The Private Lives of Women in Persian Egypt 9781575068589

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The Private Lives of Women in Persian Egypt

The Private Lives of Women in Persian Egypt

Annalisa Azzoni

Winona Lake, Indiana Eisenbrauns 2013

© Copyright 2013 Eisenbrauns All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. www.eisenbrauns.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Azzoni, Annalisa. The private lives of women in Persian Egypt / Annalisa Azzoni.    pages cm “This book is a revision of my doctoral dissertation.” Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-1-57506-270-9 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Women—Egypt—Social conditions.  2. Women—Egypt— History—To 1500.  3.  Egypt—History—To 640 a.d.  I. Title. HQ1137.E3A99 2013 305.40932090′15—dc23 2013010393 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ♾™

Contents Preface, Acknowledgments, and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   vii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   Chapter One

The Transition from Daughter to Wife . . . . . . . . . . .  

1 12

Chapter Two

The Rights and Duties of a Wife . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

33

Chapter Three

Matrimonial Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

43

Chapter Four

The Law of Divorce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

64

Chapter Five

Women’s Legal Capacity and Activity . . . . . . . . . . .  

81

Chapter Six

Women and Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Chapter Seven

Private Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Chapter Eight

Three Remarkable Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Indexes

Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Index of Ancient Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

v

Preface, Acknowledgments, and Abbreviations This book is a revision of my doctoral dissertation. From those days of study, research, and writing until today, this work would not be possible without the conversations, support, and encouragement of a great number of people. My friend Franco Aspesi of the Università degli Studi of Milan first introduced me to the Aramaic papyri from Egypt, for which I will be forever grateful. Bezalel Porten of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose life work on Elephantine is a continual source of inspiration, has been helpful and encouraging through the years. From my time at Johns Hopkins University, I wish to thank my professors P. Kyle McCarter, Jerrold Cooper, Richard Jasnow, Betsy Bryan, and Glenn Schwartz for their generosity of knowledge and time. I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues Joel Burnett, Violaine Chauvet, Kara Cooney, Alhena Gadotti, Susanna Garfein, Doug Emery, Alice Petty, Christopher Rollston, and Gonzalo Rubio for countless inspiring conversations and constant support. They were the best classmates I could want. My late professor Delbert Hillers and his wife, Pat, made their home my first American home, for which I am immensely grateful. And I thank so many at Vanderbilt University, in particular my colleagues in the Divinity School, the Graduate Department of Religion, the Religious Studies Department, the Classics Departments, and the Program of Jewish Studies; and specifically, Jack Sasson, without whom I would not have been here, for his unfailing support and generosity; I am grateful to him and my other colleagues in the Hebrew Bible area, Doug Knight and Herb Marbury, for making me feel part of a wonderful team. I thank Dean James Hudnut-Beumler for the sabbatical leave that allowed me to make progress on this research as well as my work on the Persepolis tablets. I am also grateful to Alice Hunt for the times at Vanderbilt and now at Chicago Theological Seminary, for helping me make sense of my own thoughts and for so much more. vii

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The guild has been central to my development. In particular, I must mention Stephen Kaufman, from whom I have learned more than I can say, for offering me a job on the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project. I would be remiss not to mention Alejandro Botta and Chip DobbsAllsopp for their support and friendship. To all my colleagues who engaged me in conversation at the many gatherings of the American Schools of Oriental Research, the American Oriental Society, and the Society of Biblical Literature, I say thank you. For the many colleagues I have met along the way, I am grateful. Of course, this work would not be possible without the encouragement of Jim Eisenbraun at Eisenbrauns. I am thankful for his patience and helpful comments on the very first draft. Beverly McCoy has been a wonderful and encouraging editor, for which I thank her. And nothing would be possible without my family—their love, generosity, support, encouragement, and patience. My parents, Alberto and Bruna, and my sisters, Alessandra and Angela, are my refuge and my rock. Finally, this book is dedicated to the memory of Raymond Westbrook, without whom it would never have been written. I miss his generous mind, his wit, his passion, and his stories. He left us much too soon. Note to the Reader: All translations of the Aramaic and Hebrew quotations in this book are my own unless otherwise noted.

Abbreviations For abbreviations and acronyms used in this volume, please refer to The Society of Biblical Literature Handbook of Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (ed. P. H. Alexander et al.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999) chap. 8 (“Abbreviations,” pp. 68–152) and appendixes F–H (pp. 176–263). The following abbreviations are unique to the topic of this book and appear most frequently: DNWSI TAD

Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions, by J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1995 Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt (ed. and trans. Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni; 4 vols.; Jerusalem: Hebrew University Dept. of the History of the Jewish People, 1986–99)

Introduction The Persian Empire In recent times, publications on the Persian Empire have steadily increased in number due to scholars’ renewed interest. In the introduction to his seminal opus Histoire de l’Empire Perse, Pierre Briant provocatively questions whether the Achaemenid Empire existed (“L’Empire Achémenide a-t-il existé ?”). The issue stems from the notion that the word empire has a territorial connotation, and from the difficulty, as explained by Briant, of using this term to describe an entity characterized by “extraordinaire diversité ethno-culturelle” on the one hand and “exceptionnelle vitalité des forms d’organization locale” on the other hand. 1 Briant claims that, differently from other imperialistic rulers such as the Assyrian rulers, the Persian Great Kings did not record their history in annals, chronicles, or heroic tales. 2 Although we do have a number of royal and other inscriptions on trade routes, royal tombs, walls, and columns, most of the written sources for the Persian Empire come from documents in other languages written by other peoples and therefore, as Briant points out, “les Grand Rois et les Perses ont ainsi laissé à d’autres le contrôle de leur mémoire historique.” 3 Consequently, it is through the eyes of Persia’s enemies and subjects that most written evidence about the Persian Empire is available to scholars today. Until a few decades ago, our knowledge of the narrative history came from Greek sources, among which is the Histories of Herodotus, who contributed an invaluable and detailed picture of the Empire and its peoples. However, Herodotus and the later Greek historians of the Persian Empire were fascinated by the luxury of the Persian court and indulged in relating stories of decadence and intrigue. These 1. Pierre Briant, Histoire de l’Empire perse: De Cyrus à Alexandre (Paris: Fayard, 1996) 9; ET: From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (trans. P. T. Daniels; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002). 2. Ibid., 14. 3. Ibid.

1

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Introduction

stories have heavily influenced the modern Western perception of Persian rulers as being dedicated to debauchery and subject to the power of cunning women. 4 The Hebrew Bible provides yet another source for Persian history, particularly as found in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, which are represented as describing this period. These biblical portrayals are not exempt from problems, considering that the picture of the Persian Empire drawn by Ezra and Nehemiah is essentially positive, because the Persians are presented as restoring the Temple of Yahweh and his cult in Jerusalem. In Esther, we find an atmosphere similar to that of the Greek sources. Even though Briant appears at first to question the political existence of the Persian Empire, this does not prevent him from writing an entire monograph on and dedicating much of his work to this remarkable moment in ancient history. His efforts are understandable because, although our knowledge of the narrative history of this Empire is somewhat limited and to a certain extent controversial, the Empire’s social history is well known through the much richer information yielded by private and official sources. Although we may not know much about the Persian rulers and their origin, we can see their imperial system at work in its various regions.

The Egyptian Satrapy A brief review of foreign domination in ancient Egyptian history will set the stage for reading this volume. The first conquest of Egypt by a foreign ruler occurred in 671 b.c.e. and is attributed to the Assyrian king Esarhaddon. Egypt regained its political independence under the XXVI (Saite) 5 Dynasty, which lasted a little more than a century (664– 525), until Cambyses, following the expansionistic plan of his father, Cyrus I, decided to devote his enormous military power to defeating this formidable enemy. The conquest of Egypt by Cambyses is known through both Herodotus’s account and contemporary Egyptian sources, the most important of which is Udjahorresnet’s stela. 6 4. Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Exit Atossa: Images of Women in Greek Historiography on Persia,” in Images of Women in Antiquity (ed. Averil Cameron and Amélie Kuhrt; Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1983) 20–33. 5.  Named after the capital, Sais. 6.  Herodotus, Histories, 3.10; Georges Posener, La Première Domination perse en Égypte (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 1936) n. 3. See also nn. 1, 4, 5.

Introduction

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Herodotus’s hostile attitude toward Cambyses, whom he considered a “ruthless despot with growing delusions of grandeur and suffering from a bad case of paranoia [. . .] brutal foreign invader with no interest in, or sensitivity to, Egyptian social and religious attitudes,” 7 is not shared by the Egyptian sources, who portray Cambyses as respectful of local customs and religion. 8 Darius I became king upon the death of Cambyses (522). In his first two years as king, he was forced to suppress various insurrections. He recorded these events in the famous trilingual inscription on the rock relief of Behistun, which celebrates his victories in 10 battles against 9 rebels, “under the shadow of the God Ahura Mazda.” A number of sources report that political and administrative reorganization of the Empire was accomplished under Darius. In particular, Demotic Papyrus 215 of the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, also known as the Demotic Chronicle, reports that Darius assembled all the wise men among the officers and priests and ordered them to write up a legal code for Egypt. 9 The Persian domination of Egypt was not without problems and, in 402, Egypt regained its independence, until 343 (Dynasties XXVIII– XXX), when Artaxerxes III reestablished Persian control over Egypt. However, the so-called Second Persian Domination was very brief, and in 332, under Alexander the Great, both the Persian Empire and Egypt’s aspirations to independence came to an end.

The Aramaic Documents from Egypt As noted above, the political history of the Persian period relies on problematic sources. We do, however, have a wealth of information on this period, not about the rulers but about the “common people,” through official and private letters, administrative documents, private business archives, and legal documents in Elamite, Akkadian, Aramaic, Egyptian, Greek, and other local languages. Thus, although documentation in Old Persian is certainly scarce, we can draw from a variety of 7. Amélie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 bc, vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 1995) 662. 8.  As first pointed out by Edda Bresciani, “La Satrapia d’Egitto,” Studi Classici e Orientali 7 (1958) 132–88. 9. Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Die Sogenannte demotische Chronik des Papyrus 215 des Bibliothèque Nationale zu Paris (Demotische Studien 7; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1914) col. C, lines 6–16. The event is also mentioned by Diodorus (1.95), who lists Darius as the sixth and last legislator of Egypt.

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resources to find elements for reconstructing the history of the Persian Empire and its “imperial melting pot.” 10 Therefore, I have determined in this book to focus on the available legal and private documents that are abundant in this period. These texts open a window onto the private lives of men and women in a complex society where different traditions came in contact and influenced one another. Among these resources, Aramaic documents deserve a special place, considering that it was during the Persian Empire that the Aramaic language spread from Egypt through the Indus Valley in both official and private documents and was used by different ethnic and linguistic groups. Although the gradual diffusion of Aramaic began earlier, during the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, it culminated during the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e., when it supplanted Akkadian as a sort of lingua franca among various ethnic and linguistic groups in the ancient Near East. The terms Official Aramaic and Imperial Aramaic have been used to designate this phase of the Aramaic language. 11 A more accurate term is perhaps Egyptian Aramaic, because a geographical designation better suits the typological differences that existed in the Aramaic of this period. 12

The Elephantine Papyri The expression Elephantine papyri collectively designates a group of Aramaic documents on papyrus and other materials that are dated mostly to the fifth century b.c.e. and were found on the Nile island of Elephantine (Upper Egypt), where a military outpost was located during the time of the Persian Empire. The finds began to surface in the early nineteenth century in various museums and the purchased collections 10. Pierre Briant, “Ethno-classe dominante et populations soumises dans l’Empire Achéménide: Le cas de l’Égypte,” in Achaemenid History III: Method and Theory—Proceedings of the London 1985 Achaemenid History Workshop (ed. A. Kuhrt and H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg; Leiden: Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 1988) 137. 11.  See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays (Ann Arbor, MI: Scholars Press, 1979) 58–63. For the classification of Aramaic dialects, see E. Y. Kutscher, “Aramaic,” in Linguistics in South West Asia and North Africa (Current Trends in Linguistics 6; Paris: Mouton, 1970), 347–412; Stephen A. Kaufman, “Aramaic,” in The Semitic Languages (ed. Robert Hetzron; New York: Routledge, 1997) 114–30. 12. Riccardo Contini, “I documenti Aramaici dell’Egitto Persiano e Tolemaico,” RivB 34 (1986) 73–109; Takamitsu Muraoka and Bezalel Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (Leiden: Brill, 2003).

Introduction

5

of European travelers, and were subsequently collected during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through acquisitions and archaeological excavations. The documents consist of private and official letters, legal documents, literary compositions, and administrative and other miscellaneous texts. Written in the lingua franca of the empire, the Elephantine papyri document the life of a complex multicultural society in which Judeans, Arameans, Egyptians, Persians, and other groups coexisted and interacted under the Achaemenid administration. The private letters express the interests, concerns, and family affairs of the senders, some of whom, as is the case for the so-called Hermopolis letters, appear to be away from home under military assignment. Among the official letters, the correspondence on leather and papyrus belonging to the satrap Arshama contains missives from the satrap himself as well as other Persian officers and illustrates in detail Arshama’s involvement in the dealings of the satrapy. Also noteworthy among the official letters is the so-called Yedaniah archive, a precious source of historical information about the relationship between the Judean military colony in Elephantine and the leaders in Jerusalem. Perhaps most famous among the Elephantine papyri is a petition (of which two copies survived: TAD A4.7 and TAD A4.8) from the priest Yedaniah himself and his colleagues to Bagavahya, governor of Judah, reporting the destruction of the Temple of YHW on the island and requesting a letter giving the community permission to rebuild its temple so that they may reinstitute sacrifices in it. The archive also contains a memorandum with the joint reply (TAD A4.9) from Bagavahya and the governor of Samaria, Delaiah. The officials grant permission to rebuild the temple and to resume incense and meal offerings, but they do not mention animal sacrifice, which was clearly expressed in the petition. This correspondence offers unprecedented insight into the life of this Judean colony and sheds light on the Judean community’s relationship with its Egyptian neighbors and the Persian administration, as well as its delicate diplomatic and religious ties with the officials in Jerusalem and Samaria. In this archive, one also finds the famous Passover letter (TAD A4.1), which appears to contain instructions about leavened bread. Unfortunately, the text is badly broken and, despite the title by which the letter has become known, the word Passover is not contained in it. The word appears instead in a private letter on an ostracon (TAD D7.6) in which an unknown sender asks a certain Hošaiah to inform him about when he and his family will celebrate Passover. With regard to the legal

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documents, the private archives of ʿAnani and Mipṭaḥiah record the legal history of two families, including most notably marriage contracts, sales or gifts of immovable property, loans, and a testamentary manumission. These documents occupy a unique place in Aramaic and Jewish law and provide invaluable data regarding the legal position and the rights of the women in these families. Also deserving of particular attention is story, and the words of Aḥiqar preserved in a papyrus palimpsest constitutes the earliest attestation of a literary composition that enjoyed much fame in antiquity through its various subsequent versions in various languages. The connections between the story of Aḥiqar and other biblical stories of sages at royal court are well established, and parallels between the words of Aḥiqar and the book of Proverbs have similarly been drawn by scholars. Among the papyri, one also finds the Aramaic version (TAD C2.1) of the Behistun relief inscription, in which the Persian king Darius I recounts his victory over various rebels aspiring to the throne, and administrative texts such as accounts and lists. The Aramaic documents show a remarkably integrated community of Judean and Aramean soldiers who were probably mercenaries, who nevertheless kept some level of cultural identity. Generally speaking, we can say that Arameans were located in Aswan, while Judeans were located at Aswan, although the picture is much more complex, considering that we also have “Judeans of Aswan” and “Arameans of Elephantine” and that the same person could be called alternatively “Judean” or “Aramean.” We must also take into consideration the fact that the ostraca show that the people of Elephantine moved daily between the two sides of the river, considering that the trip by boat was short. The picture we derive from the ostraca and the letters is that of an urban community in which Judeans, Arameans, Persians, Caspians, Kwarezmians, Greeks, and other ethnic groups coexisted and interacted. With regard to cultural identity, it is worth noting that while the Arameans in Aswan had built temples to Banit, Nabu, and the Queen of Heaven, the Judeans had their own temple to the god YHW. 13 This temple coexisted on the island with the temples of the Egyptian god Khnum and the Egyptian goddess Sati, showing a remarkable level of integration of the Judeans in the Elephantine community with the rest of the population. Coexistence was not entirely peaceful, because we 13.  This is the spelling of Yahweh used in the Elephantine documents.

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have examples of problems between the two communities, as previously mentioned; nonetheless, this level of coexistence seems to portray an exceptional situation in Jewish history.

This Study The Elephantine texts have been variously studied, mainly with respect to their impact on Jewish history. 14 A few monographs on the legal aspects have also been published. 15 But scholars have paid little attention to the remarkable evidence in these sources about women and their lives. In this book, therefore, I aim at filling this gap by reexamining all of the Egyptian Aramaic documents from the period of Persian domination that focus on the women—their social status, their economic activities, and their private lives—in relation to synchronically related material. In order to collect all possible information about these aspects of women’s lives, I have analyzed the legal documents, administrative texts, and letters in detail and in their original languages. I have excluded from my research literary sources, with very few exceptions, because I aim to portray the life of actual women and not their literary representation. The primary documents examined in my research span roughly the period from the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses (525 b.c.e.) 16 to the conquest by Alexander (332 b.c.e.). 17 The comparative material extends over a longer period, including Neo-Babylonian (from ca. 626 b.c.e.) and Hellenistic material down to the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 c.e.) so that my analysis can be more thorough. In consideration of the continuum of the Mesopotamian legal tradition, I included among the comparative sources much-earlier documents as well as texts from peripheral Akkadian whenever I found them relevant to the discussion. 14. Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); Pierre Grelot, Documents Araméens d’Égypte (Paris: Cerf, 1972); Boulos Ayad Ayad, The Jewish-Aramaean Communities in Ancient Egypt (Cairo: Institute of Coptic Studies, 1975). 15. Reuven Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961); Alessandro Verger, Ricerche giuridiche sui papiri aramaici di Elefantina (Rome: Centro di Studi Semitici, Università di Roma, 1965); Yochanan Muffs, Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri from Elehantine (New York: Ktav, 1969); Andrew Gross, Continuity and Innovation in the Aramaic Legal Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Alejandro F. Botta, The Aramaic and Egyptian Legal Traditions at Elephantine: An Egyptological Approach (Library of Second Temple Studies 64; London: T. & T. Clark, 2009). 16.  With the exception of the Hermopolis letters. 17.  The Edfu ostraca, dated to the third century, are a possible exception.

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Introduction

As mentioned above, one characteristic of the Persian Empire was its ethnic-cultural diversity, which is reflected in the many languages of its historical sources, including Akkadian, Aramaic, Old Persian, Elamite, Egyptian, and Greek. Also due to the multicultural character of the Persian Empire, the comparative materials consist of documents in languages other than Aramaic (mainly Hebrew, Akkadian, Demotic, and possibly Greek), which I have examined in the original languages in order to have a better grasp on the contexts of the Aramaic texts. I also have analyzed the material from the philological point of view, using the comparative sources to shed light on expressions and words that have not been clearly understood. My aim in this comparative analysis is to determine whether the interaction of these different traditions in such a pluralistic society influenced the status and lives of its women.

Women’s Studies in the Ancient Near East I consider this book to fit well in the present-day context of women’s studies and the increasing interest in women’s history. In addition, more attention is now being given to researching the lives of people using their own documents. In recent years, numerous surveys have been published with the intent of writing histories of women in antiquity, but in most cases they are limited to the Greco-Roman period and are mainly based on literary documents. 18 In the last quarter of century, a few studies have been published on women in Egypt in the Pharaonic and Hellenistic 19 periods and one dissertation on women in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt based on Demotic documents. 20

18.  A notable exception is Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant’s Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), which is a collection of epigraphic sources in translation. 19.  Among others are: Anne Millard, The Position of Women in the Family and in Society in Ancient Egypt: With Special Reference to the Middle Kingdom (London: University College, 1976); Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, La femme au temps des pharaons (Paris: Stock, 1986); Barbara Watterson, Women in Ancient Egypt (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991); Joyce Tyldesley, Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt (London: Viking, 1994); Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). 20.  Alexandra A. O’Brien, Private Tradition, Public State: Women in Demotic Business and Administrative Texts from Ptolemaic and Roman Thebes (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations).

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There are various surveys available on women in the biblical and Mesopotamian worlds, 21 studies on Jewish women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 22 and a book on women in Persia under Achaemenid rule through the analysis of the evidence from the Persepolis Fortification Archive. 23 Despite these efforts, clearly much work is still needed in this area. As noted by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, The majority of women in the ancient Orient have left no trace in the historical records. They remained nameless and unnamed. Exceptions that escaped anonymity are mostly of a notorious kind. To the qualities that guaranteed a number of these women a place in history belong love of intrigue, artful and treacherous seductiveness, cruelty and even murderousness. 24

The Private Lives of Women in Persian Egypt contributes toward completing the picture of the life of women in this ancient world. 25 The Elephantine papyri are an especially valuable source on this particular topic because they provide firsthand detailed data about women’s social and legal status, their family relations, and their business activities. In the multicultural context of the Persian Empire, the documents provide rare insights on issues of ethnicity and intermarriage as well as religion. The aim of this book is to approach these documents with a new perspective—that is, with interest in the women of Persian Egypt specifically, in their relationships, and their positions in society. Furthermore, 21. Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); Athalya Brenner, The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative (Biblical Seminar 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994); Sophie Lafont, Femmes, droit et justice dans l’antiquité Orientale: Contribution à l’étude du droit pénal au Proche-Orient ancient (OBO 165; Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999); Hennie J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (OtSt 49; Leiden: Brill, 2003). 22. Léonie Archer, Her Price Is beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine ( JSOTSup 60; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990); Tal Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996). 23. Maria Brosius, Women in Ancient Persia 559–331 bc (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 24.  Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Exit Atossa,” 20. 25.  I have based my work on a comparison with the content and methodology in existing publications on women’s history, with particular attention to works on the ancient Near East and Egypt.

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the goal is to ascertain whether and how the influence of various cultures may have determined the unique situation that can be detected in the Aramaic documents.

Methodology During my research for this book, I examined the Aramaic documents (consisting of contracts, letters, and administrative documents) in detail in order to collect a variety of data on the status and lives of the ancient women involved. As mentioned above, ethnic and religious information was taken into consideration. I did not include material culture in this study due to the current lack of data. 26 All the pertinent data were organized in a computer database in order to structure the material in a systematic framework. Types of data included, for example, whether a woman was a party to or the object of a contract, or the sender or addressee of a letter; if she was simply named in the texts, how she was referred to and why; when and why matronymics were used instead of patronymics; family and social relationships; and whether and how women were perceived in legal formulas. Subsequently, the material was divided into chapters dealing with the major topics of marriage, divorce, marital property, and women in independent or joint business transactions. Three women received special attention in this study: (1)  the wealthy Judean Mipṭaḥiah, (2) the Egyptian slave Tamut, and (3) Tamut’s manumitted daughter, Yehoyišmaʿ. They were chosen because their related texts contained more information than most and also because the women had different legal and economic statuses. Furthermore, among themselves, these three women held the positions of daughter, wife, mother, sister, slave, ex-slave, and slave-owner. Since the results of this research have in some ways changed the commonly held views of women’s lives in the Persian-Egyptian milieu, their three stories are outlined in chap. 8 below (see p. 134). Regarding contemporary sources for the Syro-Palestinian region, the material dated to the Persian–early Hellenistic period is not as abundant as material from the same period in Egypt. Nevertheless, it has been examined in order to determine whether it can yield any information about women’s lives. There is one document among the Samaria 26.  The original excavations conducted by the French at Elephantine were not useful in this regard. I hope the current excavations conducted by the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut will uncover more-useful data for future use.

Introduction

11

papyri (fourth century b.c.e.) 27 that records a transaction involving two women—one a slave and one a buyer of two slaves. 28 I have also taken into account the documents in Aramaic and Greek from the Judean Desert (Naḥal Ḥever and Wadi Murabbaʿat) dated to around the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. 29 The archive of Babatha is particularly important for comparing with the Egyptian archive of Mipṭaḥiah, because the two stories are each about a wealthy Jewish woman who was married twice and had control of her own economic welfare. The Mipṭaḥiah archive’s inclusion in the survey of comparative material is justified by its inherent connection to the other archives, even though it is not strictly speaking synchronic. Finally, I would like to address the reason that I consider it valuable to draw attention to the women in these documents. Other scholars have dealt with them only marginally. In Reuven Yaron’s monograph on the law of the Aramaic papyri, his treatment of women’s legal position and activities does not cover two pages. 30 Elsewhere, these women are only treated as they functioned in men’s world. The Private Lives of Women in Persian Egypt has been written because these women deserve treatment on their own. In fact, I do not believe that ancient women lived to function in relation to men, and in many cases I think that this approach has undermined the picture we have of them. Furthermore, by focusing on women specifically, I hope to demonstrate that, although their everyday life was different from and perhaps less documented than men’s, their life was as deserving of our attention. 27.  Frank M. Cross, “Papyri of the Fourth Century b.c. from Dâliyeh,” in New Directions in Biblical Archaeology (ed. D. N. Freedman and J. C. Greenfield; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969) 201–11; idem, “A Report on the Samaria Papyri,” in Congress Volume: Jerusalem, 1986 (VTSup 40; Leiden: Brill, 1988) 17–26. 28.  Douglas M. Gropp et al., Wadi Daliyeh II and Qumran Cave 4, XXVIII: The Samaria Papyri from Wadi Daliyeh (DJD 28; Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), esp. the section on slave sales. 29. P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux, Les Grottes de Murabbaʿât (DJD 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961); Naphtali Lewis, The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of the Letters, vol. 2: Greek Papyri ( Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1989); A. Yardeni, J. C. Greenfield, and Y. Yadin, “Babatha’s Ketubba,” IEJ 44 (1994) 78–84; H. Cotton and J. C. Greenfield, “Babatha’s Property and the Law of Succession in the Babatha Archive,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 104 (1994) 211–24; Yigael Yadin et al., The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri ( JDS 3; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2002). 30.  Yaron, Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 42–43.

Chapter One

The Transition from Daughter to Wife “She is my wife, and I am her husband from today until eternity.”

Through the years, ancient Near Eastern private archives have yielded countless documents that illuminate the lives of ancient people from various socioeconomic and legal strata. Insofar as women are concerned, documents dealing with marriage are most precious, not only because by their nature they always include women, but also because they reveal essential information about women’s rights and duties in relation to the institution of marriage. This institution, given the patriarchal context of the ancient Near East, had a crucial impact on women’s lives and was probably a main concern for the majority of them. Despite the relative wealth of material available about marriage, the scholarly debate on the topic is far from settled, particularly with regard to the actual nature of this institution. 1 Perhaps marriage is so elusive to us because, although much can be discerned from the source materials that provide specifics about its legal and economic aspects, the texts unfortunately remain rather silent regarding issues such as its social and religious implications or its personal and emotional impact. Thus, questions remain: Who decided when a woman would be married and to whom? At what age was she married? To what extent was there a formal betrothal? Did a formal ceremony mark this event? To what extent was premarital sexual intercourse accepted or punished? The extant sources usually only hint at and rarely help us to answer these questions with confidence. The documents from Elephantine do not diverge greatly from other ancient Near Eastern archives in this regard, because they also primarily include economic and legal details. 1. Sophie Lafont, Femmes, droit et justice dans l’antiquité Orientale: Contribution à l’étude du droit pénal au Proche-Orient ancien (OBO 165; Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999) 44–47; Hennie J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (OtSt 49; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 84–124.

