next after virgins.” 15 This value judgment was made graphically clear in a twelfth-century German manuscript ( Der Jungfrauspiegel, preserved by the Rheinisches Lan- desmuseum in Bonn) that shows, allegorically, three levels
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