12

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

13

Nevertheless, in chap.  1, I assess the available evidence on marriage preliminaries at Elephantine, with the help of comparative material as a backdrop to and context for my overview.

Marriage Rites At Elephantine, the extant documents do not mention marriage ceremonies, and no reference to celebrations that marked a woman’s transition from daughter to wife (or a groom’s transition to husband) appears in the texts—from either the religious or the social perspective. In the larger ancient Near Eastern context, scholars generally assume that marriage rites were carried out, though very little evidence can be found on the matter. 2 It is not difficult to imagine that some form of ceremony, possibly of a religious nature, marked the event for the families and was acknowledged by the community. Even so, I do not think that we have any evidence that marriage was fundamentally a religious institution, as Hennie Marsman appears to suggest. 3 I think it is a relevant question to ask, as she puts it, “whether marriage was seen as the will of the deity (or deities).” 4 Contra Marsman, I do not think that literary texts mentioning marriages among the gods or invoking Ishtar to grant fertility to a newly wedded couple constitute evidence that the institution of marriage was “legitimated religiously.” 5 Similarly, I do not agree that the existence of the case of a wife accused of adultery in the Code of Hammurapi (§§131–32) that required her to swear an oath or submit to a river ordeal means that, “when a marriage was endangered, the gods who were believed to protect it, were called upon.” 6 None of this evidence in my opinion suggests that marriage fulfilled the will of 2.  For evidence regarding Mesopotamian marriage rites, see Samuel Greengus, “Old Babylonian Marriage Ceremonies and Rites,” JCS 20 (1966) 55–72. Egyptian sources do not mention any religious or social ceremony; see Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993) 56. 3.  Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 107–8. 4.  Ibid. 107. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 108. The fact that judicial oaths were commonly used in the legal systems of the ancient Near East, in cases such as stolen property, undermines the notion that the purpose of the oath was to invoke the gods’ protection on a given institution. I also fail to see how the institution of marriage would be protected in a river ordeal, particularly if the woman drowned. For a discussion of these instances, with bibliography, see Bruce Wells, “Sex, Lies, and Virginal Rape: The Slandered Bride and False Accusation in Deuteronomy,” JBL 124 (2005) 52–53.

14

Chapter One

the gods or that ancient Near Eastern people considered marriage a religious institution. 7 Thus, the Elephantine documents are no exception, because they appear to be matter-of-fact records of a civil transaction.

Marriage Preliminaries With regard to the dynamics of the negotiations that took place in the stages prior to the drawing up of a marriage document, the evidence is not always clear regarding their formality or lack of formality. Scholars generally divide ancient Near Eastern marriage preliminaries into two stages. The first is called a betrothal, mostly consisting of a reciprocal promise between the groom and the bride’s guardian, who in the majority of instances would have been the bride’s father. 8 It is relevant here to note that a woman was rarely under her own authority in her lifetime and that most commonly a marriage would mark the shift of authority from the father to the husband. The boundaries and limitations of this authority were not constant in time or place, which is why I think it is crucial to look closely at the documents to determine the spheres of possible autonomy, if any, before or (perhaps more importantly) after this transition. Through the process of betrothal, a groom agreed to give a brideprice and, in exchange, the bride’s guardian guaranteed that the bride would not be married off to another man. The next phase, when the woman was already “bound” to her future husband was at times designated an “inchoate” marriage, meaning that the groom had already paid the bride-price and the woman was promised to him, but the couple had not begun cohabiting. 9 It is very likely that the marriage was only considered complete when the bride and groom lived together, presumably following a ceremony and the drawing up of a written document, but these points, as I discuss in this chapter, are not completely clear 7.  For similar reasons, I do not agree with Marsman and others that, in “biblical Israel, marriage was regarded as a covenant between bride and groom,” as I find it difficult to understand why we should take this literary idea to reflect the life of everyday people, while it is not even reflected in the biblical narratives. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 107, with bibliography. 8. Raymond Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law (AfO Beiheft 23; Horn: Berger, 1988) 29–34; M. Stohl, “Women in Mesopotamia,” JESHO 38 (1995) 125–40. 9.  For a discussion of inchoate marriage, see Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 34–38. The expression “inchoate marriage” was originally proposed by G. R. Driver and John C. Miles, The Babylonian Laws (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1952–55) 1.249.

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

15

because most of our knowledge comes from written data, and many speculations remain about the surrounding circumstances. Evidence for the first phase, the betrothal agreement, is relatively rare in ancient Near Eastern sources, 10 and Elephantine is no exception. Possibly only one document of this sort has been found, and it belongs to Mipṭaḥiah’s archive. Papyrus TAD B2.5 has been identified as the record of a betrothal agreement, but unfortunately the papyrus is badly damaged, which makes its interpretation difficult. If the text is indeed the record of a formal betrothal, then it is evidence that marriage preliminaries at Elephantine were recorded in a written document under certain circumstances. Although the reasons for written records of betrothal may have varied, the most likely scenario is that the future bride was underage, and the documents bound both parties until the marriage could take place. What is left of TAD B2.5, however, indicates little about why the parties found this particular document necessary and no clues regarding the underlying scenario. The document reads as follows: TAD B2.5:1–2 [. . .]⟨‫⟩כספא זנה זי⟩ כתיב עלא ולא א⟨ת‬ [. . .] ‫ברתך למלקחה לאנתו אנתן למחסיה‬ (. . .) ⟨this silver which⟩ is written above and I will not 11 [. . .] your daughter to take her for wifehood, I shall give to Maḥseiah [. . .] The use of the expression ‫“( למלקחה‬to take her”) presumably referring to the daughter just mentioned in the same line, is a key element in interpreting this text as a betrothal document, given the technical use of ‫“( לקח‬to take”) as to “take in marriage” and the proximity of the word “daughter” as a possible antecedent for the suffixed object. Another crucial element is the verb ‫“( נתן‬to give”) in the future tense, which 10.  Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 32. 11.  Porten and Yardeni (TAD B 29) reconstruct [‫ את[ית על מפתחיה‬and translate “and I do not co[me to Mipṭaḥiah],” but the initial ʾalep could mark the beginning of any imperfect in 1st-person singular, and not much is left of the possible taw, making it uncertain that the verb here would be ‫“( אתי‬to come”). Additionally, evidence from other documents of wifehood suggests that the groom would go to the father of the future bride instead of the woman herself. And, even though it is quite likely that the “daughter” involved here would be Mipṭaḥiah, given that this is her archive, we cannot be certain.

16

Chapter One

in all likelihood refers to a payment. The technical terminology is the same as that employed in wifehood documents, but the formulas are not the same, which is why I agree that this makes sense as a betrothal agreement. The focus of the text here is on the groom’s “taking” (‫)לקח‬ the bride, while in documents of wifehood the focus would be on the guardian’s “giving” (‫ )נתן‬her. 12 Moreover, the fragment employs the future tense for what appears to be the monetary transaction—that is, it records the promise of a mohar rather than the payment of it. The different focus as well as the promise of payment clearly point to a different moment in the negotiations. I think that in fact what we have recorded here is the penalty that the groom will incur should he decide not to take the woman for wife, thus finalizing the marriage. The change from direct (“your daughter”) to indirect (“I will give to Maḥseiah) speech is not particularly striking, because it is relatively common in the documents from Elephantine, and it could be explained by reconstructing something along these lines: [If I will I say, “I will not . . .] this silver which is written above and I will not [. . .] your daughter to take her for wifehood,” I will give to Maḥseiah. [. . .] Because the document belongs to the Mipṭaḥiah archive, it is generally assumed to concern her as the future bride, but one cannot exclude the possibility that it may have involved someone else, perhaps a sister otherwise not attested in the family documents. If Mipṭaḥiah is the brideto-be, however, then the papyrus may have recorded the preliminaries of her marriage to Yedaniah, for which no document of wifehood exists. Yedaniah is in fact only mentioned (already in a state of inchoate marriage to Mipṭaḥiah) on December 1, 459 b.c.e., when Maḥseiah transferred ownership of a building plot to his daughter Mipṭaḥiah and recorded the gift in TAD B2.3. On the same day, he recorded another contract (B2.4) with Yedaniah, and in this document he gave the plot to him in usufruct and instructed him as follows TAD B2.4:5–6 ‫ארקא זך בני ועתד בה מיתה ותב בגו עם אנתתך‬

12.  For this terminology, see chap. 2 below.

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

17

Build that land, prepare in it a ‫ )?( מיתה‬13 and reside in it with your wife. Since Mipṭaḥiah is called a wife in this papyrus, scholars have postulated that at the time she was already married to Yedaniah. 14 This is not necessarily the case, however. As I mentioned, TAD B2.3 and B2.4 were written on the same day (December 1, 459 b.c.e.), and it is reasonable to assume that the marriage had not yet taken place since the building plot seems to have been given to the couple in some state of disrepair. It was probably uninhabitable, given that the imperatives “build!” and “reside!” make it clear that the “building” and “residing” have not happened yet. Furthermore, neither document mentions a marriage document or a wedding. Another scenario is therefore possible for these documents: the marriage was at this point inchoate, and it was not only acceptable but customary to call the bride-to-be a “wife.” 15 One argument in favor of this possibility is the statement that the couple will dwell together in the house that is in the process of being built—indicating that the couple was not cohabiting at the time. It is also noteworthy that the couple is going to live on the bride’s property, contrary to the more widespread patrilocal tradition in the ancient Near East. However, as we will see in the following chapters, Mipṭaḥiah’s life was quite unusual in many ways, so this is not surprising. What remains to be seen is the following: if the marriage between Mipṭaḥiah and Yedaniah had not yet taken place when TAD B2.3 and B2.4 were drawn up, did it actually take place? Is there any 13.  This translation is uncertain, as is the word division in ‫ועתד בה מיתה‬, which could also be divided ‫ועתד בהמיתה‬, because there is no space after the hē. Although the division ‫ בה מיתה‬is in my view more likely, the translation of the word ‫ מיתה‬remains uncertain. Pierre Grelot (Documents araméens d’Égypte [Paris: Cerf, 1972] 182) proposes “sortie,” derived from Demotic mj.t, “chemin, sortie.” I find Grelot’s assumption that the final -t would have been preserved by the presence of the suffix doubtful. For a fuller discussion of the possible translations, see Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) 242 n. 14; idem, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change (2nd rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2011) 174. For a complete bibliography, see DNWSI, 869. 14.  Mainly based on the interpretation presented in A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century b.c. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923; repr. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1967) 25–26. 15.  Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 34–35.

18

Chapter One

relationship between this text and the document of betrothal? I think it is possible that the three documents were indeed connected, that the record of betrothal was followed by the documents about the house while the marriage was still inchoate but in expectation of a later marriage, but that we have no evidence elsewhere in the archive for the marriage. These three documents are the only ones containing allusions to preliminary stages of marriage, while in all other texts we encounter the bride and groom on the day in which their marriage document is drawn up, thus acknowledging the marriage as a fait accompli and offering little or no evidence about the negotiations that occurred behind the scenes. Before we shift our attention to the marriage documents, however, we should look for the ages of the bride and groom at the time of marriage. Unfortunately, this datum is never explicit in the documents, 16 nor do we have clear documentation about how this community viewed factors such as the virginity of the bride. 17 To complicate matters further, the circumstances surrounding the marriage of the three women in the Elephantine archives appear to be different in each case, making it difficult for us to understand what would have constituted the norm rather than the exception. Mipṭaḥiah may have been a young virgin, perhaps underage when the betrothal agreement was drawn, while her marriage document (TAD B2.6) was 16.  For the age of marriage in Mesopotamia, see Martha T. Roth, “Age at Marriage and the Household: A Study of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian Forms,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 29 (1987) 715–37. As for Egypt, see H. S. Smith, “Marriage and the Family in Ancient Egypt, I: Family Law,” in Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World (ed. Markham J. Geller and Herwig Maehler; London: Warburg Institute, University College, 1995) 48. 17.  If the bride had to be a virgin, a lower age of marriage was likely. The virginity of the bride was an important factor in Mesopotamia and in the biblical record, where it could determine a different bride-price, and its absence could disqualify the woman for marriage. See Jerrold S. Cooper, “Virginity in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2–6, 2001 (ed. S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002) 91–112; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in Bible,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson, and Tikva Frymer-Kensky; JSOTSup 262; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1998) 79–96. The situation was completely different in Egypt, since, as Johnson clearly demonstrated, “There is no evidence in Egyptian documentary or literary materials of any concern with virginity” ( Janet H. Johnson, “Sex and Marriage in Ancient Egypt,” in Hommages à Fayza Haikal [ed. Nicholas Grimal, Amr Kamal, and Cynthia May-Sheikholeslami; Bibliothèque d’Étude 138; Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 2003] 155–59).

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

19

probably the record of a second marriage—that is, if her marriage to Yedaniah was eventually finalized. Despite the fact that we do not have any further evidence that this actually occurred, I think there is a hint that it did, because Mipṭaḥiah’s status at the time of her marriage to Esḥor was possibly not that of a young virgin bride. 18 In the other family archive from Elephantine, the so-called ʿAnani archive, we encounter the bride Tamut only on the day when her marriage document (TAD B3.3) was drawn, and at this point she had already borne a child to the groom. This makes it clear that the virginity of the bride was not a requirement in this instance, although it is possible, as I think, that her legal status as a slave had an impact on the underlying scenario. 19 I think that it is precisely because of the birth of a male child that this particular document was written: to clarify the position of the child vis-à-vis the bride’s owner. This does not give us much information about Tamut’s age at marriage, but the fact that she had already borne a child means that she had at least matured as a woman. Of the three women in the Elephantine family archives, the one who was most likely to have been a young virgin bride when her contract was written was Tamut’s daughter Yehoyišmaʿ. She is first mentioned in 434 b.c.e. in a document (TAD B3.5) pertaining to the landed property of her parents, where she is listed as their child, but her birth date is unknown. Tamut, although married to ʿAnaniah, was still a slave until 427 b.c.e., when both she and Yehoyišmaʿ were freed by their owner, Mešullam, in a testamentary manumission. If Yehoyišmaʿ was born while Tamut was a slave, she would not have been under her biological father’s authority. There was a provision in Tamut’s marriage contract about authority over her son. But, even though nothing was mentioned at the time about other existing or future children of Tamut and ʿAnaniah, 20 and even if Yehoyišmaʿ was born after the marriage contract was drawn, she still would have been under Mešullam’s authority. Given these parameters, it is possible to advance some possibility regarding her age at marriage. If she was born before before 449 b.c.e., when her mother married ʿAnani, she would have been over 29 years 18.  There is no evidence of children from her first marriage, but, as I will discuss below, her matrimonial property may offer a clue in this regard. 19.  The fact that the woman was Egyptian may have also been a contributing factor. 20.  This might be considered evidence that Yehoyišmaʿ had not been born at the time.

20

Chapter One

old at the time of her wedding—which, for that time, was quite old. 21 Instead, we can postulate that she was born not long before the first time she was actually mentioned, which was 434 b.c.e. In this case, she would have been at least 14 years old at the time of her marriage in 420 b.c.e., which appears to be a more likely age for a virgin bride. 22

The “Documents of Wifehood” The next stage, the completion of marriage, was indicated in the socalled “documents of wifehood” (based on a translation of the Aramaic ‫)ספר אנתו‬, which provide detailed information about this procedure. Three complete and four fragmentary documents of this sort found at Elephantine are a valuable resource for our understanding of the position of the women in this community. 23 Though few in number, these documents have rather unique features, despite clear connections with their ancient Near Eastern counterparts, and may deserve a special place in the history of the institution of marriage. Before examining the content of the wifehood documents, we must entertain the question whether they were necessary for a marriage to be considered legal and binding. I think that the evidence points to the probability that at Elephantine the drawing up of a written document was not essential for a valid marriage. As I will discuss below, all the extant documents seem to have been prompted by some peculiarity, such as a second marriage or the existence of a guardian other than the father. Furthermore, as we have seen, there is evidence that at least one marriage, that of Mipṭaḥiah and Yedaniah, may have occurred without a written record. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that, at Elephantine, as Roth has argued for Neo-Babylonian marriage agreements, a written marriage document was only implemented in atypical situations. 24 The documents themselves follow a somewhat consistent pattern, although quite a range of variations can be found, most of which can be explained by the different economic, social, and legal statuses of the 21. See Roth’s analysis of the age of marriage in n. 16 above. 22.  As discussed in chap. 3, Yehoyišmaʿ’s matrimonial property is in fact much more substantial than Mipṭaḥiah’s, which, given the women’s different legal and social status, is a good indicator that Yehoyišmaʿ was “valued” more than Mipṭaḥiah in this regard, even though Mipṭaḥiah appears to have had more contractual power. 23.  TAD B2.6; B3.3; B3.8; B6.1–4. 24. Martha T. Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements: 7th–3rd Centuries b.c. (AOAT 222; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989) 26.

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

21

women involved. The differences (as well as the similarities) are quite remarkable, and I will therefore examine them in detail. All documents begin with the notation of the date, 25 followed by the presentation of the parties, which are the groom and the bride’s guardian. The documents then proceed to record the groom’s direct speech, in the words of which our three papyri show little variation: TAD B2.6:3–4 ‫אנה [א]תית ביתך למנתן לי לברתך מפטיה לאנתו הי אנתתי ואנה‬ ‫בעלה מן יומה זנה ועד עלם‬ I came (to) your house for (you) to give me your daughter Mipṭaiah for wifehood. She is my wife and I am her husband from today until forever. TAD B3.3:3–4 ‫אנה אתית עליך למנתן לי תמת שמה זי אמתך לאנתו הי אנתתי ואנה בעלה‬ ‫מן יומש זנה ועד עלם‬ I came to you for (you) to give me Tamut by name, who is your slave, for wifehood. She is my wife and I am her husband from today and until forever. TAD B3.8:3–4 ‫אנה אתית על[יך בבית]ך ושאלת מנך לנשן יהוישמע שמה אחתך לאנתו‬ ‫ויהבתה לי הי אנתתי ואנה בעל[ה] מן יומא זנה עד עלם‬ I came to [you in your] house and I asked from you lady Yehoyišmaʿ by name, your sister, for wifehood, and you gave her to me. She is my wife and I am her husband from this day until forever. TAD B6.1:3–4 [‫] ואנה בעלה מן יומא זנה עד על[ם‬. . .[‫אנה אתית עליך בביתך ושא[ל]ת‬ I came to you in your house and I ask[ed . . .]and I am her husband from today until forever.

25.  The date is usually given according to the Babylonian calendar first, followed by the Egyptian calendar; it follows the formula: “In day X of month Babylonian Month, that is day Y of Egyptian Month, of year Z of PN the king” (Porten, Elephantine Papyri in English, 82).

22

Chapter One

The phraseology, though similar in all documents, is not identical in the various cases. Differences in the formulas have been analyzed by Yaron, who claims that inconsistencies in wording do not imply a difference in substance. In his opinion, they simply show that the formulas were not completely sterotypical. 26 Nevertheless, it is possible to interpret at least some of the variations as reflecting the complexity of the differences in context, and morecomplicated formulas may have been determined by specific cases. For example, TAD B3.8 underscores “and you gave her to me.” One might assume that this is superfluous and is stating the obvious. However, in this papyrus, the woman is called ‫“( נשן‬lady”), in all likelihood due to her status as a manumitted slave and due to the fact that her patronymic is not stated because the guardian who is giving her away is in fact not her father. Thus, the more extensive and perhaps redundant wording here may have been determined by the bride’s particular situation. It is therefore possible that the fuller formula, declaring the formal acceptance by the other party, was used in order to prevent any disagreements or misunderstandings. Whether by drawing up a contract or by some other formal agreement, and probably sealed by the pronunciation of verba sollemnia, the preliminaries of marriage were completed when the husband and wife were legally conjoined and assumed their respective rights and duties.

Prenuptial Agreements in the Ancient Near East Marriage preliminaries in Mesopotamia are discussed by Westbrook, who claims that betrothal and the various types of inchoate marriage created a binding, legal obligation between the parties involved. 27 Yaron, on the other hand, proposes that the existence of formal prenuptial agreements, although not to be excluded, is not clearly established. 28

26. Reuven Yaron, “Aramaic Marriage Documents from Elephantine,” JSS 2 (1957) 29–30. 27.  Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 29–38. In this section and elsewhere, by prenuptial agreement, I mean any formal preliminary agreement. 28. Reuven Yaron, The Laws of Eshnunna ( Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1969) 173.

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

23

The first-millennium Neo-Babylonian laws (§§8–12) attributed a legal value to prenuptial agreements, even when they were oral, as we can see in §9: A man who makes an oral promise of the dowry for his daughter, or writes it on a tablet . . . the father-in-law (i.e., the bride’s father) and the groom will not by mutual agreement alter the commitments. 29

As the passage clearly states, the promise of a dowry, whether in oral or written form, was legally binding, and the parties could not change it, even if both the groom and the father of the bride were in agreement. It is possible that the stipulation had the purpose of protecting the bride’s asset, which is also evident in laws requiring a father to give a dowry to his daughter. In Egypt, where legal marriage documents are rare for most of the Pharaonic period, there is one record from the XXVIth Dynasty that appears to attest prenuptial negotiations; it appears to be an agreement in which the father is refusing to give his daughter in marriage in view of her young age (“her time has not yet come”). 30 The marriage did take place the following year, however, when a new document was written. 31 Since this is the only document of its kind so far, it is difficult to determine whether preliminary agreements were regularly recorded if the bride was underage, which probably means before menstruation, or whether this papyrus represents an exception. Although prenuptial documents scarcely appear in Egyptian records, marriage documents are more accessible to us, although, as in the rest of the ancient Near East, they are primarily concerned with the legal and economic aspects of the marriage institution. 32 Apparently, in the Old Babylonian period, the drawing up of a contract was necessary for a marriage to be valid, if we take Hammurapi Code §128 at face value:

29.  Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997) 146–47. 30.  P. W. Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt: A Contribution to Establishing the Legal Position of the Woman (Papyrologica Lugduno: Batava 9; Leiden: Brill, 1961) 8. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid.

24

Chapter One If a man marries a wife but does not establish a binding agreement for her, that woman is not a wife. 33

The difficulty in interpreting this passage is centered around the question whether the term riksātum refers to a written contract or an oral agreement. Koshaker’s arguments for the first possibility have been rebutted by Greengus and others, who after an extensive review of the occurrences of riksātum and connected terms concluded that the term is a general term for the second possibility. 34 As I mentioned above, Roth claimed that there is no evidence in Neo-Babylonian documents that a written agreement was a condicio sine qua non for marriage. 35 In particular, she observed that there are no marriage documents for the women in the Egibi family from Murašu, even though there is clear evidence of transfers of dowry for nine of them. 36 Roth furthermore raises the possibility that the writing of marriage documents occurred only in atypical situations. 37 After examining various cases, she concludes that marriage documents normally were concluded orally, probably before witnesses, and perhaps were accompanied by ceremonies or rites of which we remain ignorant. . . . [W]e may never be able to determine why certain marriages and not others demanded a written record. The reasons for committing these agreements to writing may have been unique for each document. 38

Mesopotamian evidence, therefore, suggests by and large that, despite the abundance of legal collections and legal documents, the drafting of a marriage document was not essential to the institution of marriage, even though some sort of binding agreement was necessary. 33.  Roth, Law Collections from Mespotamia and Asia Minor, 105. 34.  The first position is argued by Paul Koshaker, Rechtsvergleichende Studien zur Gesetzgebung Hammurapis (Leipzig: von Veit, 1917) 111–13. For the second position, see Samuel Greengus, “The Old Babylonian Marriage Contract,” JAOS 89 (1969) 513; followed by Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 29. Also, law §9 of the NeoBabylonian laws appears to support the validity of both oral and written agreements. 35.  Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 24–28. 36.  Ibid., 26. See also idem, “The Dowries of the Women of the Itti-Mardukbalāṭu Family,” JAOS 111 (1991) 19–37. 37.  Ibid., 26. 38.  Ibid., 28.

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

25

As for Egypt, the consensus is that so-called “marriage contracts” were not required for the establishment of marriage. 39 For most of the Pharaonic period, documentation on marriage is quite meager, which has led to the conclusion that marriage agreements were customarily oral. 40 Evidence of written documents begins in the ninth century, but even then, as Johnson points out, “These documents were not designed to legitimize the marriage; they were not a prerequisite for marriage nor did they have to be contracted at the time of the union.” 41 The Egyptian situation is complicated by the fact that there are two types of documents drawn up in connection with marriage: the sẖ n sḥm.t (“document of a wife”), resembling the ‫ ספר אנתו‬not only in the appellation but also largely in format, and the sẖ n sʿnḫ (“annuity contract”).  42 The earliest examples of sẖw n sḥm.t are dated to the ninth century. In them, the groom gives a šp n sḥm.t (“gift of/for the woman”) to the father of the bride; as will be discussed below, in later “marriage contracts,” the groom addresses the bride directly. In the sẖ n sʿnḫ, the most common form of marriage document in the Ptolemaic period, the groom receives money for the maintenance of the wife from the woman herself, and his property functions as security for meeting this obligation. 43

A Comparison As I have discussed above, written records regulating the institution of marriage are attested in Mesopotamia and, at least in the first millennium, in Egypt, even though in neither culture can it be said that they were necessary for a marriage to begin. But how do these documents compare with the Aramaic “documents of wifehood?” What was the purpose and scope of these documents in these different cultures? 39.  Janet H. Johnson, “The Legal Status of Women in Ancient Egypt,” in Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven (ed. Anne K. Capel and Glenn E. Markoe; New York: Hudson Hills, 1996) 180. 40.  Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, 60. 41. Ibid. 42.  For a discussion, see Janet H. Johnson, “ ‘Annuity Contracts’ and Marriage,” in For His Ka: Essays Offered in Memory of Klaus Baer (ed. David P. Silverman; SAOC 55; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1994) 113–32. 43.  Pestman (Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt, 48) argues regarding this type of document: “It cannot be said with certainty that they concern a marriage.” His opinion is convincingly refuted by Johnson, Annuity Contracts, 114–20.

26

Chapter One

In this section, I compare these various documents, and offer possible explanations for the differences. In the Elephantine documents, the groom reports that he has gone to the bride’s guardian’s house to request that the bride be given to him “in wifehood,” after which he pronounces the formula “She is my wife and I am her husband from this day and forever,” which seals the transition of bride and groom to wife and husband, respectively. As Yaron correctly points out, this formula has no exact parallel in Egyptian or Akkadian documents. However, both legal traditions manifest similar expressions in the records, underscoring the change of status, at least insofar as the wife is concerned. 44 A partial formula is attested in the Neo-Babylonian marriage agreements, which usually reads lu-ú dam ši-i. As Roth explains, this could be translated “let her be my wife” as well as “let her be a wife,” and both possibilities are justified by variant syllabic spellings. 45 In Egyptian documents, the groom generally addresses the bride directly and proclaims, “I have made you (as) wife,” 46 with the exception of one case, where it is the wife who declares, “You have made me (as) wife.” 47 The only expression in Akkadian that can compare with this is ana aššūtim u mutūtim, “for wifehood and husbandhood.” 48 Although the wordings are not exactly the same, all these expressions indicate that a declaration (also called verba sollemnia) was a common feature of documents that established the legal change of a woman from a “daughter” to a “wife.” It is possible that the verba sollemnia were pronounced regardless of the presence of a written record, because this seems to have been a constant feature, and similar declarations can also be found in later documents. The majority, however, refer only to the wife’s change of 44.  Yaron, Aramaic Marriage Documents, 30–31. 45.  Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 5. 46.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property, 9; Smith, “Marriage and the Family,” 49. 47. P. Libbey (341–332 b.c.e.) cited by Cary J. Martin, “Marriages, Wills and Leases of Land: Some Notes on the Formulae of Demotic Contracts,” in Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World (ed. Markham J. Geller and Herwig Maehler; London: Warburg Institute University College, 1995) 64. 48.  The use of verba sollemnia in Old Babylonian was proposed by Greengus, The Old Babylonian Marriage Contract, 514–23. For a different view and discussion of the bibliography, see Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 48–50. For a discussion of the expression ana aššūtim u mutūtim aḫāzum, see ibid., 10–11.

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

27

status. For example in the second-century Aramaic Papyrus Yadin 10, also known as Babatha’s ketubbah, there is a hint of similar wording, albeit the document is badly damaged: Babatha’s ketubbah, line 5 ‫לאנת[ה כדי]ן מושה ויה[ו]דאי‬′′/]‫לאנת[ו‬ for wifehood/as a wife according to the law of Moses and the Judeans. 49 This expression finds a parallel in Papyrus Murabbaʿat 20, line 2 ‫] את]י תהוה לי לאנתה כדין מ[שה‬ You will be a wife for me according to the law of Moses. 50 It is noteworthy that the Aramaic texts from Elephantine (see p.  21 above) show the most complete wording, overtly expressing the mutual relationship between husband and wife, who are both transformed, reciprocally, in the formula. While this could certainly be a mere coincidence, one wonders whether the reciprocity reflected in the Aramaic formula may have some bearing on the actual legal position of the woman. The husband pronounces the formula and takes the woman “for wifehood,” but in this particular form of the declaration, the result is that her change of status to “wife” is paralleled by the man’s change to “husband.” As I will point out below, this declaration also marks the transition of the woman from an object to a party in the document, and the reciprocity of the formula may mean that both parties from this point on have rights and duties in the succeeding sections. The presence of these later Jewish marriage documents has caused scholars to conjecture that the Elephantine papyri were ketubbot or 49. The document was first published in Ada Yardeni, Jonas C .Greenfield, and Yigael Yadin, “Babatha’s Ketubba,” IEJ 44 (1994) 75–84. Yigael Yadin et al., The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri ( JDS 3; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2002) 118–41. 50. P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux, Les Grottes de Murabbaʿât (DJD 2; Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 110. The formula may also be present in Papyrus 21 (line 70), where the traces could be interpreted to read ‫]ת]הוה‬. For the context of these phrases, see Zeʾev Safrai, “Halakhic Observance in the Judaean Desert Documents,” in Law in the Documents of the Judaean Desert (ed. Ranon Katzoff and David Schaps; JSJSup 96; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 219.

28

Chapter One

proto-ketubbot, as first suggested by Lidzbarski. 51 However, Yaron remarked that the only elements that these formulas have in common with talmudic and later ketubbot is the fact that they all deal with marriage. 52 It is also noteworthy that the papyri do not use the term ketubbot to identify the type of record, but they use the expression ‫ספר אנתו‬, literally, “document of wifehood.” The word ‫ אנתו‬is etymologically related to Akkadian aššūtum, “marriage, status of a wife,” used in Mesopotamian contracts. 53 Although there are various similarities between the Aramaic “document of wifehood” and the Akkadian contracts, the connection to the Jewish ketubbot is also apparent, as clearly pointed out by Geller, who quotes the three stages in the history of the ketubbah as recounted in b. Ketub. 82b: 1.  payment of mohar from groom to the bride’s father, who retained it; 2.  mohar converted into household utensils; 3.  promise of payment of the mohar, which is only to be given in case of divorce. 54

The Elephantine documents, in Geller’s view, are situated between the two early stages, because the mohar is still paid, but its value is added to the dowry. 55 He further comments that “it is no longer possible to discern the development of Jewish law in the period of the Mishnah without reference to the legal practices of Ptolemaic Egypt.” 56 Our knowledge of the evidence for the development of the ketubbah is now more complete thanks to documents from the Judean Desert mentioned above. The earliest known ketubbot are Babatha’s ketubbah and the two fragmentary documents from the Murabbaʿat caves, dated to the second century c.e. Contemporary with them are two fragmentary marriage documents in Greek, one text from Naḥal Ṣeʾelim, and two marriage documents in Greek from Naḥal Ḥever. 57 51. Mark Lidzbarski, Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik, vol. 3 (Giessen: Ricker, 1909–15) 70–81. 52.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 44. 53.  See above, n. 48. 54.  M. J. Geller, “New Sources for the Origins of the Rabbinic Ketubah,” HUCA 49 (1978) 227–45. 55.  Ibid., 228. 56.  Ibid., 245. 57.  Ibid., 243–46; Hannah Cotton, “A Cancelled Marriage Contract from the Judean Desert,” JRS 84 (1994) 64–86; Naphtali Lewis, The Documents from the Bar

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

29

It is possible to imagine, with Geller, 58 a common legal tradition from the Mesopotamian milieu through the Aramaic documents from Egypt to the later rabbinic ketubbot. But the evidence from the Palestinian ketubbot as well as the influence of the Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Roman cultures further complicate the picture. In my view, the similarities among the Mesopotamian marriage agreements, the Aramaic documents from Egypt, the Egyptian documents, and the later ketubbot indicate that the Elephantine documents were a sort of trait d’union between the various traditions. As for the terminology question, they are not called ketubbot in Aramaic. In fact, the word ketubbot may not be the most appropriate term. On the other hand, given their connection to these marriage documents, we might legitimately designate them proto-ketubbot. A final question regards the nature of the marriage documents. The original hypothesis that a marriage contract was a purchase of the bride (Kaufehe), which was proposed by Koshaker, has been convincingly refuted by various scholars on legal grounds. 59 Koshaker’s hypothesis is nevertheless relevant to this analysis since Koshaker identified the similarity between a marriage contract and a contract of sale, partly because the agreement in the Old Babylonian documents is between the groom and the father of the bride, who therefore is considered an object in the document. Among the 45 Neo-Babylonian documents studied by Roth, 6 are in the objective, 3rd-person narrative style, in which the groom is reported to have taken a wife, and the wife’s guardian is not mentioned. 60 The majority are in dialogue form, and the groom addresses the wife’s guardian (father, mother, or brother). 61 In three cases, however, the bride is addressed directly by the groom. 62 They testify to the fact that a Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters, vol. 2: Greek Papyri ( Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1989) 76–82, 130–33. Regarding the Murabbaʿat fragments, see n. 50 above. Naḥal Ṣeʾelim: H. Cotton, “A Cancelled Marriage Contract from the Judean Desert,” JRS 84 (1994) 64–86. Naḥal Ḥever: Lewis, Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period: Greek Papyri, 76–82, 130–33. 58.  Geller, “New Sources for the Origins of the Rabbinic Ketubah,” 245. 59.  Koshaker, Rechtsvergleichende Studien zur Gesetzgebung Hammurapis, 211–35; also idem, “Eheschliessug und Kauf nach altem Recht, mit berechte,” ArOr 18 (1950) 210–96; for discussion, see Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 53–59. 60.  Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 3. 61.  Ibid., 6. 62.  Ibid., nos. 2, 25, 29.

30

Chapter One

woman could actively participate in a sui iuris position in her marriage contract. At Elephantine, even though the contracts are designated “of wifehood,” the wife does not appear initially to be a party in the transaction. The explicit parties are the groom and the guardian of the bride. Yaron claims that, “no doubt, the person giving away the bride is usually the father (stricto sensu),” 63 although the situation portrayed in the documents varies. In only one case is the father of the bride the party in question. 64 As will be discussed below, the written documents do not portray the “usual” situation but were drawn up in atypical circumstances, as is clear, for example, from TAD B3.8, Yehoyišmaʿ ’s marriage papyrus. In this case, it was the son of the ex-owner of this manumitted slave, whom he describes as his “sister” and whom he gives away, although we know for certain that at that time the father was still alive. Similarly, one cannot argue that the transaction is done between the groom and the “head of the family of the bride.” 65 This is simply not the case in TAD B3.8, as we have seen, and possibly in B6.4, while, unfortunately, all of the fragmentary documents are missing the phrases that would tell us who is being addressed by the groom. In B6.4, which contains only the latter part of a document of wifehood, the parties are clearly the groom and the mother of the bride. The high incidence of cases in which the bride’s guardian is not the father supports the notion that at Elephantine written marriage agreements were necessary only in atypical or unclear situations. As in the Neo-Babylonian documents, it seems more accurate to state that in the Elephantine papyri the transaction is between the groom and the wife’s guardian. In any case, in none of our texts does the groom address the bride herself, but the endorsements, when available, read “document of wifehood which PN son of PN wrote for FN.” 66 The fact that the endorsement states that the contract is written for the woman demonstrates that, although she is not a party in the beginning of the document, she becomes a party after the verba sollemnia, so the contract is ultimately written for her benefit. 63.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 45. 64.  TAD B2.6. 65. Ibid. 66. In TAD B2.6, the endorsement is missing; B3.3 reads ‫ספר א[נתו זי כתב ענני‬ ‫לת]מת‬, reconstructed on the basis of B3.8: ‫ספר אנתו זי כתב ענניה בר משלם ליהוישמע‬.

The Transition from Daughter to Wife

31

In any case, I argue that one cannot claim that the bride is the passive object of the contract, simply because the contract lists her duties, but also her rights, and in many instances she is said to have rights and duties, which can only happen if at some point in the contract she has become an active party. I propose that it is in fact after the utterance of the verba sollemnia that the declaration “She is my wife, and I am her husband for this day and forever” marks the completion of the transition from bride to wife. After this, the wife becomes an active party, whose rights and duties are detailed in the document. This would explain why the bride’s guardian does not appear in the endorsement, which was written after the transition had taken place. In Egyptian documents, there is also evidence of a shift in the focus of the second party. In fact, in documents from the ninth to the midsixth centuries, the groom speaks to the father of the bride, but in all the extant marriage contracts after 537 b.c.e., the groom addresses the bride directly. 67 According to Johnson, “It has been suggested that the switch from father to bride was the result of the influence of the Aramaic law . . . but there is no clear evidence for Aramaic influence and such a switch fits well with the high legal status of women throughout Egyptian history.” 68 It should be noted that there could not be Aramaic influence in the switch from father to bride, since the bride was not directly addressed in the Aramaic documents from Elephantine. If we turn our attention to the marriage documents from Palestine, on the other hand, we find that in Babatha’s ketubbah as well as in the Wadi Murabbaʿat Aramaic documents, the groom addresses the bride directly, while the Greek texts from Naḥal Ṣeʾelim and Naḥal Ḥever are formulated in the 3rd-person narrative form, with the bride’s guardian giving away the bride to the groom. There is a clear division across language lines that is particularly interesting if we take into account a Greek marriage document from Elephantine that is dated 311 b.c.e. Again, the text is in 3rd-person narrative form, but the document states: 67.  Janet H. Johnson, “The Persians and the Continuity of Egyptian Culture,” in Achaemenid History VIII: Continuity and Change—Proceedings of the Last Achaemenid History Workshop, Ann Arbor, April 6–8, 1990 (ed. Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Amélie Kuhrt, and Margaret Cool Root; Leiden: Nederland Instituut voor heet Nabije Oosten, 1994) 156. 68. Ibid.

32

Chapter One Marriage document of Heraclides and Demetria. Heraclides takes as his lawful wife Demetria, Coan, from her father Leptines, Coan and her mother Filotis. 69

The fact that not only does the groom not address the bride directly but he is said to have taken her from her parents shows that addressing the bride, which is attested transitionally in Aramaic and clearly in Demotic, was not common in Greek tradition. As for the origin of this new tendency, which was not original in any of the cultures examined, one may postulate internal evolution or even consider (but only as a possibility) Persian influence. 70 69.  H. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar, Select Papyri (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932) 2.2–3. 70.  This possibility was suggested by U. Türck, “Die Stellung der Frau in Elephantine als Ergebnis persisch-babylonischen Rechtseinflusses,” ZAW 5 (1928) 166– 69. The absence of evidence from the Persian sources makes it difficult to determine if this was in fact the case.

Chapter Two

The Rights and Duties of a Wife “I will not be able to say, ‘I have another wife.’ ”

It is generally assumed that cohabitation of the bride and groom marks the beginning of a marriage, and by and large this seems to have been the case at Elephantine. All three documents contain a statement that the bride has gone to the groom with the dowry “in her hand,” thus indicating that the couple has begun cohabitating and that the transfer of property is completed. TAD B2.6:6–7 ‫ באבני‬2 ‫ שקלן‬1 ‫הנעלת לי [ברתך] מפטחיה בידה כס[ף] תכונה כרש‬  . . . ‫מלכא‬ [Your daughter] Mipṭaḥiah brought to me in her hand a cash amount of 1 silver karš, 2 šekels by the stones of the king. . . . TAD B3.3:4 . . . 1 ‫הנעלת לי תמת בידה לבש‬  Tamut brought to me in her hand 1 dress. . . . TAD B3.8:5–6 5 ‫ חלרן‬2 ‫הנעלת לי יהוישמע אחתך לביתי תכונה זי כסף כרשן תרין ש[ק]לן‬ Your sister Yehoyišmaʿ brought to me in her hand a silver tkwnh of two karš, 2 šekels, 5 ḥallurs. While in the ancient Near East, patrilocal marriages—that is, marriages in which the groom’s home became the matrimonial home—were the norm, 1 this may not have been the general rule at Elephantine. Despite the fact that the formula used above (“brought to me”) seems to 1.  Hennie J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (OtSt 49; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 86.

33

34

Chapter Two

point to the bride’s transfer to the groom’s house, at least in the case of Mipṭaḥiah we have reason to believe otherwise. In chap. 1, I showed that Mipṭaḥiah became the owner of her house at the same time that her marriage was recorded (TAD B2.4). The house, given to her by her father in B2.3, was adjacent to her husband’s house, but documents make it clear that the couple was expected to live in her house, since in B2.4:6, Maḥseiah, Mipṭaḥiah’s father, tells the groom: ‫ותב בגו עם אנתתך‬ and dwell in it with your wife. In this case, it was possible for the husband to move in with the wife, at least if she was wealthy and powerful enough, which was the case for Mipṭaḥiah.

The Legal Status of the Wife As I showed in chap. 1, after the payment of the mohar, the transition from daughter to wife was completed by the groom’s pronouncing verba sollemnia. It was in this moment that a woman not only entered a new phase of her life but also acquired a new legal status. In this chapter, I examine the rights and duties connected with this new status as detailed in the documents of wifehood and explore how these rights and duties compare with those of women elsewhere in the ancient Near East. In particular, I consider issues such as access to property, rights to divorce, and the reciprocal obligations of husband and wife. The clauses that stipulate the rights and obligations of the parties are enumerated after the dowry lists, following acknowledgment of receipt of this marital property by the groom. These are the sections in which the Elephantine marriage contracts present their most remarkable features, not only in relation to the Mesopotamian and biblical traditions, but also in view of later Jewish traditions. One of the primary concerns was what would happen to the marital property if one of the spouses died. TAD B2.6:17–22 ‫מחר או יום א[חר]ן ימות אסחור ובר דכר ונקבה לא איתי לה מן מפ[ט]חיה‬ ‫אנתתה מפטחיה הי שליטה בביתה זי אסחור ונכסוהי וקנינה וכל זי איתי לה‬

The Rights and Duties of a Wife

35

‫על אנפי ארעא כלה מחר או יום תמות מפטחיה ובר דכר ונקבה לא איתי לה‬ ‫מן אסחור בעלה אסחור הו ירתנה בנכסיה וקנינה‬ Tomorrow or another day, should Esḥor die not having a child, male or female, by Mipṭaḥiah his wife, it is Mipṭaḥiah who has power over the house of Esḥor, his goods and his possessions and everything that he has on the face of the earth, all of it. Tomorrow or another 2 day, should Mipṭaḥiah die not having a child, male or female, by her husband Esḥor, it is Esḥor who will inherit her goods and her possessions. The reciprocal clauses in this passage, while similar, contain a few differences. In the first clause, Esḥor’s house is explicitly listed, while Mipṭaḥiah’s is not, even though we know from earlier documents that she possesses a house. Her immovable property is deliberately not mentioned in the document or counted in her dowry. Not only this, but the expression “everything that he has on the face of the earth, all of it,” which encompasses all of the husband’s property in no uncertain terms, is used only in this clause and refers only to his property; it is not present in her clause. A similar clause, albeit very fragmentary, is attested in TAD B3.8:​28–30 ‫וה[ן] ימות ענניה ובר זכר ונקבה לא איתי לה מן [י]הו[י]שמע אנתתה‬  3 ]‫יהוישמע הי [א]חדתה בביתה ונכסוהי וקנינה [ותכונתה וכ]ל [זי איתי ]ל[ה‬ And if ʿAnaniah should die not having a child, male or female, by Yehoyiš maʿ his wife, it is Yehoyišmaʿ who holds his house and his goods and his possessions and all that belongs to him. ‫יי‬

Before contemplating what would happen in the event of Yehoyišmaʿ’s death, the document contains a long clause aimed at deterring anyone from attempting to evict Yehoyišmaʿ from the house or taking away her possessions by attaching a penalty of 20 karš and reiterating that the law of this document must be followed “without suit”(TAD B3.8:32). The papyrus then continues: 2.  The word ‫ אחרן‬is missing in the text, probably due to scribal error. 3. The pap yrus has substantial breaks after this. Porten and Yardeni (TAD) reconstruct another clause and translate it: “and his . . . and all that he has.” This reconstruction is undoubtedly possible, but given the absence of a parallel clause to include the silver tkwnh in the sequence of spousal possessions, I prefer to abstain from reconstructing.

36

Chapter Two ‫להן לא שליטה יהו[ישמע ל]הבעלה בעל אחרן בר [מן] ענני והן תעבד כות‬ ‫שנאה הי יעבדון לה [דין ש]נאה והן תמות [יהוישמע] ובר זכ[ר] ונקבה לא‬ ‫איתי לה מן ענני בע[לה ענני בעלה] הו ירתנה [בתכו]נ[ת]ה ונכסיה וקנינה‬ ‫וכל זי איתי לה אף ל[א יכהל ענניה י]לקח אנתה אחר[ה בר מן יהוישמע]לה‬ ‫לאנתו הן יעבד [כות שנאה הי יע]ב[ד] לה [די]ן שנאה‬ And Yehoyišmaʿ does not have the right to marry another husband except for ʿAnani, and if she should do so, it is divorce; the law of divorce will be applied to her. And if Yehoyišmaʿ should die not having a child, male or female, by her husband ʿAnani, it is ʿAnani who will inherit her money and her goods and her possessions, and everything that she has. Moreover, he will not be able to take another woman other than Yehoyišmaʿ for wifehood. If he should do so, it is divorce; he will apply the law of divorce.

In this case, the death-of-a-spouse-without-heir clause is intertwined with the injunction that the spouse will not marry another person, in order to avoid complications for the inherited property. Note that transgression of this proscription will result in the application of the law of divorce. A comparison of these clauses with those of Mipṭaḥiah’s document immediately reveals a couple of differences. The extensive wording (“everything that he has on the face of the earth”) is not attested in the second document, which in contrast adds a clause to prevent anyone from impugning “the law of this document.” These differences in my opinion underscore the different statuses of the two women in question, because the wording of the first document reflects the contractual power of Mipṭaḥiah, while the careful corollary in the second document is probably necessary to protect Yehoyišmaʿ’s somewhat lower position. It also envisions a scenario in which someone might take advantage of her vulnerability as a widow. 4 Despite the nuanced details, these clauses are remarkable, because it was uncommon in the ancient Near East for spouses to inherit from one another, even in the case of a childless marriage and, even more importantly, women did not usually inherit their husbands’ property. Examination of the Aramaic terminology shows further nuances: whereas 4.  As I discuss in chap. 6, Mipṭaḥiah was in fact sued (TAD B2.8) for goods and possessions in connection with a “document of wifehood,” in all likelihood this one, and won the lawsuit.

The Rights and Duties of a Wife

37

if the wife dies the husband is said to “inherit” (‫ )ירת‬5 the property, in the parallel clause the wife may “have rights” to (‫ )שלט‬or “hold” (‫)אחד‬ the property. 6 Thus, while the husbands would clearly inherit from their deceased wives, presumably with full rights, their wives’ “inheritance” was probab ly restricted (for example, by being a lifetime usufruct, as suggested by Yaron), implying that, after the women’s death, the goods reverted to the husbands’ families. 7 Furthermore, the different statuses of the two women may have played a part here, because the two documents employ two different words. It is unfortunate that the terms have a wide range of meanings, making it difficult to determine the specific implications in the two different contexts. 8 The verb ‫ שלט‬is often found in legal contexts, while the verb ‫ אחד‬has a generic range of meanings such as “to hold, seize, take possession.” 9 In TAD B3.8, the death-of-a-spouse clause is followed not only by a penalty on anyone in the family of the dead spouse who might raise a claim against the property but also a prohibition on remarriage for both spous es. Should either of them remarry, a “law of hatred” (‫דין‬ ‫ )שנאה‬would come into effect (B3.8:34, 37), which meant that the laws of divorce would apply. This makes it clear that the purpose of this sort of language was to guarantee that the property would not be alienated from the original family. The fact that the clause applied in both cases shows, on the one hand, that a childless widower could not remarry without forfeiting the marital property, and on the other hand, that the verb ‫ אחד‬must have meant that the wife’s ownership of the marital property was real, so the restriction needed to be in place for her as well. 5.  DNWSI, 471. 6.  In ibid.: ‫( אחד‬35), “to take, to seize, to take possession of”; ‫( שלט‬1143), “to exercise power over; to be in command.” I agree with Botta that there is a difference between th e man’s rights and the woman’s rights here as well as a distinction between “control, possession of” and “ownership.” See Alejandro F. Botta, The Aramaic and Egypti an Legal Traditions at Elephantine: An Egyptological Approach (Library of Second Temple Studies 64; London: T. & T. Clark, 2009) 86. 7. Reuven Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 71–72. 8. In DNWSI: ‫( אחד‬35) “to take, to seize, to take possession of”; ‫( שלט‬1143) “to exercise power over; to be in command.” 9.  For a f ull discussion of the ‫ שליט‬clauses at Elephantine, see Alejandro F. Botta, “T he Legal Function and Egyptian Background of the ‫ שליט‬Clause: A Reevaluation,” Maarav 13 (2006) 193–209; idem, Aramaic and Egyptian Legal Traditions at Elephantine, 81–95, with a suggestion that this clause has an Egyptian origin.

38

Chapter Two

In the case of Tamut, at the time of the drafting of her marriage document, she was a slave and already had a child, but the text contains the same type of clause. TAD B3.3:10–13 ‫מחר או יום אחרן ימות ענניה משלם בר זכור הו תמת הישליטה בפלג בכל‬ ‫נכסין זי יהוון בין ענני ותמת מחר או יום אחרן תמות תמת ענני הו הו שליט‬ ‫בפלג בכל נכסין זי יהוון בין בין תמת ובין ענני‬ Tomorrow or another day, should ʿAnaniah die (ERASURE: it is Mešullam, son of Zakkur), it is Tamut who will have the right to (ERASURE: half) all the goods that will be between ʿAnani and Tamut. Tomorrow or another day, should Tamut die, it is ʿAnani who will have right to (ERASURE: half) all the goods which will be between Tamut and ʿAnani. This final example is particularly important because it shows that a provision of mutual inheritance in the event of the death of either spouse could also apply in situations where there were already heirs. Thus, at least in this case, the childlessness of the couple was not a condition, but a spouse’s rights would trump the offspring’s rights. It is also remarkable that, in the eventuality of the husband’s death, the slave wife would possess the joint property on her own. However, in this text, the verb ‫שלט‬ is used in both circumstances—that is, the death of the husband and the death of the wife. The explanation for this peculiarity seems to be the limited authority of the husband vis-à-vis Tamut’s owner, given the wife’s status as a slave. It also worth pointing out that this papyrus shows erasures and corrections and that the new terms are in favor of Tamut and her husband. The change of stipulations shows that there were negotiations still going on at the time of the writing of the document. It is an intriguing notion, and one wonders who took Tamut’s side in the discussion that ended wit h the new provisions. In the original stipulation, the wife’s owner, Mešullam, would have had possession of half the joint property in the ev ent of the husband’s death. We do not know to whom the other half would have been assigned, but it is possible that it would have been assigned to Tamut. In the event of Tamut’s death, in the original stipulation the husband, ʿAnani, would have had ownership of half the joint property, and it is possible that in that case the other half would

The Rights and Duties of a Wife

39

have gone to Mešullam. 10 Unfortunately, we do not know what caused Mešullam to concede in this case, but the outcome of the negotiations is striking. In sum, w ith regard to the death‎-of‎-a‎-spouse clause, even taking into account the nuances in the stipulations and the different legal and economic statuses of the brides, all three documents of wifehood share this unus ual feature: the implication is that, after a spouse’s death, a woman had possession of her deceased husband’s property. In the case of Mipṭaḥiah, it is explicitly both the movable and the immovable property, and in the case of Yehoyišmaʿ, the property is linked to the provision against his taking another spouse after her death. Even though it is not clearly stated, from this last provision it is possible to infer that children born to a subsequent marriage would not inherit any part of the deceased’s estate. The restrictions on the wife are not unexpected in an ancient Near Eastern context, but those on the husband are unique to these documents. Even more surprising is a clause in TAD B2.6 that seems to be a prohibition on polygyny: TAD B2.6:31–35 ‫ולא אכל אמר איתי לי אנתה אחרה לחן מפטחיה ובנן אחרן לחן בנן זי תלד‬ ‫לי מפטחיה הן אמר איתי לי ב[נן] ואנתה אחרן לחן מפטחיה ובניה אנתן‬ ‫ באבני מלכא‬20 ‫למפטחיה כסף כרשן‬ And I will not be able to say, “I have another wife besides Mip­ ṭaḥiah and other children besides the children whom Mipṭaḥiah will bear to me.” If I should say, “I have other children and a wife besides Mipṭaḥiah and her children,” I will give to Mipṭaḥiah 20 karš of silver by the king’s standard. The clause prohibiting polygyny appears after the divorce clauses and seems to have been added while the negotiations were still going on; the discourse switches from 3rd to 1st person, highlighting the declaration even more. The fact that only the groom declares that he will not take another spouse or admit paternity of other children might be due to 10. It is a remarkable coincidence that the original stipulations would have been in complete agreement with what the Laws of Hammurabi (§176a) prescribe in the event that a woman married a slave.

40

Chapter Two

the fact that, on the woman’s side, there was no need of such a clause: polyandry is unattested in the ancient Near East. Finallly, Esḥor declares: TAD B2.6:35–36 ]‫ולא אכל [אהנ]תר נכסי וקניני מן מפטחיה והן העדת המו לקבל ספרא [זנה‬ ‫ באבני מלכא‬20 ‫לחן אנתן למפטחיה כסף כרשן‬ And I will not be able to release my goods and my possessions from Mipṭaḥiah. If I remove them from her (ERASURE: Against this document to them), I will give to Mipṭaḥiah 20 karš of silver by the king’s standard.  1 

These last two restrictions added at the end of Mipṭaḥiah’s document of wifehood obviously have the purpose of limiting the rights of the husband in favor of his wealthy wife. As mentioned above, clearly Mipṭaḥiah’s contractual power is considerable, and the use of 1st person by the husband could not have been unintentional. Additionally, the expression “everything that he has on the face of the earth” regarding the property of the deceased spouse only applies to his property and not to hers. Her immovable property, which she clearly possessed prior to this marriage, is not mentioned in the document or counted in her dowry (see chap. 3), and notably, this exclusion of reference to her property appears to have been deliberate. Although these unusual features could easily be dismissed as anomalies, due to Mipṭaḥiah’s unique contractual power, I think it is important to remember that Yehoyišmaʿ’s and Tamut’s documents contain similarly remarkable features.

The Ancient Near East The features described above do not have parallels in the Mesopotamian tradition, where spouses did not in principle inherit from one another, polygamy was accepted and commonly practiced, there was no prohibition against remarriage by either the wife or the husband in the event of loss of the spouse, and children of different marriages shared their inheritance to various degrees. 12 11.  The reading is highly uncertain, and the expression is not clear. Here, I follow the proposed restoration by Porten and Yardeni in TAD. 12. See Laws of Hammurapi §§163–64, 170–71, 173, 177; Neo-Babylonian Laws §§10–12, 13, 15. For discussion, see Raymond Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law (AfO Beiheft 23; Horn: Berger, 1988) 103–10.

The Rights and Duties of a Wife

41

In Neo-Babyl onian marriage contracts, out of the 15 documents in which a d ivorce clause is preserved, 14 “portray the dissolution of the marriage as a consequence of the husband’s desire to take another woman in marriage.” 13 However, the dissolution of one marriage was not a condic io sine qua non for a second marriage. At least one document (no. 3) records a second marriage, and as Roth points out, “It is not simply the fact of remarriage that results in divorce, but rather the anticipated superior status of the second wife.” 14 Furthermore, there is no attestation of antipolygamy clauses, either for the lifetime of the spouse, as in the case of Mipṭaḥiah, or after the death of a spouse, as in the case of Yehoyišmaʿ. Similarly, Egyptian sources do not prohibit polygamy, although examples are rare. 15 Furthermore, there is no evidence in the Demotic material that the situation presented in the above-mentioned documents could have b een influenced by Egyptian traditions: the antipolygamy stipulations appear to be unique to the Aramaic documents. A close parallel appears only later, in a Greek marriage document, also from Elephantine, dated 311 b.c.e., which states: It shall not be lawful for Heraclides to bring home another wife in insult of Demetria or to have children by another woman. 16 This document has a clause that is similar to another special stipulation: TAD B3.8:37–39 ‫ואף לא יכהל ענניה ולא יעבד דין [חדה] ותרתין מן נשי כנותה ליהוישמע‬ [‫אנתתה והן לא יעבד כות שנאה [הי‬ And furthermore, ʿAnaniah will not be able not to do the law of [one] or two of his colleagues’ wives to Yehoyišmaʿ, his wife. And if he does not do thus, it is divorce.

13. Martha T. Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements: 7th–3rd Centuries b.c. (AOAT 222; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989) 12. 14. Ibid., 13. 15.  H. S. Smith, “Marriage and the Family in Ancient Egypt, I: Family Law,” in Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World (ed. Markham J. Geller and Herwig Maehler; London: Warburg Institute, University College, 1995) 47. 16.  H. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar, Select Papyri (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932) 2.2–3.

42

Chapter Two

The clause is followed by the same stipulation applied to the wife. Yaron 17 finds the details of this expression “obscure,” while Ginsberg 18 considers it to be referring to a refusal to have intercourse. Another possibility is to take this stipulation as being determined by the special situation of Yehoyišmaʿ as a freed woman. It could be seen as denoting the rights of a free wife. It did not apply to Tamut (still a slave at the time of marriage) or to Mipṭaḥiah (who was freeborn). However, since Yehoyišmaʿ was not born free, a clause of this sort may have been added to secure her rights as a free woman. A similar clause appears in the Greek document, which states, “Heraclides shall supply to Demetria all that is proper for a freeborn woman.” 19 An echo of this is possibly attested in Babatha’s ketubbah: ‫מזון אנתה ברת חורין‬ food fit for a free woman. (line 8) About the content of the provision, the editors of Babatha’s ketubbah consider it to be connected to Exod 21:10, which is traditionally interpreted as “her food, her garment, and her conjugal rights.” 20 Even though the clause in TAD B3.8 is less detailed, it could have had a connection to this expression. Later, in rabbinic sources, the provisions for the maintenance of the wife, consisting of food and clothing, were stipulated in detail. 21

159.

17.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 61. 18.  H. L. Ginsberg, “The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri,” JAOS 78 (1954)

19.  Hunt and Edgar, Select Papyri, 2.3. 20. Ada Yardeni, Jonas C. Greenfield, and Yigael Yadin, “Babatha’s Ketubba,” IEJ 44 (1994) 88. 21.  M. Ketub. 5:8. For discussion, see Léonie Archer, Her Price Is beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine ( JSOTSup 60; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990) 236–37.

Chapter Three

Matrimonial Property “Everything from straw to string”

Marriage regulations in the ancient Near East, whether laws or legal agreements, deal to some extent with exchanges of property among the groom, the bride, and their families. Although there are many variations in detail and nomenclature, two primary “gifts” can be identified: the gift from the groom or his family to the bride’s family, which was traditionally (and unfortunately) called the bride-price; the other was a gift from the family of the bride to the bride, who then took it to the groom, and this was generally known as the dowry. 1 In this chapter, I examine the detailed exchange of bride-prices and dowries at Elephantine and in other ancient Near Eastern cultures in order to explore women’s access to property.

Bride-Prices at Elephantine At Elephantine, the word for “bride-price” is related to a term found in a few instances in the Hebrew Bible, the mohar, also known from later sources, but a term that makes its first extrabiblical appearance in these papyri. 2 The groom declares right after the verba sollemnia that he has given the mohar to the bride’s guardian. The formula for this exchange is attested in only two of the texts but with little variation: 1.  The term bride-price (or bridal price) originates from the theory of marriage as a purchase (Kaufehe). For a discussion of this theory and its problems, see Raymond Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law (AfO Beiheft 23; Horn: Berger, 1988) 53–59. For a recent overview of the terminology regarding marriage gifts in the ancient Near East, see Hennie J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (OtSt 49; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 87–91. 2.  Gen 34:12; Exod 22:16; 1 Sam 18:25.

43

44

Chapter Three TAD B2.6:4–5 ‫ באבני מלכא‬5 ‫יהבת לך מהר ברתך מפטחיה כסף שקלן‬ I gave to you the mohar of your daughter Mipṭaḥiah: 5 silver šekels by the king’s standard. TAD B3.8:4–5 1 ‫ויהבת לך מהר אחתך יהוישמע כסף כרש‬ And I gave to you the mohar of your sister Yehoyišmaʿ 1 karš of silver.

The expression is often translated “I gave to you the mohar for your daughter/sister.” 3 Although this translation is plausible, considering that the mohar is the price paid by the groom to acquire authority over the bride, in my view the more literal “the mohar of your daughter/sister” is justified in that it is a genitive construction and thus may refer to the fact that the mohar, although given to the guardian of the bride, ultimately belongs to the bride. As I will discuss below, the mohar is added to the bride’s dowry and then taken to the groom’s house. I think there are good reasons to posit that the mohar belongs to the bride, even though it is initially given to her guardian. The guardian then gives it to her, so that it returns to the marital home. The documents make it clear that the husband cannot dispose of it unconditionally, because he will have to restore it to his wife if the marriage is dissolved. The Elephantine documents differ from later sources, such as Babatha’s ketubbah, where the groom promises but does not actually give the mohar during the marriage, with the understanding that he will give it to his wife if there is a divorce. At Elephantine, the mohar was paid in full, as acknowledged by this legal formula: TAD B2.6:5–6; B3.8:5 ‫על עליך וטב לבבך בגו‬ It came to you and your heart is satisfied with it. 4 3.  See, for example, B. Porten,The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change (2nd rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2011) 179, 228. 4.  This phrase was used mainly but not only in sale documents as an acknowledgment of receipt. The person who made the statement would not be able to declare later that the transfer of money or property had not happened. Regarding the expression, its meanings, and parallels, see Yochanan Muffs, Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri from Elephantine (New York: Ktav, 1969) 30–126; R. Westbrook, “The

Matrimonial Property

45

This expression, always denoting acknowledgment by the second party that a specified sum has been paid in full, 5 leaves little doubt that the payment of the mohar was completed. A question remains: what happened to the mohar once it was given to bride’s guardian? As already noted by Yaron and Geller, in TAD B2.6 and B3.8 the mohar clearly was added to the bride’s dowry. Along with the dowry, it was subsequently returned to the groom’s (or the marital) home and was acknowledged by the groom as being de facto part of the bride’s assets, which she would be entitled to take with her in the event of a divorce. 6 The documents never state that the mohar should be returned to her guardian instead. One final factor must be taken into account concerning the mohar: as mentioned above, only two documents record its transfer from the groom to the bride’s guardian, while in the remainder of the documents the sections containing the mohar formula are not preserved. On the one hand, it seems reasonable to surmise that the giving of the mohar was a common practice, especially because it is attested in two out of the three fully preserved texts, and there may be a reason for its absence in the third document (TAD B3.3)—namely, that the bride was a slave. As suggested by Yaron, it is possible that under these circumstances the mohar was not considered necessary to the transaction. 7 The scenario of this papyrus is complicated, however, by the presence of the following statement in the endorsement: TAD B3.3:16 5 ‫ שקלן‬1 ‫הנעלת תמת לענני בידה כסף כרש‬ Tamut brought to ʿAnani in her hand 1 silver karš 5 šekels. The amount of 1 karš and 5 šekels exceeds the value of the dowry recorded in the body of the document by 7 šekels and 32 ḥallurs. Phrase ‘His Heart Is Satisfied’ in Ancient Near Eastern Legal Sources,” JAOS 111 (1991) 219–24. 5. It is possible that the formula would just be aimed at preventing future complaints, but there is no reason to suppose that the mohar at Elephantine was fictional, especially in view of the fact that it was included with the rest of the matrimonial property. 6. Reuven Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 48; M. J. Geller, “New Sources for the Origins of the Rabbinic Ketubah,” HUCA 49 (1978) 228. 7.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 48.

46

Chapter Three

Although it is not clear what the reason for the discrepancy might be, it is possible that the overpayment included an unrecorded mohar. Ginsberg advanced the possibility that the mohar, although not registered, amounted to 7 šekels and 2 quarters, based on the divorce clause. 8 In fact, he considered the divorce money (7 šekels and 2 quarters) to correspond to the original mohar, given the parallel with the divorce formula in TAD B2.6, where the groom had to forfeit the mohar. He concluded that, if the groom initiated the divorce, he would have to pay his wife the original mohar. He based his argument on the notion that the bride took the mohar to the matrimonial home with the dowry in B2.6 and B3.8. Furthermore, he mentioned the endorsement (B3.3:16), where the recorded sum exceeded the amount listed in the body of the document as the bride’s dowry—that is, 7 šekels and 7 ḥallurs. In his view, the excess amount was a “sufficiently close approximation” to the divorce money mentioned in the body of the document. 9 Yaron expressed doubts about Ginsberg’s hypothesis, however, particularly in light of TAD B3.8, where it is stated that, if the groom initiated the divorce, the divorce money would be “on his head,” and the bride would take back her dowry. For this reason, the dowry was itemized, and the sum of money included the mohar, thus making it clear that the divorce money differed from the mohar. As for the endorsement in B3.3, Yaron simply stated that “the amount exceeds by more than 7 šekels the amount given . . . as the value of Tamut’s dowry” but did not attempt to explain the discrepancy. 10 Thus the problem of the nature of this excess amount remains, with no explanation anywhere else in the papyrus. Because the endorsement would have been written last, after the body of the document, it is conceivable that the sum reflected a last-minute decision—which would not be inappropriate in this contract, given the erasure and changes elsewhere. If the reason for the endorsement was the realization by the parties that Tamut was giving more money than was recorded in the document, and the sum, possibly the mohar, was not listed in the appropriate place, then the endorsement may have functioned as a record of the receipt of this sum. 8.  H. L. Ginsberg, “The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri,” JAOS 78 (1954) 156. 9.  Ibid. In Ginsberg’s view, it does not matter whether we factor in 10 ḥallurs to a šekel (Kraeling) or 40 ḥallurs (Cowley). 10.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 57.

Matrimonial Property

47

Yaron makes another valid point. The amount of the divorce money at this period appears to have been a sum fixed by custom, given that it was recorded as the same even when the mohar was different. 11 The notion of a fixed amount of silver as “divorce money” is not unique to the papyri; it is also customary in Neo-Babylonian documents. 12 Another consideration in support of Yaron’s suggestion that the mohar and the divorce money were not linked is the fact that in TAD B2.6 the mohar amounted to 5 šekels, while in B3.8 its sum was twice as much (1 karš). 13 If the excess amount in B3.3 was indeed the mohar, the sum of Tamut’s mohar was an amount that was right in the middle between Mipṭaḥiah’s and Yehoyišmaʿ’s amounts. This would be surprising, because it would mean that a higher mohar was paid for a slave than for a free woman. It is possible that the higher mohar for Yehoyišmaʿ was paid because Yehoyišmaʿ was still a virgin, whereas Mipṭaḥiah was probably a widow.

Bride-Prices in Mespotamian Traditions In Mesopotamian legal texts, the term most commonly associated with the notion of a “bride-price” is terḫatum. 14 As early as the Laws of Hammurapi, we find stipulations about this matrimonial property exchange. For example, §§163–64 indicate that the terḫatum was indeed a gift from the groom to his father-in-law, but it is clear that it did not come back to the married couple’s house unless the bride died childless: §163 If a man marries a wife but she does not provide him with children, and that woman goes to her fate—if his father-in-law then returns to him the bridewealth (terḫatum) that that man brought to his father-in-law’s house, her husband will have no claim to that woman’s dowry; her dowry belongs to her father’s house.

11.  Ibid., 58. 12. Martha T. Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements: 7th–3rd Centuries  b.c. (AOAT 222; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989) 13. 13.  The sum in this case is reconstructed, but it seems likely, given that the kaph is legible and there does not appear to be room for more than one vertical stroke. 14.  For a discussion of the term and its meaning, see Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 59–60, 99–100.

48

Chapter Three §164 If his father-in-law should not return to him the bridewealth, he shall deduct the value of her bridewealth from her dowry and restore (the balance of) her dowry to her father’s house. 15

These stipulations imply that, although the terḫatum was in the possession of the father-in-law and was never transferred to the matrimonial house, the dowry was transferred and therefore had to be returned in the event of the wife’s death. What is prescribed by the Laws of Hammurapi does not, however, appear to be reflected in the practice revealed in the actual contracts. As Westbrook has pointed out, in late Old Babylonian marriage documents, the terḫatum was “transformed into marital property by custom” when the father bound it to the bride’s girdle or hem, and it was then returned to the groom or his father (the bride’s father-in-law). In these documents, the terḫatum is defined as “hers.” 16 Neo-Babylonian marriage agreements offer a different scenario, because the texts do not mention a terḫatum or another gift with a similar function. Out of the 45 contracts published by Roth, only 2 (nos. 34–35) register a payment of a sum “in consideration of the biblu of the bride.” 17 The use of the term biblu here is unusual, because in Old Babylonian this term generally referred to the gift of the bride’s guardian to the bride, thus closer to the meaning of what we would call a dowry. 18 One text (no. 4) notes that the groom gave a biblu to the mother of a slave bride and a sum of money “in consideration of her daughter.” 19 As Roth points out regarding nos. 34–35, it is possible that these documents do not reflect a Neo-Babylonian tradition but a foreign tradition, in view of the fact that the documents, which are from Susa, date to the late Achaemenid period and that most of the personal names are Egyptian. 20 If this is true, they are most interesting for the purpose of this discussion because, like the texts from Elephantine, they may also 15.  Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997) 112. 16.  Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 99–100. 17.  Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 12. In her discussion of the documents, Roth translates “in consideration of the biblu (for) FN,” while in the actual translation of the documents she writes “in consideration of the biblu of FN” (pp. 110, 113). 18.  Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 103–4. 19.  Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 12. 20. Ibid., 11. As for no. 4, the names are Akkadian, the date is earlier (592 b.c.e.), and the provenance is Babylon.

Matrimonial Property

49

reflect peculiarities determined by the particular conditions created by the Achaemenid administration. I think it is noteworthy that in text no. 34 the amount given as a biblu coincides with the amount given as a dowry (12⁄3 minas of silver). Roth advances the hypothesis that the payment of the biblu was fictitious. 21 Unfortunately, no. 35 is damaged, and we do not know whether the dowry also corresponds to the biblu in that case. A fascinating possibility is that, since this provision was unusual and was probably influenced by Egyptian šp n sḥm.t, the scribe used a word that was different from terḫatum but was still in the semantic range of “marital gift.”

Bride-Prices in Egyptian Tradition Egyptian marriage documents record a variable sum, called a “gift of/for the woman” (šp n sḥm.t), given by the groom in earlier documents to the bride’s guardian and, later, to the wife herself. As with the mohar, the šp n sḥm.t had the purpose of severing “the legal link, as it were the potestas, between the bride and her father and confer[ring] it upon the husband.” 22 The similarity between the šp n sḥm.t and the mohar is even more striking given the fact that the husband returned the šp n sḥm.t to the wife if there was a divorce. 23 The situation recorded in the annuity contracts where the groom established an annual maintenance for his wife after she had given him the “money to become a wife” (ḥd n ͗ır ḥm.t) or the endowment (sʿnḫ, literally, “rations” or “clothing”) is very different from our documents and will not be discussed here. 24 The information presented above illustrates that, while there are parallels to the mohar in Old Babylonian tradition, the Neo-Babylonian sources do not confirm the practice, with the exception of two documents that may reflect foreign influence. On the other hand, the Egyptian šp n sḥm.t is similar to the mohar in form and function. Both gifts were given to the father or guardian of the bride but became part of the bride’s marital property, which she could take away (and not return to the father/guardian) in the event of a divorce. 21.  Ibid., 12. 22. H. S. Smith, “Marriage and the Family in Ancient Egypt, I: Family Law,” in Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World (ed. Markham J. Geller and Herwig Maehler; London: Warburg Institute, University College, 1995) 50. 23.  Cary J. Martin, “Marriages, Wills and Leases of Land: Some Notes on the Formulae of Demotic Contracts,” in ibid., 64. 24.  Smith, “Marriage and the Family in Ancient Egypt,” 52–54.

50

Chapter Three

Dowries at Elephantine Among the assets involved in matrimonial property, the dowry deserves a special place in our discussion, first and foremost because dowry lists contained primarily the personal or household objects that belonged to the woman. In all ancient Near Eastern cultures, dowry lists, when attested, present various challenges from the philological perspective, given the fact that some of the terms are attested only in these texts, and some items are difficult to identify precisely. However, it is through these inventories that we are allowed rare glimpses of the personal items that were considered essential for a woman to bring on her momentous journey to wifehood. In the Aramaic documents, the dowry lists follow the notation of the mohar. Unlike the mohar, however, for which the Aramaic word has been preserved, the texts do not designate a specific term for the dowry as a whole. In later Jewish sources, we find the mishnaic word nedûniâ, which is etymologically connected to the Neo-Babylonian term for “dowry,” nudunnu, but this word is not attested in Imperial Aramaic. 25 At Elephantine, the situation is different because we do have the lists of items, but the dowry is never referred to by a collective name. Even Mesopotamian sources permit no conclusion in this regard, because words for “dowry” are well known in the various phases but are not always used in the relevant contracts. 26 With regard to what was included in a dowry, fortunately all three complete documents of wifehood from Elephantine record in detail the dowry brought by the bride to the husband’s house, and a few of the fragmentary texts preserve partial dowries (TAD B6.1–4; D2.19). Dowry lists at Elephantine comprise only movable property and follow a generally fixed scheme. The first item is a specific amount of silver, known as the ‫תכונה‬, which is followed by garments, a mirror, and bronze vessels. All these goods are listed with their monetary values. Various household 25.  Geller, “New Sources for the Origins of the Rabbinic Ketubah,” 237 n. 29. For a discussion of this word in Aramaic, see Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (AS 19; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) 79. 26.  In the sources, dowry lists may be introduced by the expression “all this is what PN her father has given” (see Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 8). For a recent overview, see Kathleen Abraham, “The Dowry Clause in Marriage Documents from the First Millennium b.c.e.,” in La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancien: Actes de la XXXVIIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris, 8–10 Juilliet 1991) (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations, 1992) 311–20.

Matrimonial Property

51

items of wood, stone, or papyrus reed are subsequently listed without indication of their value, followed by assorted types of oils. The etymology of the word ‫ תכונה‬is unclear, and various scholars have proposed different etymologies for this word. The majority agree that, given the “silver” specification, it apparently refers to a cash amount. 27 The lists include various types of garments, from the simplest “woolen dress” in TAD B3.3 to the 8 different garments mentioned in B3.8. Woolen garments are present in all three lists, but in B2.6 and B3.8, some of them are further described as ‫חטב צבע ידין‬, 28 which is translated “striped with dye on both sides.” 29 The additional detail that appears in B3.8, “1 handbreadth on each edge,” may thus refer to a colored band. The values of these garments vary: in TAD B2.6, the new woolen garment (8 × 5 cubits) “striped with dye on both sides” is worth 2 karš and 8 šekels; in B3.8, we also have a woolen garment (7 cubits × 3 handbreadths, 4 cubits, and 2 quarters wide), worth 1 karš and 2 šekels; and finally, a ‫( גמידה‬6 × 4 cubits), “embroidered by the finger of the hands,” 1 handbreadth on each edge, worth 1 karš. TAD B3.3 lists a garment worth 7 šekels; B2.6 mentions another “finely woven” 30 (6 × 4 cubits) also worth 7 šekels; and in B3.8, we find a “fringed” 31 garment (6 × 4 cubits) worth 7 šekels. One would expect the dyed garment to be more expensive than the other garments, and this appears to be the case in all documents, with one notable exception: the first garment mentioned in B3.8 is worth 2 šekels more than the embroidered ‫גמידה‬. In this case, however, there are two other factors to take into consideration: the ‫ גמידה‬is smaller in size, and it is a different type of garment, which could be of lesser value. 32 Among clothing items, one particular type is worth mentioning. The term ‫ שביט‬is generally understood to mean “shawl,” 33 based on 27.  DNWSI, 1214, with bibliography. 28.  The plural form ‫ תבטח‬is attested in one of the Hermopolis letters (TAD A2.4:​10). For explanations and bibliography of this still-uncertain expression, see DNWSI, 363, 438, 958. Here I follow The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, http://cal1. cn.huc​.edu, ad loc. 29.  The plural form is attested in one of the Hermopolis letters (TAD A2.4: 10). 30.  DNWSI, 1120. 31.  Ibid., 830. 32.  Ibid., 226. A parallel (gammidu, gammidatu) for this clothing item is found in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian; see CAD G 36b. 33.  DNWSI, 1101.

52

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Cowley’s interpretation, “closely woven stuff,” 34 and on the assumption that it could only be some sort of shawl, given its length. But if we look at the measurements of this item, we see that the ‫ שביט‬is 8 × 5 cubits in TAD B2.6 and 6 × 3[+2?] in B3.8, which are (more or less) the same measurements as the other clothing items. This would mean that all the other garments were also shawls. Notably, this item is not found in B3.3, perhaps due to the status of Tamut as a slave bride. The absence of the term in B3.3 may also be attributable to the women’s different backgrounds: both Mipṭaḥiah and Yehoyišmaʿ bear Yahwistic names, while Tamut’s name is clearly Egyptian. The garments are dyed or possibily embroidered; sandals appear in all the contracts; and in two out of three cases we read of a linen shawl, when the bride is clearly Judean. As we have seen, the translation “shawl” is not certain, but it is possible that the item could have been used as a veil. The use of a veil to cover the head is known from the Middle Assyrian Laws 35 and from the ritual of the installation of the nin.dingir priestess at Emar, where we read that “they will wrap a colorful sash on her head like a bride.” 36 It is also possible that in this society married women wore a veil, but we do not know if there was a distinction between Jewish and Egyptian women or between slaves and free women. To complicate the picture further, we find a šbyṱ in the dowry list of Demotic Papyrus Berlin 13593, immediately following another garment. 37 As I discuss below, in the Demotic dowry lists, the word that is typically understood to be some sort of shawl or veil is ͗ınšn, 38 but the presence of a šbyṱ in this list is certainly too distinctive to be accidental, particularly in view of the fact that the provenance of the Demotic papyrus is also Elephantine. 39 34. A.  E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century b.c. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923; repr. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1967) 48, based on the root ‫טבש‬, “which means to keep the rod closely pressed against the work.” 35.  Middle Assyrian Laws §§40–41. 36.  Daniel E. Fleming, The Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar: A Window on Ancient Syrian Religion (HSS 42; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) 23. 37. Erich Lüddeckens, Ägyptische Eheverträge (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1960). The author translates “Büchschen (?).” See also W. Erichsen, Demotisches Glossar (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1954) 498 (cf. σεβιτιον). 38.  This item is also present in P. Berlin 13593. For a type of shawl wrapped around the body in Pharaonic Egypt, see Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, Patterns for Ancient Egyptian Clothing (Leiden: Stichting Textile Research Center, 1992) 37–40. 39.  Dated 198 b.c.e. Compare with Lüddeckens, Ägyptische Eheverträge.

Matrimonial Property

53

Regarding the monetary value of the various dowries attested at Elephantine, Mipṭaḥiah’s dowry is estimated as being worth 6 karš, 5 šekels, 20 ḥallurs, and 2 quarters, while the total of Yehoyišmaʿ’s belongings is calculated to be 7 karš, 8 šekels, and 5 ḥallurs. The fact that Yehoyišmaʿ’s dowry is worth more may be evidence that she was a virgin; Mipṭaḥiah, although very wealthy, was probably entering her second marriage and may also have had more non-dowry property. For Tamut’s dowry, the value is estimated to be only 7 šekels and 71⁄2 ḥallurs, but one must take into account the fact that she was still a slave. For this reason, Tamut’s dowry in TAD B3.3 contains more differences in relation to the other dowrys. There is no mention of a ‫תכונה‬, and she only receives one woolen garment, which, unlike the garments in the other dowries, is not defined as “new.” Nevertheless, its monetary value (7 silver šekels) is the same as Mipṭaḥiah’s new woolen garment and Yehoyišmaʿ’s new fringed garment. Furthermore, Tamut owns an item that one would not deem essential, but surprisingly, it is attested in all dowries: a mirror. One difference here is that Tamut’s mirror is not specified as made of bronze, as the others are, and its value of 71⁄2 silver ḥallurs is certainly less than the others, which are worth 1 silver šekel and 2 quarters (Mipṭaḥiah) and 1 silver šekel (Yehoyišmaʿ). For the remaining items, there is no monetary value mentioned, but we know that she was given 1 pair of sandals, half a handful of balsam oil (originally 1 handful but erased), and 6 handfuls of castor oil. 40 Another difference in Tamut’s dowry is that all the items belong to the sphere of personal use, and there are no household items. Although it is difficult to determine the reason for the absence, one can venture a couple of hypotheses. The most likely is that, again, she was a slave and did not own anything that was not strictly personal. Another factor is that the couple already had a child, which was probably the reason for drawing up the document. Thus, the two may have already established a home together, and there was no reason to mention household items. This would also explain why in her dowry the garment was not “new.” 41 40.  Probably a local product. 41.  Another reason for assuming that this was the case is the fact that ʿAnani, unlike the other grooms, did not mention going to Mešullam’s house to ask for the bride.

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Chapter Three

Another item worth noting in Tamut’s dowry could be the ‫( פיק‬also found in the other two dowries in the phrase ‫)פיק זי סלק‬, 42 which is generally translated “tray/wicker tray” in TAD. 43 Interestingly, Fitzmyer has proposed that this word may be connected to the Hebrew word ‫פקה‬, “spindle whorl.” 44 Spindles are also found in Old Babylonian dowries, 45 and if this is the meaning in our texts, the presence of this item in this particular dowry list would make more sense than a “tray.” If this word meant “spindle,” it could be evidence that women made their own cloth. 46 A remarkable fact about all these dowries is the lack of reference to furniture; mainly personal items and kitchen utensils are mentioned. Even the number of bowls and jugs appears to be too small for a household and may therefore have been intended only for personal use.

Legal Aspects of Dowries The first issue to be considered is who gave the dowry to the bride. One would expect it generally to be her father. 47 Regarding TAD B2.6, Yaron speculates that the dowry “may have been provided by the bride herself,” assuming that this was not Mipṭaḥiah’s first marriage. 48 The problem with his hypothesis is that there is no evidence to support it. In B2.6, the phrasing is no different from the other texts, and the expression ‫“( הנעלת לי‬she brought to me”) does not clarify the identity of the donor. By the same token, one could theorize that all the dowries were provided by the brides themselves, since we are not told otherwise. Furthermore, we know that Maḥseiah, Mipṭaḥiah’s father, is the one who is giving her away. If she was married previously and that marriage ended in either divorce or the death of her husband, it is simpler to assume that she had gone back to her father’s house, which was often an option in similar cases. 42.  DNWSI, 931. 43.  This translation is based on Pierre Grelot, “Études sur les textes araméens d’Élephantine,” RB 78 (1971) 529; and idem, Documents Araméens d’Égypte (Paris: Cerf 1972) 194, based on Egyptian pꜢk (WÄS, 1.499), Demotic pk (DG, 141). 44.  Joseph A. Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays (SBLMS 25; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979) 259. See Jastrow, 1169. 45. Stephanie Dalley, “Old Babylonian Dowries,” IRAQ 42/1 (1980) 56. 46.  See the example of a woman sending garments in the Hermopolis letters (chap. 7 below). 47.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 51; Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 89; idem, Property and the Family in Biblical Law ( JSOTSup 110; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 148–49. 48.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 51.

Matrimonial Property

55

Contrariwise, TAD B3.8 discloses the identity of the person who is giving the dowry to Yehoyišmaʿ, and in this instance it is not her father but Zakkur, her former owner’s son, who in this document is called her “brother.” 49 It is presumably because of this unusual scenario that he renounces future claims on the dowry, saying: TAD B3.8:40–42 ‫אף לא יכהל זכור יאמר לאח[ת]ה נכס[י]א אלה ברחמן יהבת ליהוישמע כען‬ ‫צבית אהנצל המו הן יאמר כות לא ישתמע לה חיב הו‬ And moreover, Zakkur shall not be able to say to his sister, “I gave these goods to Yehoyišmaʿ in affection (= no charge); now I want to reclaim them.” If he should do so, he will not be listened to: he is liable. We find the same clause in one of the fragmentary documents, where the donor is the mother of the bride, and in this case it is difficult to imagine why the clause was necessary (TAD B6.4:7–8). We can either assume that in Tamut’s case the bride also provided her own dowry or, more likely, that the donor was the same person who gave the bride away in all the documents, 50 including B2.6, and that the waiverof-reclamation clause was optional. I suggest that, when the clause is lacking, the bride’s guardian could theoretically request that the dowry be given back to him, and this possibility would have been more likely in a case in which the guardian was not the father; hence, the presence of the clause in B3.8. I mentioned above that, although the language of the papyri seems to indicate a transfer of ownership of the dowry to the husband, with the “my heart is satisfied” clause acknowledging the de facto transfer of the bride’s goods to the groom’s house, this ownership is by no means complete, considering the fact that the dowry had to be given back in the event of a divorce. However, considering that the receipt clause appears only after the items with a monetary value provided, there is a possibility that the husband gave back the equivalent in value. The legal explanation for this sort of circumstance could be that the husband had gained possession and usufruct of the wife’s dowry but not full ownership. In the event of his death, it would need to be restored to the wife. 49.  He is also the one who gives away the bride. 50.  Particularly in light of TAD B3.8, where the father was still alive, and the donor was clearly Zakkur.

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Chapter Three

Moreover, if it was a fund, the wife would own its value but not the specific goods. Against this last possibility is the apparently personal nature of the dowry items. Two documents could shed light on this issue, but unfortunately they provide contradictory evidence, which may merely signify that each case was different. TAD B2.8 is the record of a lawsuit by a husband’s heir against the husband’s widow, and in this case the heir was required to withdraw his claim on all of the goods (silver, grain, clothing, bronze, iron). 51 A similar situation may have been in the background of B4.6, 52 where again we may be dealing with an heir of the husband, but in this case the value was owed in silver. Another difficulty arises with the absence of a receipt clause in the dowry lists in TAD B3.3 and B3.8, for which there does not seem to be an explanation other than the possibility that the husband in fact did not own the dowry. Furthermore, there are other reasons to believe that the dowry did not pass into the husband’s ownership. First of all, we have the phrasing of the renunciation clause in B3.8, discussed above, where Zakkur addresses Yehoyišmaʿ directly and not her husband. If this is the correct interpretation, it appears that the dowry was still considered to belong to the wife. Must we assume that the transfer occurred only in Mipṭaḥiah’s case? I think it is unlikely. Another clause in B2.6 directly contradicts that idea, because the document specifies that the husband could not alienate his property from his wife without her consent (B2.6:35–36). A restriction such as this could not apply if we were dealing with a case of unconditional ownership by the husband. Thus, if the husband could not alienate any of his property without his wife, this should have been even more true for property that was traditionally considered to be owned by the wife, such as the dowry. In order to solve this complicated question, I have suggested the possibility of a “community of goods” held by both spouses as their matrimonial property. This would account for the language of “receipt” used by the husband as well as the fact that the dowry appears to be strictly connected to the wife, because it goes wherever she goes. 53 51.  The widow is in fact Mipṭaḥiah. See discussion below, in chap. 6. 52.  Discussed below, in chap. 6. 53. Annalisa Azzoni, “Women and Property in Persian Egypt and Mesopotamia,” in the Conference Proceedings of the Colloquium on Women and Property in Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Societies at the Center for Hellenic Studies–Harvard University, Held in Washington, DC, 21–25 August 2002, http://zeus.chsdc.org/chs/files/ women_property_azzoni.pdf.

Matrimonial Property

57

Immovable Property At Elephantine, dowry lists do not include immovable property, but we know from other documents that women owned property. We shall therefore consider the documents in which women are mentioned as owning property other than their marital property. We know for example that Mipṭaḥiah received a house from her father on the occasion of her marriage 54 to Yezaniah, son of Uriah (TAD B2.3), and that on the same day her father drew up a contract for her husband, in which it was clearly stated: TAD B2.4:6–8 ‫לא שליט אנת לזבנה ולמנתן רחמת לאחרנן להן בניך מן מבטחיה ברתי‬ ‫המו שליטן בה אחריכם‬ But you do not have the right to sell that house or to give it in affection to others; but your children by Mipṭaḥiah, my daughter, have the right to it after you both. The document then proceeds to describe Yezaniah’s privilege with regard to that house—that is, the possibility of building onto it and of being reimbursed for his work in the event of a divorce (B2.4:8–13). As for Yehoyišmaʿ, her father ʿAnaniah (who was not her guardian in her marriage contract) gave her a house “in affection” a few months before her marriage (B3.7) 55 that does not appear in her dowry list. After the marriage, he gave her right to part of his house upon his death (B3.10), as well as another house, for which he claimed: TAD B3.11:7-8 ‫זנה ביתא זי תחומוהי כתיבן בספרא זנה אנה ענני בר עזריה יהבתה לך‬ ‫פסשדת קבל זי לא כתב על ספר אנתתכי עם ענני בר חגי‬ I gave you this house of which the boundaries are written above, an aftergift 56 which was not written (in) your document of wifehood with ʿAnani, son of Ḥaggai . . . 54.  At this point, this marriage (as mentioned above) may have been in the inchoate state. 55. This happened after she and her mother, Tamut, had been manumitted (TAD B3.6). 56.  DNWSI, 924; Jan Tavernier, Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550–330 b.c.): Lexicon of Old Iranian Proper Names and Loanwords, Attested in Non-Iranian Texts (OLA 158; Leuven: Peeters, 2007) 409; Porten, Elephantine Papyri in English, 242.

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and later: ‫יהבת לך ברחמן פסשדת על ספר אנתותכי עד אחרן‬ I gave to you in affection, an aftergift of your documents of wifehood until later. The nature of this aftergift is not completely clear, but even though there is mention of Yehoyišmaʿ’s document of wifehood, this aftergift cannot be considered a dowry, especially because it was not ʿAnani who gave Yehoyišmaʿ her dowry but Zakkur. 57 It appears that this gift to the daughter must have been connected to her marriage in some way, but one cannot clearly see this house as part of the dowry. I suggest that, if marital property was indeed held in common, as I have already proposed, based on the evidence that husband and wife could inherit from each other in the event of the death of the other spouse while childless, not specifying the immovable property in the dowry was intentional, to preserve it. 58 All three women received immovable property as a gift from a relative, either the father (TAD B2.4; B2.7; B3.11) or the husband (D3.7). Immovables are always given on the occasion of or after marriage, which is not surprising, because before then a woman was presumably under her father’s authority. Thus it is possible that a woman could acquire property only after having acquired the status of wife. At this point, she had marital property in common with her husband and immovable property of her own, as is demonstrated in TAD B2.4, where the husband could not sell his wife’s house. The case in B3.11 is clear in two ways: First, ʿAnaniah, the husband, could not sell a house that his wife, Tamut, owned a portion of without her consent. Second, ʿAnaniah and Tamut sold the house to their son-in-law, after ʿAnaniah had given another house to their daughter, thus further demonstrating that the husband and wife owned immovable property separately. There is one other type of immovable property to be considered that was not included in the dowry. After Mipṭaḥiah’s death, we find out that she had owned a slave, Taba, and her three children, who after her death were divided among her two sons (TAD B2.11). 57.  Pace P. Grelot, Documents araméens d’Égypte (Paris: Cerf, 1972) 249 note g. 58.  With the exception of TAD B3.3, where the couple already had a son but where this provision still obtains.

Matrimonial Property

59

Elephantine Dowries in Ancient Near Eastern Traditions Comparison with other ancient Near Eastern traditions is particularly useful in regard to dowry lists because the institution of dowries is widespread, not only in the ancient Near East, but also in most ancient and modern societies, and some similarities can be found even today. In Mesopotamia, in the Old Babylonian tradition, the dowry appears to have been given primarily by the father but could also be given by the mother or other members of the bride’s family. 59 Generally, the bride would bring the dowry with her when she entered the husband’s house, although it appears that she may also have done this during the inchoate stage. If the marriage was later dissolved by the bride, the dowry had to be forfeited. 60 Just as in the Aramaic documents, the father/guardian gave the dowry to the bride, who then took it to the husband’s house. The difference, however, is in the content: in Old Babylonian dowry lists, we find clothing, jewelry, toiletries, oils, household utensils, and furniture—and, in some cases, slaves, livestock, and land. 61 Mirrors are not listed in Old Babylonian dowries; spindles sometimes appear but not commonly. 62 In the Neo-Babylonian material, only 9 out of 45 marriage documents clearly lack dowry lists, while for 8 fragmentary documents it is impossible to determine whether there actually was a dowry. 63 In another 10 (plus 3 fragmentary) documents, the dowry appears to be the only reason for drawing up the agreement. 64 As I discuss below, the dowries included silver, jewelry, real estate, slaves, household furniture, and utensils. The dowries in Neo-Babylonian marriage agreements were given—or, according to Roth, promised—by the bride’s guardian (or by the bride) directly to the husband. 65 Roth claims that the verb iddin appears to be used in the sense of “he/she promised to give,” 66 since in a few cases it is clear that the husband did not receive the dowry, or he received only part of it. 59.  Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 89. 60.  Ibid. 90. 61. Ibid. 62. Stephanie Dalley, “Old Babylonian Dowries,” IRAQ 42/1 (1980) 56. 63.  Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreement, 8. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid. 66.  Ibid., n. 40.

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However, in a couple of documents from the Achaemenid period, a formal declaration of receipt of the dowry by the husband appears in nos. 32 and 34. In both cases, Roth reconstructs verbal forms of nadānu in the preterite and translates “voluntary promise to give,” but her reconstruction does not seem likely in light of the language of receipt by the groom. Consequently, it is hard to agree with her translation, not only in these texts, but also in the rest of the corpus. More likely, the statement that the dowry was given to the groom did not necessarily imply the actual transfer of the property, unless a receipt clause was included. As will be discussed below, the possibility of a claim that the dowry had not actually been transferred also existed in the Egyptian sources, while in the surviving Elephantine documents the existence of the receipt clause seems to point to an actual transfer of the property, or at least to the fact that the groom would not be able to challenge it. In Neo-Babylonian documents, the guardian gave the dowry to the groom “with” the bride. In the Aramaic documents, the bride “brings” the dowry into the husband’s house, and although I have postulated that the bride’s guardian was ultimately responsible for giving the property, he is not mentioned as being active in this particular part of the marriage contract, but the bride is. If we analyze the content of the dowry lists found above, one difference is clear between the two: in no. 32, land and one slave are part of the list, while in no. 34, in an “Egyptian” context, the list includes only jewelry, garments, and household items. Since the same situation obtains in the Elephantine documents, one may hypothesize that the absence of land and slaves in dowry lists was an Egyptian feature. 67 If we now turn our attention to the Egyptian material, we find there a list of goods that the bride took to the husband’s house: the nkt.w n s.ḥm.t, literally, “goods of a woman.” The first attestation of a dowry list is 364 b.c.e., but the list was not necessary in the drawing up of the sẖ n 67. M. C. Betrò, “Matrimonio e società nell’antico Egitto: Lo scambio dei doni,” in Il trasferimento dei beni nel matrimonio privato del vicino oriente antico: Il terzo incontro interdisciplinare Mesopotamico (Camaldoli, 3–5 Ottobre 1983) (ed. Claudio Saporetti; Rome: Associazione Geo-Archeologia Italiana, 1984) 83–85; Kathleen Abraham, “The Dowry Clause in Marriage Documents from the First Millennium bce,” in La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancien: Actes de la XXXVIII Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris, 8–10 Juilliet 1991) (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1992) 320.

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s.ḥm.t, “the document of the woman,” until 171 b .c.e . 68 In the Demotic lists, the objects are: clothing, wigs, ornaments, mirrors, vessels, beds, sometimes musical instruments, and copper or silver money. A clothing item of particular interest in the Demotic dowry lists is the inšn, which is rarely missing and is normally the first item, because it is the most expensive article in the lists and was also subject to taxes. 69 As mentioned above, this item is described as a “shawl” or “bridal veil,” 70 but again, as was the case for the ‫שביט‬, there does not seem to be a reason for this translation aside from the fact that the word is found in dowry lists. In Demotic documents, the formulary expression that introduces the dowry list is similar to our Aramaic contracts: tw-s pꜢ wn nꜢy=t nkt.w n s-ḥm.t r-͗ın=t r pꜢy(=y) ʿ.wy ͗ırm=t Here is the inventory of your nkt.w n s-ḥm.t which you have brought with you into my house. 71 In this case, the wife has an active role in taking the dowry to the husband’s house. The only difference is that the groom addresses her directly, but this has to do with the fact discussed above that Demotic marriage documents were a contract between the groom and the bride. Additionally, in Demotic, as in Aramaic, the husband confirmed receipt of the dowry by using a formula borrowed from sale conveyances: šp=y-st n dr.ṱ =t ͗ıw=w mḥ ͗ıwt sp ḥꜢ.ṱ=y mtr=w n.͗ım.w ͗ıw=t n-ẖn ͗ıw=t n-ẖn ͗ırm=w ͗ıw=t n-bnr ͗ıw=t n-bnr ͗ırm=w mtw=t pꜢy=w šy ͗ınk pꜢy=w sḫf I have received them from your hand; they are complete without remainder; my heart is satisfied with them. If you are inside, you are inside with them. If you are outside, you are outside with them. Their proprietary right belongs to you, the power of disposing of the property to me. 72 68. P. W. Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt: A Contribution to Establishing the Legal Position of the Woman (Papyrologica Lugduno: Batava 9; Leiden: Brill, 1961) 91. 69.  Ibid., 94. 70.  Ibid., 95 and bibliography. 71.  Martin, “Marriages, Wills and Leases of Land,” 65. 72.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt, 96; Martin, “Marriages, Wills and Leases of Land,” 65.

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This clause shows that, although the language may seem to refer to a transfer of the property to the groom’s house, the wife retains ownership, while the husband has only limited power over it for as long as they are married, much as we have seen in the Aramaic papyri. 73 Another issue in the Demotic contracts is the so-called “oath of the woman.” In some contracts, the husband declares: bn ͗ıw=y rḫ d͗ı.t ͑nḫ m-sꜢ=t r-dbꜢ nꜢy=t nkt.w n s-ḥm.t nty sẖ ḥry ḏd bn-pw=t ͗ın.ṱ=w r pꜢy(=y) ʿ.wy ͗ırm=t I will not be able to impose on you an oath about your nkt.w n s-ḥm.t which is written above, saying, “You have not brought them with you to my house.” 74 The reference to this oath appears to point to the possibility that the bride could defer the transfer of the dowry to the husband’s house. The possibility that the dowry might be fictitious has been raised by various scholars. 75 Pestman argues that, in the case in which the oath-ofthe-woman clause appears, it is clear that the transfer of the goods has been accomplished; in the others, the contrary seems highly improbable, given the details of the lists. 76 Pestman contrasts the high standardization of the fictitious šp n-sḥm.t with the variety of wording in the dowries. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine that the bride would not bring the items to the husband’s house, considering the sorts of objects involved. The clause of the oath seems more appropriate to the case of a divorce, when the husband might have refused to give back what was actually belonging to the wife. One may venture the hypothesis that the receipt clause in TAD B2.6 reflected this custom, particularly in view of the fact that in this text the husband was Egyptian, and by making him declare that he had received the goods, the wife would have been protected against a future claim.

73.  Ibid. For the expression ͗ınk pꜢy=w sḫf, see Erichsen, Demotisches Glossar, 454: “mir steht ihr Verbrauch (?) zu.” 74.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt, 96; Martin, “Marriages, Wills and Leases of Land,” 66. 75.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt, 96 and bibliography. 76.  Ibid., 97.

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With regard to the later documents, there are no dowry lists attested in Babatha’s ketubbah or in the Murabbaʿat texts, 77 but in rabbinic sources the nedûniâ consisted of a melûg and ṣôn barzel. 78 The melûg, which has been compared with Akkadian mulûgu and Ugaritic mlg, 79 was the part that specifically belonged to the wife: it consisted of personal belongings that she could not ask her husband to replace if they were lost. This property is described in the Mishnah as “property that comes in and goes out with her.” 80 The similarity between this expression and the Demotic description of the nkt.w n s-ḥm.t is certainly noticeable, and at first glance there appears to be a similarity between the melûg and the type of dowry that we see at Elephantine, because in both cases it was personal. However, the similarity stops here because, first of all, the melûg included slaves, 81 which were not included in the Elephantine dowries. Second, the ṣôn barzel, whereby the wife was entitled to take with her the same quantity as she brought to the marriage (that is, any losses had to be replaced), does not seem to be parallel to the situation in the Aramaic documents from Elephantine. In conclusion, one can see a similarity in the type of objects listed in dowries and their legal features, but the similarity is more noticeable between the Aramaic and Demotic documents, considering the absence of land and slaves. Furthermore, in both corpora the bride is bringing the dowry to the groom’s house instead of entering with it (having been given it by her guardian). 82 Moreover, the bride appears to play a more active role as a party in the document. 77. Ada Yardeni, Jonas C .Greenfield, and Yigael Yadin, “Babatha’s Ketubba,” IEJ 44 (1994) 75–103; P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux, Les Grottes de Murabbaʿât (DJD 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961) 109–17; Léonie Archer, Her Price Is beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine ( JSOTSup 60; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990) 178–79. 78.  Geller, “New Sources for the Origins of the Rabbinic Ketubah,” 235; Archer, Her Price Is beyond Rubies, 179. 79. Baruch Levine, “Mulûgu/Melûg: The Origin of a Talmudic Legal Institution,” JAOS 88 (1968) 271–85; Geller, “New Sources for the Origins of the Rabbinic Ketubah,” 238; Westbrook, Property and the Family in Biblical Law, 144. 80.  M. Ketub. 8:7; Geller, “New Sources for the Origins of the Rabbinic Ketubah,” 237. 81.  Westbrook, Property and the Family in Biblical Law, 144. 82.  TAD B5.2 shows a different perspective, although considered from the point of view of the heirs. See below, p. 87.

Chapter Four

The Law of Divorce “I hate you; I am not your wife.”

One of the most striking features of the Elephantine documents is their provisions for divorce: all three women could initiate a divorce without cause. This is remarkable in an ancient context, where it was generally accepted that a man could divorce or repudiate a wife; however, the ability of a woman to initiate a divorce, regardless of her socioeconomic or legal status, was restricted in most cases and was not even contemplated in other cases. In this chapter, I analyze the formulas for and the circumstances of divorce at Elephantine in comparison with the larger ancient Near Eastern milieu.

Divorce at Elephantine In all three documents of wifehood, the groom declares in the verba sollemnia that the bride is his wife and he is her husband ‫מן יומא זנה ועד‬ ‫“( עולם‬from today until eternity”). Despite the finality of these words, the law of the papyri did not imply the indissolubility of marriage, as pointed out by Yaron. 1 As he explains, this expression is attested in other types of contracts, such as deeds of sale, and it simply refers to the validity of the contract as long as the parties do not decide otherwise in accordance with the law. In the wifehood documents, the marriage law applies as long as the parties remain married but, as soon as they cease to be married, the ‫“( דין שנאה‬law of divorce”) applies; hence, the detailed instructions regarding a divorce. The possibility of divorce is contemplated in all three of the complete documents (TAD B2.6; B3.3; and B3.8), but unfortunately no divorce clause is preserved in the fragments. In any case, the unique features of the divorce clauses in the three texts are not only the fact 1. Reuven Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 47.

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The Law of Divorce

65

that both spouses were allowed to initiate a divorce but also that the provisions for divorce were egalitarian, regardless of the legal and socioeconomic status of the wife—a highly unusual phenomenon in the legal landscape of the ancient Near East. The divorce clauses state: TAD B2.6:22–29 ‫מחר א[ו ]יום אחרן תקום מפטחיה בעדה ותאמר שנאת לאסחור בעלי כסף‬ ‫ וכל זי‬2 ‫ ר‬7 ‫שנאה בראשה תתב על מוזנא ותתקל לאסחור כסף שקלן‬ ‫הנעלת בידה תהנפק מן חם עד חוט ותהך לה אן זט צבית ולא דבב מחר‬ ‫או יום אחרן יקום אסחור בעדה ויאמר שננאת [לאנ]תתי מפטחיה מהרה‬ ‫[י]עבד ובל זי הנעלת בידה תהנפק מן חם עד חוט ביום חד בכף חדה ותהך‬ ‫לה אן צבית ולא דין ולא דבב‬ Tomorrow or another day, should Mipṭaḥiah get up in an assembly and say, “I hate my husband, Esḥor,” the silver of hatred is on her head. She will place on the scale and weigh out to Esḥor 7 šekels 2 quarters of silver, and she will take out everything that she brought, from straw to string, and she will go wherever she desires without suit and without process. Tomorrow or another day, should Esḥor get up in assembly and say, “I hate my wife, Mipṭaḥiah,” he will lose her mohar, and she will take out whatever she brought in her hand, from straw to string, in one day at one time, and she will go wherever she desires without suit and without process. TAD B3.3:7–10 ‫מחר או יום אחרן יקום ענני בעדה ויאמר שנאת לתצת אנתתי כסף שנא‬ 2‫ר‬ ‫ וכל זי הנעלת בידה תהנפק מן חם עד‬7 ‫בראשה ינתן לתמת כסף תקלן‬ ‫חוט מחר או יום אחרן תקם תמת ותאמר שנאת לבעלי ענני כסף שנאה‬ 2‫ר‬ ‫ וכל זי הנעלת בידה תהנפק מן חם עד‬7 ‫בראשה תנתן לענני כסף שקלן‬ ‫חוט‬ Tomorrow or another day, should ʿAnani stand up in an assembly and say, “I hate my wife, Tamut,” the silver of hatred is on his head. He will give to Tamut 7 silver šekels (and) 2 quarters, and she will take out everything that she brought, from straw to string. Tomorrow or another day, should Tamut stand up and say, “I hate my husband, ʿAnani,” the silver of hatred is on her head. She will give to ʿAnani 7 silver šekels (and) 2 quarters of silver, and she will take out whatever she brought in her hand, from straw to string.

66

Chapter Four TAD B3.8:21–28 ‫מחר או יום אחרן יקום ענניה בעדה ויאמר שנית לאנתתי לאנתתי יהוישמע‬ ‫לא תהות לי אנתת כסף שנ[א]ה בראשה כל זי הנעלת בביתה ינתן לה‬ ‫ ושארת‬1]+4 ‫תכונתה ולבשיה דמי כסף כרשן שבעה ש[קלן תמניה חלרן‬ ‫] והן יהוישמ[ע] תשנא‬. . . .[ ‫ ו‬1‫ בכף‬1 ‫נכסיא זי כתיבן ינתן לה ביום‬ ‫לבעלה ענניה ותאמר לה שניתך לא אהוה לך אנתת כסף שנאה בראשה‬ ‫] ותנפק‬2[ ‫ ר‬7 ‫מהרה יאבד תתב על מוזנא ותנתן לבעלה ענניה כסף שקלן‬ 5 ‫ ח‬5]+2 ‫ שקלן‬6 ‫מנה עם שארת תכונתה ונכסיה וקנינה[ דמי כסף כרשן‬ ‫ ותהך לבית אבוה‬1 ‫] בכף‬1 ‫ושארת נכסיה זי כתיבן ינתן לה ביו[ם‬ Tomorrow or another day, should ʿAnaniah stand up in an assembly and say, “I hate my wife, Yehoyišmaʿ. She is not my wife,” the silver of hatred is on his head. He will give her everything she brought into his house: he will give to her in 1 day, at 1 time her tekunah and her clothes for a value of seven karš, eight šekels, 5 ḥallurs, and the rest of the goods which are written [. . .]. 2 And if Yehoyišmaʿ should hate her husband, ʿAnaniah, and say, “I hate you. I am not your wife,” the silver of hatred is on her head. He will lose 3 her mohar. She will place upon the scale and she will give to her husband, ʿAnaniah, 7 šekels [2] quarters of silver, and she will go out from him with the rest of her tekunah and her goods and her property for the value of 6 karš 7 šekels and 5 ḥallurs, and he will give to her in 1 day, at 1 time the rest of her goods that are written, and she will go to the house of her father.

Despite minor details in the wording, all documents allow the wife the right to initiate divorce. This is particularly significant in TAD B3.3 and B3.8, since the wives are a slave and a manumitted slave, respectively. This evidence demonstrates, in my view, that the possibility of bilateral divorce was commonly accepted in this community, given that it is attested even in cases where we would least expect it. 4 The operative terminology for divorce in all the cases stems from the verb ‫שנא‬, “to hate.” Yaron, while noting that, “originally this may have 2.  ‫]ו]תהך [ לה מנה ]אן [ זי צבי]ת‬ 3. Bezalel Porten (The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of CrossCultural Continuity and Change [2nd rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2011]) translates “her mohar will be lost.” However, very few passive Peal forms are attested in these documents, and the text says that she will weigh out the amount of the silver of hatred, to which the mohar is not added. 4.  For this reason, I believe that its absence in the fragmentary documents is merely due to the poor state of these papyri.

The Law of Divorce

67

expressed merely the motive for divorce, to be followed by a statement actually abolishing the relationship between the spouses,” translates the verb “to divorce.” 5 In his opinion, the verb has a technical meaning in Biblical Hebrew, and after having analyzed the verb’s Akkadian parallel, zêru, he concludes that “to hate” is a technical term used widely throughout the ancient Near East in the sense of “to desire separation.” 6 Westbrook also analyzes the use of ‫ שנא‬and its parallels in various ancient Near Eastern legal documents, and in his view the verb was used elliptically in place of the complete formula “to hate and divorce.” 7 Westbrook also points out that in contexts other than divorce the verb was used in hendiadys with a verb of action to provide the motive for the action. 8 In his view, the motivation was the mens rea, “the guilty mind” of the perpetrator. In the event of divorce, the verb “hate” was used to show that the action had a subjective motive and lacked objective grounds to justify it, thus making it blameworthy. 9 If the meaning of ‫ שנא‬at Elephantine accomodates these same implications, then the expression “I hate my husband/wife,” means that either spouse could initiate divorce without grounds. Thus it would make sense that the ‫“ כסף שנאה‬silver of hatred” had to be paid by the “guilty” spouse. That at Elephantine a wife could divorce her husband without cause is worthy of consideration, because the term is used in Biblical Hebrew only with divorce that was initiated by a man, and elsewhere in the ancient Near East, divorce by a wife when allowed at all was only possible in special cases, such as misconduct by the husband. A few small variations can be detected in the details of the clauses. A first distinction is that in TAD B2.6 the divorce clause first contemplates a situation in which divorce is initiated by the wife. Its consideration first may be random coincidence, but it does not seem random in view of the other peculiarities of the document, which underline the position of strength of this particular woman, Mipṭaḥiah. The fact that her divorce clause comes first does not seem to have repercussions from the legal standpoint; it does, however, place the focus on her and her rights. 5.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 55. 6.  Ibid., 102. 7. Raymond Westbrook, “The Prohibition on Restoration of Marriage in Deuteronomy 24:1–4,” in Studies in Bible (ed. Sara Japhet; ScrHier 31; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986) 399–402. 8.  Ibid., 401. 9.  Ibid., 402.

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Regarding the verba sollemnia for divorce, TAD B2.6 and B3.3 use the same wording, while B3.8, Yehoyišmaʿ’s document of wifehood, once again yields more details. This document, in fact, is the only one in which the full formula ‫“( לא תהוה לי אנתת‬She is not my wife”) and ‫לא‬ ‫“( אהוה לך אנתת‬I am not your wife”) is attested. This formula contraria of the declaration of marriage is attested elsewhere in the ancient Near East and has been discussed previously. 10 A notable variation exists between the two reciprocal clauses: the husband refers to the wife in the 3rd person, while the wife declares directly to him, “I hate you; I am not your wife,” using 2nd person. Aside from the fact that the use of the 2nd person makes the statement more forceful, the choice of direct speech is apparently without explanation. The three documents also present another subtle variation: the person pronouncing the verba sollemnia does so by standing up ‫“( בעדה‬in an assembly”), but the two exceptions to this are Tamut and Yehoyišmaʿ. Perhaps the difference in wording is simply due to normal scribal variation or casual omission. For Yaron, the capacity of the wife to make a declaration coram publico in TAD B2.6 implies a similar capacity in the other two texts. 11 However, I think it is possible that the unique situation of the two women, as slave and manumitted slave, might have prevented them from being able to stand up in an assembly. 12 If this is the case, standing up in an assembly was not a necessary element of the divorce, and the omission in the case of Tamut and Yehoyišmaʿ was not accidental but was a reflection of the situation. The verba sollemnia, which was still a necessary element of the divorce proceeding, in their case could have been pronounced in a more private sphere.

Divorce Practices in the Ancient Near East Provisions for divorce are attested as early as the Old Babylonian period in Mesopotamia. The Laws of Hammurapi envision various scenarios and dictate that the proceedings should differ accordingly. 10. Raymond Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law (AfO Beiheft 23; Horn: Berger, 1988) 22–23; Reuven Yaron, “Aramaic Marriage Documents from Elephantine,” JSS 2 (1957) 14ff.; H. L. Ginsberg, “The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri,” JAOS 78 (1954) 148–49. 11.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 54. 12.  On the possibility of divorce as an essentially private act, see Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 69.

The Law of Divorce

69

Laws of Hammurapi §§137–38   If a man should decide to divorce a šugītu who bore him children or a nadītu who provided him with children, they shall return to that woman her dowry and they shall give her one half of (her husband’s) field, orchard and property, and she shall raise her children; after she has raised her children, they shall give her a share comparable in value to that of one heir from whatever properties are given to her sons and a husband of her choice can marry her.   If a man intends to divorce his first-ranking wife who did not bear him children, he shall give her silver as much as her bridewealth and restore to her the dowry that she brought from her father’s house, and he shall divorce her. 13

Paragraphs 139–40 further state that, if there is no bridewealth (corresponding to the mohar), the man shall give the woman 60 šekels of silver ana uzubbêm, “as a divorce payment,” while if he is a muškēnum, he shall give her 20 šekels. The aforementioned examples demonstrate a concern in Mesopotamian law for the presence of children in the marriage. In one case, the rights of the children were a primary concern, and the rights of the woman came after theirs. If there were no children, the woman could take back her dowry and her bride-price, and she could marry a man of her choosing. In those laws, the presence of children determined the provisions to be applied. However, the cause of the divorce was unstated. Law of Hammurapi §141 deals with the behavior of the woman as a possible cause of the divorce, in which case she received no compensation. A situation in which a woman initiated the divorce is described in: Law of Hammurapi §142 If a woman hates her husband and declares, “You will not take/marry me,” her circumstances will be investigated by the authorities of her city quarter, and if she is circumspect and without fault, but her husband is wayward and disparages her greatly, that woman will not be subjected to any penalty; she shall take her dowry and she shall go to her father’s house. 14

13.  Translation by Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997). 14.  Translation mine.

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This passage is problematic due to the expression ul taḫḫazanni, “you will not take me.” The verb aḫāzu, “to take, seize,” is also used in the technical sense of “to marry.” 15 If the woman were simply declaring “you will not marry me,” this would imply that we are dealing with an inchoate marriage and that she is refusing to complete the marriage. One argument against this interpretation is the content of the final clause: if she was going to her father’s house, one may suspect that she had previously left it. Roth translates “you will not have marital relations with me,” 16 probably assuming a sexual connotation for aḫāzu. If this is correct, one wonders why the expected verba sollemnia, “You are not my husband/I am not your wife,” were not pronounced. 17 If this paragraph pertains to a divorce, we see that in order to initiate divorce the wife had to prove her innocence, even in a divorce without cause. If she did not prove herself innocent, as we learn in §143, she was cast into the water. The evidence in the debate about whether a woman was allowed to divorce in Old Babylonian times was thoroughly examined by Westbrook. 18 He concluded that, although the husband was the subject of the marriage contract (by virtue of being the subject of the verb aḫāzu), in a divorce the wife was equally able to act as the subject. 19 Westbrook also analyzed contractual penalties, which differed in regard to divorce customs depending on the geographical region. In documents from the north (mainly Sippar), the penalty was death by drowning or being thrown off a tower. In the south, the penalties fluctuated from loss of money or property to being shaved and sold into slavery. 20 The situation differs if we take into account the evidence from peripheral Akkadian, were we find other cases contemplating the possibility of bilateral divorce. Two legal documents define this contingency. In Emar 124, a woman named Eza was entitled to declare, “You are not my 15.  For a discussion of its uses, see ibid., 10–16. 16.  Roth, Law Collections, 108. 17.  Although the expression is not attested, one can assume with Westbrook (Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 69) that the expression ezēbša iqtabi (“pronounces her divorce”) shows that some sort of verba sollemnia were pronounced. The counterpart expression “you are not my wife” is attested in penalty clauses of marriage agreements. 18.  Ibid., 79–85. 19.  Ibid., 84. 20. Ibid., 83.

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husband” but would be subjected to a penalty of 60 šekels, exactly the same amount that her husband, Tatu, would be required to pay in the reciprocal clause. 21 In both cases, the spouses could go wherever they pleased after the divorce. This text shows remarkable similarity to the Elephantine documents, especially TAD B2.6, given the equivalence of the reciprocal clauses, and even more so to B2.6, because the clause allowing the woman to divorce comes first. The evidence from Emar also reveals that the customs regarding divorce were not standardized. Another text from Emar contemplates the possibility of divorce by the husband only, and in this case, the mother-in-law, acting as the bride’s guardian declares that, in this eventuality, the husband will lose his right to the matrimonial property. 22 Similarly, in TBR 75, another case in which the mother-in-law is a party, if the husband divorces his wife, he will pay the 60 šekels penalty to the mother-in-law, and “he will put his garment on the stool 23 and he will go wherever he pleases.” 24 Interestingly, here the reciprocal clause does not involve the bride as a party but instead involves the mother-in-law, who could declare, “You are not my son” and then would be required to pay 60 šekels as penalty. Finally, TBR 28 provides rare evidence of an actual case of a divorce initiated by a wife, 25 who returned the matrimonial property to her husband. He could then go wherever he pleased and take his son (who was presumably hers as well) with him. This case at Emar is particularly significant, because it demonstrates that, as at Elephantine, women not only could initiate divorce but did so. Even though at Elephantine no case of a divorce filed by a woman is extant, the corroboration of a case from a similar context is critical. The evidence from first-millennium Neo-Babylonian sources, which were much closer in time to our Elephantine text, portrays a completely different picture. Out of 45 marriage agreements, the divorce clause is attested in 15 documents, and in all the cases only the husband could 21. Daniel Arnaud, EMAR 6: Recherches au pays d’Astata (Paris: Éditions Recherches sur les Civilizations, 1986) 131–33. 22.  Ibid., 226–27. 23. The same expression, again referring to sons-in-law, is found in idem, “Tablettes de genres divers du Moyen-Euphrate,” Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 30 (1992) 195–245, no. 9:29. 24. Idem, Textes Syriens de l’Âge du Bronze Récent [TBR] (Barcelona: AUSA, 1991) 127–28. 25.  Ibid., 61–62.

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initiate a divorce. 26 Unfortunately, these texts do not record the divorce verba sollemnia, and the absence of the specific wording deprives us of a nuanced understanding of perceptions about divorce. 27 However, except for one case, all these texts mention that the cause of the divorce was the husband’s desire to take another wife. Although it is tempting to infer that this means that bigyny would automatically have resulted in divorce, I agree with Roth that this is not true. 28 She determined that only the 10 cases in which the verb muššuru (“to release”) is used are unquestionably dealing with divorce, while the others are mainly concerned with clarifying the status of the second wife. 29 Furthermore, note well that in 10 documents the divorce clause is connected to a clause prescribing that, if the wife is found with another man, she will be put to death. 30 Only one text reports the use of the declaration that the woman “is not a wife,” 31 and only one contemplates the possibility of bilateral divorce. 32 As I have discussed above, this document may reflect a nonBabylonian tradition. If this is true, its prescription can be related to the situation portrayed in our documents. The document reads as follows (lines 28–35):   Should Ḫarri-menna release Naḥdi-Esu, his wife, and have another wife live (in the house) in preference to her, he will give her 5 minas of silver in addition to her dowry.   And should Naḥdi-Esu release Ḫarri-menna, her husband, she will forfeit (?) her entire dowry in favor of Ḫarri-menna, and thereby she will relinquish her means of support (?). 33

Although the presence of the reciprocal clause is remarkable, if Roth’s tentative translation is correct, the loss of dowry and means of support by the wife was still quite different from our documents, where 26. Martha T. Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements: 7th–3rd Centuries b.c. (AOAT 222; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989) nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 25, 26, 30, 34. 27.  Ibid., 12. 28.  Ibid., 13, note k. 29. Ibid.,13. 30. Ibid.,15. 31.  Ibid., no. 5. Note the use of 3rd person instead of the usual 2nd person. As in ibid., 13, this corresponds to the marriage formula, which is also in 3rd person. 32.  Ibid., no. 34. For a discussion, see ibid., 14. 33.  Ibid., 109–10.

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the wife was in every case allowed to take the dowry with her from her husband’s house, even when she was the one initiating the divorce. However, the phrase ù ki?-i?-a-am ti-ik-ka-šú tu-par-rík could be translated literally, “and she will unburden her neck thus,” and taken to mean that she would have to leave without any jewelry around her neck. In this translation, her penalty is to leave her dowry ( jewels and possibly other personal belongings as well), 34 but there is no reference to her means of support. The underlying scenario of the above examples seems to reflect a different reality and view of divorce than the cases of Emar and Elephantine. In the Egyptian milieu, dissolution of marriage is attested by divorce clauses in marriage documents as well as by deeds of divorce. As Pestman points out, the earliest marriage document containing the divorce clause is dated to 850 b.c.e., but the presence of this institution in Egypt is known, although not in a favorable light, in literary texts. 35 In any case, the clause generally follows this formula: If I repudiate you as a wife, be it that I hate you, be it that I desire another woman than you, I shall give you. . . . 36

In these cases, the ability to initiate divorce is only afforded to the husband, who must return the šp n sḥm.t, and in some cases also the joint property acquired through marriage, and must pay a fixed sum as divorce money. From the fifth century on, an alternative formula appears: On the day I shall repudiate you as wife or you yourself wish to go, I will give you. . . . 37

In this case, the woman is not entitled to have the šp n sḥm.t returned to her, nor is she given the divorce money, but she is entitled to her nkt.w 34. Possibly compare the expression “to place one’s garment on the stool” found at Emar and also at Ugarit (in connection with adoption). 35.  P. W. Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt: A Contribution to Establishing the Legal Position of the Woman (Papyrologica Lugduno: Batava 9; Leiden: Brill, 1961) 59. 36.  Ibid.; Cary J. Martin, “Marriages, Wills and Leases of Land: Some Notes on the Formulae of Demotic Contracts,” in Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World (ed. Markham J. Geller and Herwig Maehler; London: Warburg Institute, University College, 1995) 65. 37.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property, 60.

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n s. sḥm.t, 38 her personal property, or its value in money. 39 Two cases from 492 and 340 b.c.e. document the legal ability of the wife to initiate a divorce. In these cases, the woman declares as follows: If I repudiate you as a husband, . . . 40

In the annuity contracts, the situation is more complicated: at first glance, they do not seem to deal with divorce. However, as Pestman points out, some annuity contracts contain a clause that affords the wife the ability to demand the return of the money she had previously given her husband as security for annual maintenance. 41 In Pestman’s view, the “connection between divorce and demanding the money in return is therefore obvious: after the divorce the wife may reclaim her money whenever the cause, why the money was given—becoming a wife—lapses.” 42 Pestman’s interpretation is quite reasonable, but an additional complication is presented by another formula: I shall not be able to say to you “receive your sʿnḫ (back).” (However) on the day you want to receive it, I will give it to you thereon. 43

It would be easy to assume that, since the husband could not decide to return the sʿnḫ money (that is, to interrupt his wife’s maintenance payments, for which he had received security), he could not divorce his wife unilaterally. However, Pestman argues that this formula simply meant that the husband was obliged to continue maintenance until all the money given by the bride as security was paid back, even after a divorce. 44 From all of the above, it seems that divorce in Egypt could be initiated without grounds, and in some cases it could be filed specifically

38. Regarding the nature of the nkt.w n s.ḥm.t, which is comparable to the dowry of our documents, see above, pp. 61–62. 39. On this topic, see wisdom text P. Louvre 2717 2/8–9: “Do not disregard an affront from your wife; beat her. Give her her (woman’s) possessions.” See G. E. Kadish, and G. Freeman (eds.), Studies in Philology in Honour of Ronald James Williams (Toronto: Benben, 1982) 53. 40.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property, 60. 41. Ibid.,67. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 69; Martin, “Marriage, Wills, and Leases of Land,” 68. 44.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property, 68–71.

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because the husband wished to marry another woman, the only exception being the “great sin which one finds in a woman.” 45 Ten deeds of divorce, dated from 542 b.c.e. to 100 b.c.e., offer a few more details about divorce. 46 One datum is that all of them document cases of dissolution of marriage initiated by the husband, thus showing that, even if women could demand a divorce, they certainly did not do so frequently. Divorce deeds use this formula: I have repudiated you (as) wife; I am far from you in the right-of-wife. It is I who have said to you, “Make for yourself a husband.” I will not be able to stand before you in any place into which you will go to make for yourself a husband. 47

The document does not mention monetary fines, such as those attested in the divorce clause, but I do not think this is surprising, because the declaration testifies that the divorce is already accomplished, thus eliminating the need to describe the economic transactions connected with it. The concern expressed in these documents is instead the acknowledgment by the ex-husband that he has no further claim on the woman as a wife, rather than the actualization of the divorce. Most likely, if the woman had a bill of divorce, she was protected from being accused of the “great sin of the woman” or being punished for adultery. A final point of comparison with Egyptian sources is the phrase nkt.w n sḥm.t, which refers to the woman’s possessions, about which the husband declares: If you are inside, you are inside with them. If you are outside, you are outside with them. 48

This formula, which in its inclusivity reminds us of the phrase “from straw to string” in the Elephanine papyri, clearly attests that, even 45.  The “great sin” was adultery. See ibid., 56; Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993) 70. 46.  Pestman, Marriage and Matrimonial Property, 50; H. S. Smith, “Marriage and the Family in Ancient Egypt, I: Family Law,” in Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World (ed. Markham J. Geller and Herwig Maehler; London: Warburg Institute, University College, 1995) 54. 47.  Martin, “Marriage, Wills, and Leases of Land,” 70. 48. Ibid., 65. For an analysis of the formula, see Joachim Friedrich Quack, “Grammatische Bemerkungen zu einer Formel Eheverträge,” Enchoria 19/29 (1992– 93) 221–23.

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though the husband received this property in his house, it would go with the wife wherever she went. In conclusion, while divorce is attested throughout the ancient Near East, the scenario portrayed by the Elephantine documents is closer to the Syrian and Egyptian sources than to the Mesopotamian. Divorce initiated by the wife was allowed only when the behavior of the husband was reprehensible in the Code of Hammurapi, it was subjected to harsh penalties in the Old Babylonian documents, and was not contemplated, with the exception of one case, in the Neo-Babylonian documents. Mesopotamian influence on the Elephantine documents seems unlikely since divorce in ancient Mesopotamia was only permitted with grounds. 49 In the Neo-Babylonian texts, the sole example of deviation from this is a document that shows other peculiarities due to its Egyptian context. The few Syrian documents available show a remarkable similarity in content and formula and contain a rare case of a divorce initiated by a woman. The Egyptian documents, even with the degree of variation described above, show that unilateral divorce without grounds initiated by the wife was more commonly accepted from the legal standpoint, even though not attested in actual documents of divorce. Although divorce was in all likelihood generally accepted legally, we must take social pressure into consideration. Thus, although we know that women could divorce their husbands at Elephantine with exceptionally favorable conditions, we have no evidence that they ever did.

The Aftermath of Divorce A few final questions regarding divorce deserve attention: What were its consequences? What were the options for a divorced woman? Where could she go? The Elephantine papyri do not show consistency in this regard: Mipṭaḥiah (TAD B2.6) could have gone wherever she pleased no matter which spouse initiated the divorce; Yehoyišmaʿ (B3.8) would have gone to the house of her father if she initiated a divorce, but a lacuna in the fragmentary papyrus leaves some uncertainty regarding the options 49.  Only a few examples do not conform to this scenario but, as Westbrook points out, “Not one of them is a simple marriage contract.” For a full discussion, see Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 83–84.

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available to her if her husband initiated the divorce. 50 TAD B3.3 is silent about Tamut’s destination after a divorce, but I suspect that she would have had to return to her master’s house, because at the time she was still a slave. In Neo-Babylonian documents, a divorced woman could go to her father’s house, wherever she pleased, or to the bīt mār banî. 51 Unfortunately, text no. 34, which as I mentioned deviates from the norm due to its Egyptian context, does not mention what the woman’s destination would be should she initiate a divorce. However, if Roth’s translations of this difficult passage are correct, she would have been left without money or any means of support. 52 I imagine that she would have looked for assistance from a relative, but any other speculation would be just as likely. The basic idea, I think, was that the penalty functioned as a deterrent. The fact that in this instance the woman would lose her belongings amounted to the same as prohibiting her from divorcing her husband. Egyptian marriage documents did not contemplate where a divorced woman would go, but in the deeds of divorce, the husband declared: It is I who have said to you, “Make for yourself a husband.” I will not be able to stand before you in any place into which you will go to make yourself a husband. 53

This formula suggests that a woman could go wherever she pleased, but again the lack of details does not permit a more specific understanding. However, as I suggested previously, the idea here was probably assurance that, wherever she went and regardless of any man she might choose to marry, her ex-husband would not pursue a legal case against her. The Elephantine papyri differ from the Egyptian texts in this case, at least on the surface. The mention of the house of the father in the case of Yehoyišmaʿ, similar to the Neo-Babylonian documents, shows 50. Various reconstructions have been proposed, all indicating that, in this case, she could go wherever she wished, as could Mipṭaḥiah. I have suggested a different interpretation: that she would go to the house of her father in this case as well; see my “ ‘Where Will Yehoyišmaʿ Go?’ A Reconsideration of TAD B3.8,” in Puzzling Out the Past: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman (ed. Marilyn J. Lundberg, Steven Fine, and Wayne T. Pitard; Leiden: Brill, 2012) 1–5. 51.  Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 14. 52.  Ibid., 110. 53.  Martin, “Marriage, Wills, and Leases of Land,” 70.

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that the legal status of the bride, unlike Mipṭaḥiah’s status, might have affected the options available to her after she left her husband’s house. Regarding the financial costs of divorce, which are crucial to determining the aftermath of divorces, the Elephantine papyri all grant the right of divorce without grounds to both spouses but show some nuances in the details. Again, however, the legal and socioeconomic statuses of the three women involved were different. This makes our documents even more valuable, because they report what the situation in the event of a divorce would be for a free wealthy woman, for a manumitted slave, and for a slave. TAD B2.6 stipulates that, if Mipṭaḥiah should divorce her husband, the “silver of hatred” would be “on her head”—that is, she would need to pay divorce money to her husband. The succeeding sentence describes the transaction, stating that she would need to weigh out to Esḥor 7 šekels and 2 quarters of silver. The same provision appears in B3.3 and B3.8, should the woman initiate the divorce. The amount of the “silver of hatred,” as Yaron points out, was clearly a fixed amount. 54 If it were the husband who initiated the divorce, the logical assumption would be that the “silver of hatred” would be “on his head.” Such is the case in TAD B3.3 and B3.8. In the latter, the amount is not stated, but there is no reason to suggest another amount, because in all the cases where the sum is recorded the sum is the same. However, the picture is complicated if we take into account the fact that in B2.6 this element is completely missing. One could simply assume a scribal omission, but this is unlikely, especially if we consider the care taken in this document to preserve Mipṭaḥiah’s rights. There does not seem to be any reason for this odd omission (certainly not favorable to the wife), unless an explanation can be found in the following stipulations. The document states that, if Esḥor divorces Mipṭaḥiah, he will lose the mohar, and she will take out of his house everything that she brought into it, “from straw to string,” in one day and at one time. The same applies in the event of Mipṭaḥiah’s initiating the divorce. In TAD B3.3, we find the same expression in both cases, while in B3.8 the situation is more complicated. On the assumption that the omission in B2.6 was not accidental, perhaps we can conclude that the loss of the mohar on the part of the husband served as a balance for the “silver of hatred” by the wife. This 54.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 58.

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hypothesis is supported by the provision in B3.3 that the spouse initiating the divorce paid the “silver of hatred.” In this case, there is no mention of the loss of the mohar by the husband, but as I discussed previously, this papyrus does not record an official transfer of mohar. 55 Both clauses state that Tamut could take with her everything she had brought, “from straw to string,” which further complicates the issue because it is not clear whether this included the sum listed in the endorsement as a gift to Tamut from her owner, Mešullam. This supplemental sum, precisely because it was not recorded in the document, may not have been included with the other property. In TAD B3.8, if ʿAnaniah divorced Yehoyišmaʿ, he would be required to pay the “silver of hatred,” 56 and he would give her everything that she had brought with her. “Everything” is specified as being her money and her clothes, for a total value of 7 karš, 8 šekels and 5 ḥallurs of silver, as well as the rest of the goods listed in the dowry. He would need to give it to her all in one day and at one time. Again, there is no mention of the mohar’s being lost. Should Yehoyišmaʿ initiate the divorce, the document states that the “silver of hatred” would be on her head and that ʿAnaniah would lose the mohar. Yehoyišmaʿ would pay ʿAnaniah the fixed sum of 7 šekels and 2 quarters, and she would take “the rest of her cash and her goods and her property.” At this point, the papyrus is broken and we cannot be certain about the exact amount. It is generally assumed that the sum did not include the mohar, but this is not certain. Although in all cases both spouses had a legal right to initiate divorce, and all three women would have left the matrimonial home with their property, the differences in monetary penalties and the omissions may be a clue that the negotiations between the parties were open to varying possibilities. The “silver of hatred” was due from both spouses in TAD B3.3 and B3.8 but only from the wife in B2.6, and the husband would lose the mohar. In B3.8, the husband would lose the mohar as well, but only if the wife initiated the divorce. It seems that the most favorable situation for a woman was TAD B3.8, while B3.3 was a case of equality. The fact that B2.6 was not in line with these provisions is puzzling but may have been due to the fact that this marriage was a second marriage. This possibility is supported 55.  See above, pp. 45–47. 56.  As noted above, the amount is not specified.

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by the difference between B2.6 and B3.8 regarding the destination of the bride in the event of a divorce: in the first case, the woman would go wherever she pleased, but in the second she would go back to her father’s house. 57 The Elephantine papyri stand out, because they contemplate a woman’s initiating a divorce without cause in all three cases, even when the woman was a slave, which makes it difficult to argue that this provision was not the norm. Similarly, the fact that the “silver of hatred” was a fixed sum, not contingent on which spouse divorced the other is also a significant element in showing that the attitude toward divorce did not include penalizing women specifically. However, much as in the rest of the ancient Near East, there were small variations in the details such as the destination of the wife after divorce that were determined by the unique circumstances of each case. In order not to negate the uniqueness of the documents, we must be careful about generalizations. 57.  At least in one case, while, in the other case, the text is broken.

Chapter Five

Women’s Legal Capacity and Activity “We shall not be able to say, ‘We did not give it to you.’ ”

Could women at Elephantine act on their own behalf in a court of law? Could they be parties or witnesses to legal documents? What was their position in relation to property laws? An important factor in the lives of women and their status in family and society was the extent of their legal capacity. According to Yaron, the answer is yes, women carried out transactions the same as men, “and no trace of inferiority or male supervision of any kind is discernible.” 1 A careful examination of the Aramaic documents reveals that women did act as parties in contracts and took oaths individually and jointly, although, for example, no women are found in the lists of witnesses or among the scribes. Nevertheless, the evidence that women—and clearly, not just wealthy women—could act jointly or on their own in legal matters is worth examining. In this chapter, I analyze which types of documents other than marriage contracts involved women as parties, and I reassess Yaron’s generalized statement with regard to more-specific instances of lawsuits, inheritance, alienation of property, loans, oaths, and acting sui juris in court.

Lawsuits At first glance, it appears that Elephantine women could initiate a lawsuit. The evidence appears primarily in negative clauses, because most no-claim formulas stated that a “son or daughter” or “brother or sister” of the party would not sue, thus implying conversely that women could initiate a lawsuit if they were wronged in regard to their property. 2 However, this evidence is countered in a different type of 1. Reuven Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 42. 2.  See, for example, TAD B2.1:8; B2.10:10; B3.11:12.

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document, the record of a lawsuit regarding a criminal case, where a woman who was subjected to violence did not (or could not?) initiate a lawsuit against her aggressor. In TAD B7.2, the Aramean Malkiah speaks to the Persian Artafrada as follows: TAD B7.2:4–9 ‫]א]נת קב[לת עלי] בנפא אנת [על]ת [בביתי] כחסן וכתשת לאנתתי ונכסן‬ ‫כחסן הנפקת מן ביתי ולקחת לנפש[ך] עבדת שאיל[ת] ומקריא על אלהן‬ 4 ‫מטא עלי בדינא אנה מלכיה אקרא לך על חרמביתאל אלהא בין [מ]קמן‬ ‫לא[מר] כחסן בביתך [לא] עלת ולאנתתא זילך לא כתשת ונכסן מן ביתך‬ ‫כחסן לא לקחת‬  3 You sued me with a npʾ lawsuit (declaring), “You forced your way into my house, assaulted my wife, and forcefully hauled off goods from my house and took them for yourself.” I have been questioned, and the declaration (oath) of gods came upon me in the lawsuit. I, Malkiah, shall declare to you by Ḥerembethel the god among 4 witnesses saying: “I did not force my way into your house, I did not assault your wife, and I did not forcefully haul off goods from your house.” The papyrus breaks off in the middle of the next sentence, and we do not know how the lawsuit was decided. Regardless, it is clear here that a lawsuit was initiated by the husband for wrongs committed against his wife and his possessions. The wronged woman in this document is unnamed. It is possible that the husband brought an action against Malkiah on her behalf, but I think this is unlikely because the language suggests that the husband was the person who was wronged. That the husband had a Persian name may also be significant, but in the absence of comparable cases, this point remains unresolved. One might argue for the possibility that the wife brought a parallel action, but no evidence of a case of this sort is available. Although theoretically she could sue, it seems less likely that she did because of the expression “I did not assault your wife,” which appears to have been part of the required statement, showing that it was a central part of the lawsuit. This unique example, while not surprising in the ancient Near East, needs to be taken into account when we discuss women’s legal rights because, at least in this one case, male supervision is discernible, and the wrong against this woman was considered a wrong against her husband. 3.  DNWSI, 740.

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Inheritance In marriage contracts, as we have seen in clauses regarding the death of a spouse, it is clearly stated that, if one spouse dies without a child, “male or female,” the other spouse will inherit from the first, thus making it clear that, without this sort of clause or document—under different conditions—female children could inherit.

Alienation of Property In this section, I will first consider legal contracts involving only women. Before examining the details of these texts, I should note that the mere existence of documents of this sort is meaningful, because they demonstrate that women could make transactions without the endorsement of male relatives, at least among themselves. 4 In TAD B5, two sisters, Salluah and Yatomah, give their half share to another woman, Yehoʾur, in exchange for her half share. TAD B5.1:1–4 ‫אמרת סלואה ברת קניה ויתומה אחתה ליההאור ברת שלומם אנחן יהבן‬ ‫לכי פלג מנ[ת]א זי יהבו לן דיני מלכא ורוך רבחילא חלף פלג מנתא זי‬ ‫מטתכי עם נאהבת‬ Salluah, daughter of Qonaiah, and Yatomah, her sister, said to Yehoʾur, daughter of Šelomam, “We gave you half the share that the judges of the king and Rauka, the garrison commander, gave to us, in exchange for half the share that came to you with Nehebet.” The document continues by regulating what would occur should Salluah and Yatomah deny that this transaction has occurred by declaring, “We did not give it to you,” or should their heirs claim rights to the transferred property. In either case, they would be required to pay 5 karš of silver, and the share would still belong to Yehoʾur. Determining the context of this document presents a number of challenges. First, the nature of the “share” (‫ )מנתא‬mentioned in the contract is not clear. The Aramaic word has a generic meaning. 5 4.  I should mention the fact that the witnesses and almost certainly the scribe were men. 5.  DNWSI, 657; The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, http://cal1.cn.huc.edu, s.v. mnh.

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Porten and Szubin, who devoted an article to this document, claim (against Yaron) that the word refers to immovable property, because “it is hard to conceive of a movable in the abstract being divided into half, exchanged, and protected by a penalty clause covering the next generation.” 6 Porten and Szubin examine the use of ‫ מנתא‬to describe immovable property in the Talmud and propose a reconstruction of the fragmentary bottom edge of the document that lists eight witnesses, which was almost always a trademark of realty contracts. 7 Without more evidence, it is difficult to determine what underlies this “share.” Outside these texts, the word is only attested in customs accounts at Elephantine. It is possible that this share could be an amount of silver or goods. Indeed, in the Talmud, although the word does apply to realty such as vineyards or fields, it is also used for other sorts of shares. 8 We must therefore conclude that the word ‫ מנתא‬can be applied to a share of property, not specifically movable or immovable, considering that the word appears to have a more general meaning, particularly in Official Aramaic. 9 Another clue to understanding the nature of this share is the fact that it was granted to the two sisters by both the judges of the king and the garrison commander. Considering that the use of the word ‫ מנתא‬evokes a context of inheritance, the pertinent question is why the judges of the king and the garrison commander were involved in a matter of women’s inheritance. Porten and Szubin consider this case to be an example of probate, 10 drawing a comparison between this case and a provision in the Demotic Hermopolis Code prescribing that, if a man dies intestate, the oldest son inherits, but in the event of a lawsuit by other siblings, the court will assign shares. 11 Even though Porten and Szubin’s argument hinges on the use of the rather common 6. Bezalel Porten and H. Z. Szubin, “Exchange of Inherited Property at Elephantine,” JAOS 102 (1982) 652. See also Yaron, “Aramaic Deeds of Conveyance,” Bib 41 (1960) 253–54. In his view, the absence of a description (such as boundaries. etc.) points to the possibility that movable goods were involved. 7. Ibid. 8.  B. B. Bat. 12a; 167a; b. Yebam. 37b–38a. The expression ‫מנת המלך‬, “the king’s share, annona” (b. B. Bat. 8a; Ned. 62b) clearly refers to movable goods (in kind or money). Compare with Jastrow, ad loc. 9.  Its uses in the Aramaic documents from Egypt do not seem to point to a specific meaning. See DNWSI, ad loc. 10.  Porten and Szubin, “Exchange of Inherited Property at Elephantine,” 652–54. 11. Hermopolis Code VIII 32–IX 4. For a comprehensive discussion of this fragmentary Demotic text, see Girgis Mattha and G. R. Hughes, The Demotic Legal

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terms for “to give” in Aramaic (‫ )יהב‬and Demotic (tj), the similarities are worth considering. This document is the only example in the Elephantine archives that refers to royal judges and a garrison commander. 12 While the intervention of these royal judges and garrison commander may indeed imply that the father of the women had died intestate, there may have been other reasons for the lawsuit. Furthermore, since this is the only case in which two types of officers are mentioned together, the ratification of both the royal and the military authorities was probably necessary due to the fact that the women did not have a direct guardian, a possibility that may be significant in determining the scenario of this contract. In my view, it is also noteworthy that this document records an exchange transaction but that the penalty, if someone were to deny that the transaction had occurred, would only be imposed on the members of the first party. If Salluah and Yatomah declared that the exchange had not taken place, they would be subjected to a stiff penalty and still would have lost the share. It seems to me that this means that the exchange of property was not on equal terms. I would expect the second party, Yehoʾur, to be subject to a reciprocal clause. It is possible that there had been a court case prior to this document and that Salluah and Yatomah were giving this portion “instead of” 13 what they actually owed Yehoʾur, which would explain why the penalty clause only applied to them. This suggestion is even more likely in light of a reference to Salluah and Yatomah found in another very fragmentary text (TAD B5.2). Although only a few broken lines are preserved, it appears that this is a quitclaim in which a certain Mattan, son of Yašobiah, reports that he initiated and lost a lawsuit against an unnamed man belonging to his same military unit. The expression ‫גריתך בדין‬, “I instituted a suit against you,” is used and then, after a break, line 4 reads: TAD B5.2:4 ‫צדיק הוה להחסנו[תה מן ]יתומה וסלואה‬ He was right to take possession from Yatomah and Salluah. Code of Hermopolis West (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 1975). 12.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 27. 13.  The word ‫ חלף‬clearly can have this meaning. DNWSI, 377; The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, http://cal1.cn.huc.edu, s.v. ‫פלך‬.

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The text is so broken that any reconstruction of its background seems impossible. Because both women are mentioned again, it is tempting to suggest that the two documents deal with the same property. One other question about TAD B5.1 is the statement that Salluah and Yatomah received the share that came to Yehoʾur “with Nehebet,” which is generally thought to indicate that Nehebet was the sister, and possibly the co-heir, of Yehoʾur. 14 If this were the case, one would expect her to be a party to the document, as is always the case in joint property at Elephantine, and that she would be listed as Yehoʾur’s sister. Furthermore, the description of the property, ‫זי מטתכי עם נאהבת‬, “that came to you with Nehebet,” implies that the share and Nehebet came together. 15 What does it mean that the property came “with Nehebet?” Cowley hypothesized that Nehebet was a slave, thus making sense of the fact that the property came “with” her, 16 but he considered the absence of a patronymic for Nehebet to be a problem. 17 However, I think that its absence is an argument for his theory, because a patronymic is not usually included for a slave; if anything, one finds a matronymic. What we should expect to see after the name of the slave, however, is the expression ‫שמה‬, “her name,” which is also missing here. Nevertheless, since Nehebet is clearly not a party to the document, Cowley’s suggestion is to me the most plausible. On the other hand, if Nehebet were indeed a slave, she would be part of the gift with other goods; the goods would not “come with her.” The typical situations in which goods accompanied a woman were when a bride entered her groom’s house with her dowry, when she left it as a divorcée, 18 and when her husband died childless. 19 Although it is tentative, I will reconstruct a possible scenario for this circumstance. If Salluah and Yatomah were Nehebet’s sisters or nieces, and Nehebet then married into Yehoʾur’s family, she would 14. Pierre Grelot, Documents Araméens d’Égypte (Paris: Cerf, 1972) 76; Porten and Szubin, “Exchange of Inherited Property at Elephantine,” 653. 15.  This is also more grammatically accurate, because the preposition should connect the indirect object with the subject of the sentence. 16.  A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century b.c. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923; repr. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1967) 2. 17. Ibid. 18.  See above, pp. 65–66. 19.  This situation is contemplated in the law codes: Laws of Eshnunna §§17–18 and §§163–64.

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have brought the matrimonial property with her, which consisted of the dowry and mohar. In the event that the couple died childless, the matrimonial property would return to the respective families. If TAD B5.2 is the record of a case in which Salluah and Yatomah received their share from the royal and military court, it appears that they were the only surviving heirs. Since Yehoʾur would, in this case, be the heir of the husband, the text could represent a balancing of accounts from the respective families regarding the matrimonial property of the deceased couple. In support of this possibility is the erased portion of B3.3 (lines 11–12), 20 where the previous stipulation indicated that, if a spouse died, the heir would take possession of half the goods belonging to the couple. The scenario presented above explains why the property came “with Nehebet” and why this document deals with half shares. Another document, TAD B5.5, also deals with a transaction between two women: Mipṭaḥiah, daughter of Gemariah, and her sister Isweri. In this document, Mipṭaḥiah declares: TAD B5.5:2–4 ‫ אנה‬1 ‫ הו שתה באבני מלכא כסף זוז לכרש‬6 ‫אנה יהבת לכי כסף שקלן‬ ‫מפטחיה יהבת לכי ברחמן לקבל סבול [זי סבלתני ורח]קת מנכ[י] מן יומא‬ ‫זנה ועד עלם‬ I gave to you 6 silver šekels, that is six, by the king’s standard, silver zuz to 1 karš. I, Mipṭaḥiah, gave it to you in affection in consideration of the support with which you supported me, and I withdrew from you from today until eternity. After a penalty clause and another stipulation, there is a fragmentary portion that provides clues about the nature of the transaction: [.]‫]פא זנה‬. . .[ ‫]פטחיה זי הוה בידכי יהבתהי לי וטיב לבבי‬. . .[ ‫פם אמרת‬ ‫ופתפא זי הוה לי מן בית מלכא ולא אכהל‬ Porten and Yardeni reconstruct the lacunae and translate as follows: ‫[א]פם אמרת [אסורי פתפא זילי מן בית מלכא וכספכי אנתי מ]פטחיה זי‬ ‫הוה בידכי יהבתהי לי וטיב לבבי [בגו מן יומא זנה ועד עלם ורחקת מנכי‬ ‫מן כס]פא זנה ופתפא זי הוה לי מן בית מלכא ולא אכהל‬ 20.  See above, p. 38.

88

Chapter Five [Mo]reover. 21 [Isiweri] said: [The ration which is mine from the house of the (store-)house of the king and your silver, you Mi]pṭaḥiah, which was in your hand, you gave it to me, and my heart is satisfied [herein from this day and forever and I withdrew from you from] this [sil]ver and (from) the ration which was mine from the (store-)house of the king. And I shall not be able [. . .].

This reconstruction, while compelling, presents a few problems, in addition to some syntactical difficulties. 22 If the silver was given “in affection” (that is, it was free of charge), there would have been no need for the language of receipt implied by the “my-heart-is-satisfied” clause. Furthermore, the silver was given to Isiweri because of the support she had given to her sister. Since the document deals with a ration 23 from the king’s treasury that originally belonged to Isiweri, it is not clear why it was in Mipṭaḥiah’s hand or how it was connected to the silver mentioned at the beginning of the document. Even though it is difficult to reconstruct the background of this papyrus, it presents parallels with TAD B5.1, because both documents deal with women’s transactions that involved shares assigned by the king’s judge and with rations from the king’s treasury, and both indicate that this was the limit of their “business” activities. Another fragmentary papyrus records the following: TAD D1.17 [. . .]‫תה להן כלהן פרי ויתנון ח‬.[. . .] [. . .‫ זי תודה לפלטה אחתה ל‬3 ‫חל]קן‬.[. . .] [. . .]‫[עליהא תריהוי והן יאתה שלי‬. . .] [. . .] 1 ‫[ אבהון ישו חלק‬. . .] [. . .] to all of them (f.) product and they will give [. . .] 3 portions which she will acknowledge to Pilṭah, her sister [. . .] against her, the two of them. And if he comes [. . .] their father shall equally divide 1 portion [. . .]. 21.  Porten and Yardeni connect this adverb to the previous clause, but it does not seem to fit. It is probably better to see it as introducing a new clause, considering that this is how the word is commonly used in these texts. 22.  The sentence “and your silver, you, Mipṭaḥiah, which was in your hand, you gave it to me” in particular is somewhat clumsy and does not have parallels. 23.  For the meaning of this Iranian loanword, see DNWSI, 953 and bibliography. See also Tavernier, Iranica in the Achaemenid Period, 410.

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Once again, the papyrus contains only a few hints, but it deals with two women and concerns the division of property. Though women could be parties in legal documents, the evidence regarding women and their ability to be parties in legal documents is mixed so far, because they appear only in a limited type of contract. As I have proposed, the property in TAD B5.1 may have been matrimonial property, but it is surprising that the property is not quantified, as is the case in documents of wifehood. However, in this case, the property may have been inherited by the two women, and therefore it was treated differently in this sort of contract than it was treated in a marriage document. The only papyrus that mentions a monetary compensation is B5.5, in which a woman is compensated with silver for supporting an elderly person. A similar text is also found in Mipṭaḥiah’s archive. In TAD B2.7, Maḥseiah, Mipṭaḥiah’s father, speaks as follows: TAD B2.7 ‫אנה יהבת לכי לביתא זי יהב לי משלם בר זכור בר אטר ארמי זי סון‬ ‫בדמוהי וספר כתב לי עלא ויהבתה למפטחיה ברתי חלף נכסיה זי יהבת לי‬ ‫כזי הנדז הוית בבירת⟨א⟨ אכלת המו ולא השכחת כסף ונכסן לשלמה לכי‬ ‫אחר אנה יהבת לכי לביתא זנה חלף נכסיך אלך דמי כסף כרשן‬ I gave you the house that Mešullam, son of Zakkur, son of Aṭer, an Aramean of Aswan gave me for its value and about which he wrote me a document. And I gave it to my daughter Mipṭaḥiah in exchange for her goods that she gave me when I was garrisoned 24 in the fortress. I consumed them, but I did not find the silver or gold to pay you. 25 Then I gave you this house in exchange for those goods of yours valued at 5 silver karš. What makes this document remarkable is the fact that Mipṭaḥiah was wealthy enough to be able to give money and goods to her father during a difficult period, when he was apparently confined in the garrison, which is why Maḥseiah is repaying her for the goods by giving her yet another house. 26 In this case, the goods have a monetary value 24.  The word is probably an Iranian loanword. See DNWSI, 288 and bibliography; Tavernier, Iranica in the Achaemenid Period, 451. 25. Here I follow the interpretation presented in The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, http//:cal1.cn.huc.edu, ad loc. 26.  He had already given a house to her in TAD B2.1.

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of 5 karš, but his daughter receives this value in the form of a house. This document is relevant because it tells us that Mipṭaḥiah can still own property of her own, even though she is married (we know that her marriage to Esḥor took place three years earlier). However, it does not help us in determining whether women could alienate property with an assigned monetary value. Finally, another papyrus involves women directly, and it is the document of manumission of Tamut and her daughter Yehoyišmaʿ (TAD B3.6). In the document, Mešullam releases both women, who on this occasion declare: TAD B3.6:11–13 ‫אנחן {י}פלחנך זי יסבל בר וברה לאבוהי בחייך ועד מותך נסבל לזכור‬ ‫ כבר זי יסבל לאבוה כזי הוין עבדין לך בחייך הן קמן אנחן‬1 ‫ברך‬ We shall serve you as a son or a daughter supports his father in your life and until your death. We shall support Zakkur, your 1 son. As a son who supports his father, thus we 27 shall treat you in your lifetime. Although manumitted, Tamut and Yehoyišmaʿ are obligated by this document to support their former owner and to support his son after his death, but it is not clear whether the support in this case would also have been economic. The declaration that they will support them “as a son or a daughter” means that they are a full party to the contract, even though, again, this does not involve their selling or buying property. This text has also raised some questions regarding the paternity of Yehoyišmaʿ, since Mešullam calls her: 28 TAD B3.6:4–5 ‫יהוישמע שמה ברתכי זי ילתי לי‬ Yehoyišmaʿ by name, your daughter, whom you bore me. One could assume from this that Mešullam is her father. However, in my opinion, this cannot be the case. In fact, in 427 b.c.e., when this document was drafted, Tamut had been married to ʿAnaniah for almost 20 years. I have already pointed out that it is unlikely that Yehoyišmaʿ was 27.  There is an erasure here, due to the scribe’s having forgotten to write the word ‫אנחן‬, “we.” 28.  A similar expression is used in line 6.

Women’s Legal Capacity and Activity

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born before the marriage. 29 She is more likely to have been ʿAnaniah’s daughter. The reason for Mešullam’s phrase, then, must have been that Yehoyišmaʿ was born while Tamut was still a slave and, consequently, was under her owner’s authority. In fact, if we pay attention to the language, Mešullam is pointing out her status as slave by using the expression ‫שמה‬, “her name,” which is used after slave names, and he never calls her “my daughter.” It is instead ʿAnaniah, her biological father, who actually calls her “my daughter” in another document (TAD B3.7, 10, 11). Furthermore, although there has been a tendency among scholars to presume a sexual relationship 30 between Mešullam and Tamut just on the basis of her slave status, in my opinion the evidence we have does not support this idea. It now seems clear that women could be a party in a contract, but there is no indication that they could alienate property, at least not for money. However, the evidence in this regard appears in formulas, all attested in cases of gifts to women: TAD B2.3:19 ‫והבי למן זי רחמתי‬ and give it to whoever you love TAD B2.3:10; B2.7:8; D3.10:21 ‫תנתננה‬/‫למן זי רחמתי תנתנן‬ to whoever you love you shall give it TAD B2.7:16 ‫ולמן זי תצבין הבהי‬ and give it to whoever you desire At first glance, the formulas seem clear: women could alienate property as they wished. However, the use of the two different verbs ‫רחם‬, “to love,” and ‫צבי‬, “to desire,” may have some importance. In fact, the expression ‫ברחמן‬, “in affection,” is used when something is free—is a gift. 31 It may not be a coincidence that the root ‫ רחם‬appears in all but 29.  See above, nn. 25–26. 30.  See below, n. 49. 31.  TAD B2.10:11, 14; B3.5:4, 12; B3.8:41; B3.10: 5, 12, 17; B3.11:9; B5.2:10; B5.5:3; B6.4:7.

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one case where Mipṭaḥiah is involved. The verb used in this case, ‫צבי‬, is also found in a similar expression that is used in documents involving men and alienations of property. 32 It is possible, then, that “to give” in association with ‫ צבי‬refers to an alienation of property that involves a monetary transaction, while ‫ רחם‬is used only for gifts, because the expression ‫ברחמן‬, “for free,” is extant in contexts of gifts. Even though alienating property was possible for women at Elephantine, we have no record of their doing it, except for two noteworthy examples of a joint sale of property. In TAD B3.4, Ubil daughter of Šatibara, a Caspian, together with her husband 33 Bagazušta son of Bazu, also a Caspian, sells a house to ʿAnaniah son of ʿAzariah. This same house is the object of a sale in B3.12, where ʿAnaniah father of Yehoyišmaʿ, and Tamut (here called Tapamet, probably her full name), now a free woman, sell it to their son-in-law, ʿAnani son of Ḥaggai, husband of Yehoyišmaʿ. In this document, Tamut/Tapamet is decribed as: TAD B3.12:1–2 ‫נשין תפמת אנתתה לחנה זי יהו אלהא‬ Lady Tapamet, his wife, wife of the servitor 34 of the Temple of YHW, the god. Further on in the text, Tamut is also decribed as “daughter of Patu” (TAD B3.12:3), which reveals her newly attained status of free woman. Her past relationship to her owner is also referred to twice in the contract. In fact, she is also called “main beloved (‫ )פריפת‬of Mešullam, son of Zakkur” (B3.12:11), 35 and, in the words of her husband, ʿAnani, “my wife, who had been a household servant 36 of Mešullam, son of Zakkur, and he gave her to me in wifehood” (TAD B3.12:24–25). 32.  Ibid., B2.11:7, 12; B3.4:12, 14, 15, 16. 33. The man is not called her husband in the contract, but the disclaimer clauses refer to “son or daughter of ours” and “our children,” which can be understood as implying that the two were in fact married. 34. See DNWSI, 573, for bibliography on this much-discussed word, a loan from Akkadian laḫḫinu, Also see Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (AS 19; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) 66. The feminine form obviously refers to the fact that she is married to a ‫( לחן‬following an Egyptian practice) rather than describing her own title. 35. See Tavernier, Iranica in the Achaemenid Period, 422. 36.  The word ‫ גוא‬has been a crux for scholars, although the meaning of the expression is clear in light of the context. Emil G. Kraeling (The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri: New Documents of the Fifth Century b.c. from the Jewish Colony at Elephantine [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953] 278–79) cites Aram. ‫גוא‬, “belly” ( Jas-

Women’s Legal Capacity and Activity

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Although only ʿAnaniah bought the house from Ubil and Bagazušta, he had given Tamut a room in the house so that she would be protected in the event of his death (TAD B3.4:3). There is no doubt that her partial title to the house was real, because she was now listed as a joint party in the sale of the house. This is remarkable in light of her former slave status, but it does not change the scenario I have sketched above. Tamut’s alienation is not done sui juris but with her husband (as was Ubil’s alienation), which underscores the fact that women could be joint parties in conveyances, but there is no evidence that they alienated property on their own, aside from exceptional cases in which only women were involved or in which there was no monetary transaction.

Loans Yaron claims that, with regard to loans, women are attested in the positions of both debtor and creditor, citing the evidence of two documents, TAD B3.1 and B4.6. 37 In the first, Yehoḥen, daughter of Mešullak and “lady (‫ )נשן‬of Elephantine the fortress,” acknowledges a debt to Mešullam, son of Zakkur: TAD B3.1 ‫יהבת לי זפת כסף שקלן הו ארבעה באבני מלכא במרביתה ירבה עלי כסף‬ ‫ לירח חד הן מטת מרביתא לרשא‬8 ‫ הוה כסף חלרן‬1 ‫ לירח‬1 ‫ לתקל‬2 ‫חלרן‬ ‫ירבה מרביתא כרשא חד כחד והן מטא תנין שנה ולא שלמתך בכספך‬ ‫ומרביתה זי‬ ‫כתיב בספרא זנה אנת משלם ובניך שליטן למלקח לך כל ערבן זי תשכח לי‬ ‫בי זי לבנן כסף ודהב נחש ופרזל עבד ואמה שערן כנתן וכל זון זי תשכח לי‬ ‫עד תתמלא בכספך ומרביתה‬ trow, 216), and proposes the possibility of a “coarse expression for a slave concubine or a handmaiden.” He also mentions a “faithful eunuch (‫ ”)גוא מהימנא‬in Palmyrene and the word ‫כלי‬, “vessel,” as describing a woman. Aside from the fact that these parallels are farfetched, they also seem out of place in the context of a contract. Additionally, the translation in TAD “(the one belonging to) the inner (chamber) of Mešullam,” although clearly tentative, appears to be some sort of sexual innuendo. The explanation may be much simpler than this. The Aramaic word ‫ גוא‬has a generic meaning of “inside, inner part” (DNWSI, 216). In Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the expression ‫ גו ביתיה‬is used to mean “his household” (Michael Sokoloff, Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002] 121). One could therefore suggest that the word is here used to indicate simply a “member of the household,” without any sexual connotation. I follow here the translation of The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/, ad loc. 37.  Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri, 43.

94

Chapter Five You gave me a loan of silver šekels, that is four, by the stones of the king, for its interest. (It) will accrue upon me (at the rate of) 2 silver ḥallurs per šekel per month, that is silver ḥallurs per month. If the interest should reach the amount of the capital, the interest shall accrue like the capital, one like the other. And if a second year should pass without my having paid you your silver and its interest which is written in this document, you, Mešullam, and your children have a right to take for yourself any security that you will find belonging to me—a brick house, silver or gold, bronze or iron, male or female slave, barley, spelt, or any food that you find of mine—until you have full payment of your silver and its interest.

The document then proceeds with the usual clauses of no claim, the obligation of Yehoḥen’s heirs to pay the capital and interest in the event her premature death, and the assurance that Yehoḥen’s heirs will not be able to sue for as long as Mešullam possesses the document. Based on this document, there is no doubt that a woman could take a loan without male supervision. The other text mentioned by Yaron, TAD B4.6, records that Menaḥem, son of Šallum, declares to Salluah, daughter of Sammuaḥ: TAD B4.6 ‫ מן קצת כספא ונכסיא זי על ספר‬1 ‫ הו [כס]ף סתתרי‬2 ‫איתי לכי עלי כסף ש‬ ]‫ אמו[ר‬2 ]1[2 ‫אנתותכי אנה מנחם אנתננה ואשלמן לכי עד לפרמתי שנת‬ ‫טיס מלכא‬ I owe you 2 silver š(ekels), that is, 1 silver stater, from part of the silver and the goods that (are written?) on your document of wifehood. I, Menaḥem, shall give them to you and pay you in full by the 30th of Pharmuthi, year 4 of King Amy[r]taeus. The rest of the document is damaged, but it appears that after the deadline, interest would begin to accrue and, just as was the case in the previous text, Yehoḥen apparently had the right to seize property in the event of nonpayment. In contrast to the terms of the previous document, however, the interest here appears to have been a one-time fine rather than accumulative. As in the previous contract, this text agrees to no litigation, but it does not state that possession of the document is insurance against litigation. Furthermore, there are no clauses binding Menaḥem’s heirs to the payment of his debt, although he would have

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been obligated to make payments to Salluah’s heirs. For all these reasons and also because the amount is not described as a loan, contrary to Yaron, I do not think this is actually a loan document. 38 There are other possible scenarios, and the reference to “your document of wifehood” is an indication that we are not dealing with a loan here. It is possible that Menaḥem was the guardian who gave her away in her document of wifehood, but he had not given her the complete dowry, and this is the record of it. Alternatively, Menaḥem was her ex-husband and had not completely returned her marital property to her after their divorce. Although this second scenrio is more appealing, because Menaḥm does not declare that he is related to Salluah, it is puzzling that he does not mention the marriage. 39 There is also the difficulty that, according to other marriage contracts, the husband is supposed to return the dowry “from straw to string in one day, at one time.” Finally, it is possible that Salluah’s husband had died, Menaḥem was her husband’s heir, and he was required to separate the dowry from the deceased husband’s estate in order to give it back to her. Although none of these scenarios is entirely satisfactory, the fact remains that this is not a loan document, and therefore the evidence from Elephantine clearly attests to the capacity of women to borrow money, but their ability to be lenders is still an open question.

Oaths The archive of Mipṭaḥiah offers evidence that women could make oaths at Elephantine, jointly or individually. Mipṭaḥiah’s unnamed mother takes an oath jointly with her husband, Maḥseiah, and their son in TAD B2.2, a quitclaim regarding a plot of land. Mipṭaḥiah herself

38. Menaḥem does declare his indebtedness to Salluah, but he does not say that she gave him the amount as a loan. There is a clear difference in the wording between the two documents: TAD B3.1 reads, ‫“( יהבת לי זפת כסף‬you gave me a loan of silver”), while B4.6 reads, ‫“( איתי לכי עלי כסף‬you have upon me” = “I owe you”). 39.  The possibility that this is a case of deferring payment of the mohar, suggested by Eduard Sachau (Aramäische Papyrus und Ostraka aus einer jüdischen Mi­ litärkolonie zu Elephantine: Altorientalische Sprachdenkmäler des 5. Jahrhunderts vor Christus [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911] 129) and accepted by Bezalel Porten (The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change [2nd rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2011] 264) is not likely, in my view, because the text speaks of silver and goods, whereas the mohar usually consisted of silver only.

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takes an oath sui juris in B2.8. 40 However, outside this archive, there is no other evidence in this regard. In other ancient Near Eastern traditions, generally speaking, the evidence points to the possibility that women had a certain amount of legal capability, but it was also based on class, wealth, and legal status. According to Harris, throughout Mesopotamian history there is evidence that women of wealth “had the right to conduct legal transactions on their own and to witness legal transactions. They might give gifts, dedicate objects to the gods, and acquire property.” 41 However, she also points out that “what is difficult to assess is how freely they could do all this.” 42 Harris’s analysis encompasses women of royal status; or priestesses, especially of the nadītu type, for whom there is considerable documentation; but it does not take women outside the elite groups into consideration, perhaps because evidence providing information about common women is scantier in general. 43 For the Neo-Baylonian and Persian periods, both Dandamaev and Kuhrt point out the fact that women enjoyed a certain amount of legal independence, because they were allowed to own property and to dispose of it, and they could make contracts and bring court cases against someone. However, they also emphasize the fact that there was a tendency for male relatives to alienate or transfer a woman’s property, although in all these cases the woman’s presence was noted by the expression ina ašabi (“while present, in person,” lit., “sitting”), which shows that her presence was indispensable to the transaction. 44 40.  For a discussion of this document and its implications, see chap. 7. 41. Rivkah Harris, “Independent Women in Ancient Mesopotamia?” in Women’s Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia: Proceedings of the Conference on Women in the Ancient Near East. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, November 5–7, 1987 (ed. Barbara S. Lesko; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 145. 42. Ibid. 43.  She briefly mentions the wives of the Old Assyrian merchants for whom we have evidence of large-scale transactions (but mainly through their letters), but she points out that it is very difficult to determine the extent of their independence, given that they may have acted only under their husbands’ authority. 44. M. A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Babylonia from Nabopolassar to Alexander the Great (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1984) 48–49; A. Kuhrt, “NonRoyal Women in the Late Babylonian Period: A Survey,” in Women’s Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia: Proceedings of the Conference on Women in the Ancient Near East. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, November 5–7, 1987 (ed. Barbara S. Lesko; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 215–35.

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Oppenheim claimed that the status of women was lowered in the Neo-Babylonian period, given that they no longer acted as witnesses in contracts and “participate[d] only under special circumstances in the legal transactions of their husbands.” 45 However, as Kuhrt points out, legal role does not necessarily equal status. Furthermore, as I noted above regarding Aramaic sources, a distinction needs to be made between legal capacity and social practice. Therefore, keeping in mind that—aside from their capacity to act as witnesses in contracts—women potentially had the right to own and dispose of property, we ought to examine a few examples of property cases involving women to determine what their legal activities were. The famous archives of the Egibi and Murašu families provide evidence that women acted as consolidators of family property, although cases in which women are participating in transactions of this sort are rare. 46 Among these transactions, one common type was a contract in which Neo-Babylonian women gave (usually female) house slaves (who had once been given to them as part of their own dowry) to their daughters or to the temple. 47 One cannot help but notice the similarity between this practice and the practice attested in the Aramaic documents discussed above in which women were disposing of some of their property in favor of other women. The fact that Mipṭaḥiah did not do this, since we know that her sons divided up her house slaves after her death, may have been due to a lack of female heirs (TAD B2.11). Another common occurrence in Neo-Babylonian documents was contracts that documented women who supported elderly people, either blood relatives or others. For example, a man named Uraš-šumaiškun asked for support for his daughter Ṭabata; in another case, a daughter-in-law, Esaggil-rāmat, was supporting Iqiša, the father of her

45.  A. Leo Oppenheim, Letters from Mesopotamia: Official Business and Private Letters on Clay Tablets from Two Millennia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967) 45. 46. Matthew W. Stolper, Entrepreneurs and Empire: The Murašû Archive, the Murašû Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylonia (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeo­ logisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1985). 47.  Jonas C. Greenfield, “On Some Neo-Babylonian Women,” in La Femme dans le Proche-Orient Asiatique: Compte rendu de la 23e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Paris, 7–10 Juillet, 1986 (ed. J.-M. Durand; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1987) 76.

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husband, Iddin-Marduk, because the slave whom he had manumitted so that he would provide for him had run away (see TAD B3.5). 48 In the Egyptian documents, according to Menu, 49 the distribution of women as parties in contracts, amounting to about 10% of all parties, shows an irregular pattern depending strictly on the nature of the contracts. Again, and perhaps not surprisingly, the similarity with the Aramaic texts is striking: women are found only in restricted sorts of legal activities. As in the Aramaic contracts, women in Egyptian contracts are always included in renunciation clauses, although in a subordinate position. Furthermore, in these sources, there is no evidence of women acting as witnesses, and the only cases of women as guarantors are wives and daughters in renunciation clauses. 50 Furthermore, in Menu’s analysis, there is no evidence of women as parties in loan contracts, partnerships, or land leases, but women can be found in other types of deeds, such as land or domestic animal sales or transfers of shares and services. 51 In Egyptian sources, women transferred or sold shares of property or services that they had inherited. Especially interesting is the evidence from Thebes of several women who sold their shares of income from their hereditary priestly positions as choachytes. One example appears in Papyrus Louvre E 9204, 52 in which a woman sold the shares “in the country, in the temple and in the city” that she had inherited from her mother, Ruru. However, there is little evidence that women had access to legal activities other than disposing of their property. It is noteworthy that women’s transfers of shares are a common factor in the documents from both of our two corpuses of texts. In the Aramaic documents, the vague terminology makes it difficult to understand the exact nature of the shares sold or transferred. In the case of the Egyptian sources 48.  Ibid., 76–77. 49. Bernadette Menu, “Business Life in the First Millennium,” in Women’s Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia: Proceedings of the Conference on Women in the Ancient Near East. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, November 5–7, 1987 (ed. Barbara S. Lesko; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 201. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid., 201–2. 52. Dated 502 b.c.e. Michel Malinine, Choix de textes juridiques en hiératique anormal et en démotique (XXVe–XXVIIe dynasties), part 1: Traduction et commentaire philologique (Paris: Champion, 1953) 113. See Menu,“Business Life in the First Millennium,” 204.

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preserved, the shares appear to be connected to services by choachyte families. Nevertheless, the fact that in both traditions this same position appears as one of women’s legal activities must be taken into consideration. It is especially intriguing due to the fact that the transfer of lots by women in connection with temple functions is also attested in NeoBabylonian sources. 53 There was a common factor of share transfers of various sorts involving women, although it is difficult to pinpoint what these shares were. From the evidence examined above, Yaron’s assumption that women enjoyed legal equality needs to be reassessed. It is likely, at least in theory, that women were legally capable of acting in court and carrying out business transactions. However, much like elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the types and number of women’s legal activities were limited. 53.  Kuhrt, “Non-Royal Women in the Late Babylonian Period,” 228–29.

Chapter Six

Women and Religion “An oath came upon you, and you swore by Sati, the Goddess.”

Religious matters are among the most widely discussed topics related to the Aramaic documents from Egypt, given their relevance to the history of the Jewish people and the reference to a Temple of YHW in Elephantine. The mere existence of this temple outside Jerusalem has precipitated much well-deserved attention. 1 Considering the amount of existing scholarship on this larger subject, I will focus in this chapter 1. Albert Vincent, La religion des Judéo-Araméens d’Élephantine (Paris: Geuthner, 1937) 312–91; Emil G. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri: New Documents of the Fifth Century b.c. from the Jewish Colony at Elephantine (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953) 76–110; Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) 105–86; idem, “The Religion of the Jews of Elephantine in Light of the Hermopolis Papyri,” JNES 28 (1969) 116–21; Pierre Grelot, Documents Araméens d’Égypte (Paris: Cerf, 1972) 345–423; Thomas M. Bolin, “The Temple of ‫ יהו‬at Elephantine and Persian Religious Policy,” in The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms (ed. Diana V. Edelman; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996) 127–42; Paul-Eugène Dion, “La religion des Papyrus d’Éléphantine: Un reflet du Juda d’avant l’exil,” in Kein Land für sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palästina und Ebirnari für Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Ulrich Hübner and Ernst Axel Knauf; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002) 243–54. For the significance of other examples of Jewish temples outside Jerusalem, see Porten, Archives from Elephantine, 116–17. E. F. Campbell Jr., “Jewish Shrines of the Hellenistic and Persian Periods,” in Symposia: Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900–1975) (2 vols.; ed. Frank Moore Cross; Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1979) 1.159–67; J. H. Choong, “Were There Yahwistic Sanctuaries in Babylonia?” AJT 10 (1996) 198–217; Jörg Frei, “Temple and Rival Temple: The Cases of Elephantine, Mt. Gerizim, and Leontopolis,” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel: Zur Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines Kults im Alten Testament, antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum (WUNT 118; ed. Beate Ego, Armin Lange, and Peter Pilhofer; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) 171–203. For the most recent treatment, with bibliography, see Anke Joisten-Pruschke, Das religiöse Leben der Juden von Elephantine in der Achämenidenzeit: Göttinger Orientforschungen (Iranica n.s. 2; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008).

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only on aspects of religion in which women’s involvement or influence is apparent, and more specifically, on the instances in which the role of religion in women’s lives may have been overlooked or underplayed. Thus, I address two primary topics here: exogamous marriage, an issue that has not yet been fully explored in this regard, and oath-taking, another social and legal act that has religious implications.

Exogamy The issue of intermarriage, or exogamy, is often raised in discussions on the correlation between the Elephantine and Jerusalem communities during the Persian period. This is due to the fact that the biblical prohibition on marriage to foreigners does not seem to have been a concern for the Judean community in Egypt. The ban on intermarriage, specifically forbidding marriage to foreign women, appears explicitly in the Torah and is reiterated in the books of Malachi, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Prophetic works and Wisdom literature both express distaste for this practice by associating foreign women with promiscuous sexual practices and idolatrous rites. This is for the most part the rationale offered for the ban: a perceived threat (predominantly by foreign women) to the religious stability of the people, who would be driven to worship other nations’ gods. 2 On this topic, Porten points out that one of the passages in Deuteronomy (Deut 23:4–9) allows the inclusion of Edomites and Egyptians in the assembly, in contrast to the exclusion of Ammonites and Moabites, because of Israel’s kinship with Edom and temporary residence in Egypt. Third-generation children of Israelite-Edomite or Israelite-Egyptian unions could be admitted to the congregation. Porten also notes the various instances of intermarriage attested, though mostly criticized, in all periods, especially in border areas and as a result of migration. 3 While Malachi simply refers pejoratively to Judah’s marriage to the daughter of a “foreign god” (Mal 2:11), the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are particularly forceful in their abhorrence of exogamous marriages. This negativity culminates in the disturbing expulsion of foreign wives and their children in Ezra and the purging of foreign elements in Nehemiah. Regarding the phenomenon of intermarriage in the post­exilic 2. Exod 34:16; Num 25:1–9; Deut 7:1–4, 23:4–9; Mal 2:11; Ezra 9–10; Neh 13:23–31; Proverbs 1–9. Porten, Archives from Elephantine, 248–52. 3.  Ibid., 249.

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period in general, Porten notes that, “though it was not serious numerically, it disturbed some of the leaders ideologically.” 4 Thus, while Nehemiah is concerned with women leading their husbands astray to worship foreign gods in the manner of Solomon’s wives, Ezra is concerned more with the risk of “abominations” resulting from sexual or other forbidden contacts. Furthermore, Porten concludes that the Aramaicspeaking Elephantine Jews did not share concerns with their contemporaries about losing their linguistic identity; nor did they fear another expulsion. Therefore, they did not oppose exogamous marriages. 5 More-recent discussions about exogamy in the context of the Hebrew Bible include treatments by Carol Meyers, Léonie Archer, Athalya Brenner, Karel van der Toorn, Hennie Marsman, and Tamara Eskenazi. 6 These works address the complex nature of the question of endogamy from a variety of perspectives, and for this reason I will examine them separately. Viewing the need to marry foreign wives as a reaction to a “higher female mortality rate,” Meyers underscores the fact that exogamous marriages appear most prominently in the premonarchic period. However, the notion that mortality rates were higher before the monarchy than in later periods is difficult to demonstrate conclusively, and it needs to be pointed out that we are only aware of instances if they were deemed relevant by the biblical writers. Furthermore, Meyers claims that “it is easy to see the need for females to adopt a new cultural system with respect to exogamy,” 7 but I find it difficult to see why this would have been true, except for a need to “fit in” to a new cultural environment. It seems more likely that Israelite men would have felt a need for their foreign wives to adapt to the Israelite cultural and religious practices. In fact, Meyers also admits: 4.  Ibid. 5.  Ezra 10; Neh 13; Porten, Archives from Elephantine, 249–50. 6. Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 183–85; Léonie Archer, Her Price Is beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine ( JSOTSup 60; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990) 127–29; Athalya Brenner, The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994) 115–22; Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Leiden: Brill, 1996) 199–205; Hennie J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 61–73; Tamara Eskenazi, “Out from the Shadows: Biblical Women in the Postexilic Era,” JSOT 54 (1992) 25–43. 7.  Meyers, Discovering Eve, 183.

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Females did not easily relinquish their cultural traditions. . . . The texts warning against their corrupting influence make no sense unless the foreign wives were in fact maintaining foreign values or practices. 8

Meyers’s point is to highlight the fact that the tension between the practical need determined by demographic laws and the religious ideology was an ongoing struggle reflected in the text and to underscore the religious aspect of this cultural phenomenon. Archer examines the issue of endogamy from an Israelite woman’s perspective and claims that marrying a non-Jew would be her first consideration. 9 However, biblical passages routinely focus not on Israelite women but on Israelite men who were marrying foreigners—the only exception being Deut 7:3. A thorough treatment of exogamy must take into account the Hebrew Bible’s more overt bias and concern about Israelite men marrying foreign women than the other way around. 10 For her part, Brenner asserts that the beginning of the monarchy marked a high tolerance for exogamous marriages, evidenced by an increase in number. She dates the beginning of the negative ideological shift to the second half of the eighth century and stresses the fact that foreign women are negatively portrayed in the prophets and in Proverbs. 11 The problem raised by this argument is that the evidence comes from the biblical record and is skewed by the ideology of the authors. The socioeconomic implications—most notably the notion that endogamous marriages maintained the property within the ‫“( משפחה‬family”) and avoided the introduction of foreign elements—are the driving factor behind endogamous marriages in van der Toorn’s view. Furthermore, he highlights the fact that the choice of a partner who might or 8.  Ibid., 184. 9.  Archer, Her Price Is Beyond Rubies, 127–28. 10.  The evidence from diplomatic marriages shows that differences in status play a major role in the choice of marrying a son or a daughter to a foreigner; however, royal evidence—biblical or otherwise—is not necessarily relevant to this study of non-royal marriage documents. For references related to diplomatic marriages, see Mario Liverani, “Tributary vs. Parithetic Marriages,” in Prestige and Interest: International Relations in the Near East ca. 1600–1100 b.c. (ed. Mario Liverani; History of the Ancient Near East: Studies 1; Padua: Sargon, 1990) 274–82; Samuel A. Meier, “Diplomacy and International Marriages,” in Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Relations (ed. Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) 165–73. 11.  Brenner, Israelite Woman, 116–17.

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might not belong to one’s ‫ משפחה‬was determined by social concerns but also by other factors, such as class or geographical proximity. 12 On this point, Marsman contends that the clan-based society described by van der Toorn applies only to premonarchic Israel and that the institutions of ‫“( בית אב‬house of the father”) and ‫משפחה‬, though still in existence during the monarchy, had less impact on the texture of later society. She adds: With regard to the issue of choice marriage partners, it would seem reasonable to assume that during the monarchic period fathers who owned land preferred endogamous marriage for their daughters, just as they did in the pre-monarchic period. Perhaps endogamous marriages were less important for those who did not own any land. 13

Similar concerns are the basis of Eskenazi’s arguments, as she briefly draws parallels between the evidence from the Elephantine documents and the situation described in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, concluding that women could inherit land, and therefore suggesting that the ban’s main concern was to protect the land and to keep it within the same lineage. 14 These approaches stress the impact of socioeconomic factors on the preference for endogamous marriages. The fact remains that the language used for the justification in the Hebrew Bible is ideological and religious. Most scholars agree that during the Persian period the consideration of exogamy as primarily a “religious” matter linked to the temptation to worship foreign gods shifted to a concern for “purity” in preserving the holy seed. Ezra clearly expresses this perspective when he laments that “the holy seed has become intermingled with the people of the land” (Ezra 9:2). This shift, according to Archer, explains evidence from the Hellenistic period that deals with intermarriage primarily in terms of ‫“( נדה‬ritual impurity”) and therefore condemns the practice in no uncertain terms. 15 The parallels between the Judean community and the Elephantine community cannot be considered without taking into account the multicultural nature of the Elephantine society. Only by addressing this 12.  Van der Toorn, Family Religion, 200–201. 13.  Marsman, Women in Ugarit, 62–63. 14.  Eskenazi, “Out from the Shadows,” 43. 15.  Archer, Her Price Is beyond Rubies, 127–29.

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complexity can we begin to comprehend what exogamy entailed in this context. The first problem one needs to address in this regard is the notion that religious affiliation in that time and place was inevitably intertwined with ethnic identity: applying the label “Jew,” “Aramean,” or “Egyptian” distinguished not only language and religion but also ethnicity—a term that has debatable connotations in an ancient environment and that I have avoided up to this point. A linguistically Hebrew, Aramaic, or Egyptian name does not necessarily indicate an ancient individual’s religious affiliation or the language of the name-giver, although the likelihood of a connection on the latter point is quite high. Nevertheless, personal names in the ancient Near East did carry meaning and, because in most cases they were theophoric, they can reveal the religious affiliation of the name-giver. With caution, therefore, one may infer data about religion from onomastic evidence, as Jeaneane Fowler explains: [T]he name borne by an individual was more than a mere means of identification since each name revealed some aspect concerning the nature of the person who bore that name. Frequently, Semitic names incorporated the name of the deity, so illustrating the beliefs which the name-bearer or the name-giver held concerning his [sic] god. 16

Although this statement indeed reflects a common trend, one can find notable exceptions. For example, a few of the Hermopolis letters 17 were written by a certain Makkibanit, whose Aramaic name means “Who is like (the goddess) Banit?” and whose letters openly express his devotion to the Temple of the Aramean deity Banit (consort of Nabu), who was regularly invoked in the salutatio (TAD A2.2, A2.3). In this case, both Makkibanit’s name and the wording of his letters appear to testify directly to his religious affiliation. However, the situation is a little more complicated if we try to establish his ethnicity. Makkibanit’s father, Psami, in fact bears a linguistically Egyptian name, while the name of his maternal grandfather, Nabunathan (“Nabu has given”), is Aramaic, as is the name Makkibanit. In this case, determining the correspondence of onomastic data, religious affiliation, and ethnic identity becomes rather difficult. Makkibanit was devoted to Banit, and his 16.  Jeaneane D. Fowler, Theophoric Personal Names in Ancient Hebrew ( JSOTSup 49; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988) 17. 17.  For a full discussion of this archive, see chap. 7.

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grandfather was devoted to her spouse, Nabu, but did Makkibanit and Nabunathan consider themselves to be Aramean? Did Makkibanit inherit his religious affiliation from his father or his mother? Did Psami, son of Nabunathan, 18 receive his name from his Egyptian mother but still consider himself an Aramean? What might Psami’s religious affiliation have been? As we will see, assumptions made on these bases must not be made too quickly and must not rule out other possible scenarios. The matter becomes even more complex if one considers that modern concepts of ethnicity may be applied to an ancient context only with extreme caution because the means by which a human group constructs its ethnic identity are known only to the members of the group. The task becomes quite arduous when one is dealing with ancient populations. 19 Although language is often a primary indicator of ethnicity, 20 this does not seem to apply to Persian-period Elephantine since, as we have seen, the Aramaic language functioned as a lingua franca among diverse populations. Our texts use gentilic markers such ‫“( יהודי‬Judean”), ‫ארמי‬ (“Aramean”), and ‫“( מצרי‬Egyptian”) to identify individuals, but scholars debate the extent of the ethnic or religious implications of such designations. 21 Although the term ‫ יהודי‬in this context is often translated “Jew,” this use of “Jew” or “Jewish” is rather anachronistic. 22 Not only 18. These archives evidence the common practice of giving the name of a grandfather to a grandson. 19. Siân Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present (London: Routledge, 1997); Govert van Driel, “Ethnicity: How to Cope with the Subject,” in Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia: Papers Read at the 48th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leiden, 1–4 July 2003 (ed. W. H. van Soldt, R. Kalvelagen, and D. Katz; Leiden: Nederland Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2005) 1–10. 20.  Ibid., 4. 21. E. Volterra, “ ‘yhwdy’ e ‘ʾrmy’ nei papiri aramaici del V secolo provenienti dall’Egitto,” Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Rendiconti della Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche 8/18 (1963) 131–73; Reuven Yaron, “Who Is Who at Elephantine?” Iura 15 (1964) 167–72; E. Volterra, “Osservazioni alla Nota del Prof. R. Yaron,” Iura 15 (1964) 173–80; Mark W. Hamilton, “Who Was a Jew? Jewish Ethnicity during the Achaemenid Period,” ResQ 37 (1995) 103–17. Recently, Janet H. Johnson has argued that the Persian government may have used the term “Aramean” as a descriptor for all Aramaic-speaking people (thus including Judeans) and that Judeans may have used the word “Judean” to identify themselves within the larger “Aramean” group. This hypothesis convincingly explains why one person might self-identify using either gentilic, depending on the context. See J. H. Johnson, “Ethnic Considerations in Persian Period Egypt,” in Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente (ed. Emily Teeter and John A. Larson; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1999) 217. 22.  The translation “Judean” would in my view be more appropriate. A similar objection is put forth by Bob Becking, who opts for the term “Judahite.” See

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this, but the way in which these gentilics are used is ambiguous, to say the least, especially in view of apparent overlaps in meaning and occasionally interchangeable labels applied to the same person. 23 Keeping in mind all the difficulties and caveats that go along with determining how religious, ethnic, and linguistic factors are intertwined in the construction of identity, one can nevertheless examine the data on exogamous marriages in the Elephantine community with benefit. Because our two major legal archives attest intermarriages, I will first discuss the evidence on the families in these documents and then analyze the data found in other documents. 24 In Mipṭaiah’s archive, the woman herself bears a Yahwistic name, 25 as does her father, Maḥseiah. Although a document mentions a son and a wife of Maḥseiah, who may also have been the mother of Mipṭaḥiah, their names are not recorded. Mipṭaḥiah’s husband (at least in an inchoate form of the marriage) was Yezan/Yezaniah (TAD B2.3), 26 whose name in its full form contains the Yahwistic theophoric. Because this marriage either ended or never formally took place, the woman subsequently married the Egyptian Esḥor, referred to after death as Nathan, most likely a hypocoristic form of Yehonathan. The couple’s children also had Yahwistic names, Maḥseiah and Yedaniah. In the ʿAnani archive, the man, whose full name is ʿAnaniah, serves as a ‫“( לחן‬temple servitor”) 27 in the Temple of YHW and marries the Egyptian Tamut, daughter of Patu, and a slave of Mešullam. Prior to the marriage document, the couple had already produced a son by the name of Palti, a hypocoristic form of Pelatiah. After the marriage B. Becking, “Continuity and Community: The Belief System of the Book of Ezra,” in The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformations of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times (ed. B. Becking and M. C. A. Korpel; OtSt 42; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 268–75. 23.  See, for example, Mipṭaḥiah’s father, Maḥseiah, who is called an “Aramean of Aswan” in TAD B2.6–8 and a “Judean of Elephantine” in TAD B2.2–3. 24.  I examine this evidence with the help of a database containing all the personal names of the Aramaic documents, a database that I compiled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the direction of Bezalel Porten. I thank the University “Statale” of Milan, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, which provided me with a grant that allowed me to pursue this research in 1993–94. 25.  That is, a name containing a theophoric element derived from the divine name Yhwh, such as yh (also transliterated iah), yhw, yw. 26.  See the discussion of inchoate marriage in chap. 1. 27.  For a discussion about this difficult term, see Stephen A. Kaufman, Akkadian Influence on Aramaic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975) 66.

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was recorded, the couple also had a daughter named Yehoyišmaʿ, who would later marry ʿAnaniah, son of Ḥaggai. The evidence from these two archives clearly shows the acceptance by both groups of intermarriage between Judeans and Egyptians without gender distinction (that is, an Egyptian woman could marry a Judean man and vice versa) and without regard to the economic and legal status of either party. Another conclusion that may be drawn from the personal names of these two families is that the children appear to bear either Yahwistic (or at least linguistically Hebrew) names, regardless of which parent is supposedly Judean. In order to determine whether these two families are representative, we will now examine evidence from other texts in the corpus. As expected, we find some entirely Judean families, in which all individuals bear Yahwistic/Hebrew names. For example, one woman named Salluah is the daughter of Yehoḥen, wife of Hošaʿyah, and another woman named Salluah is the daughter of Sammuaḥ, who may have been married to a Menaḥem (?). Likewise, we encounter clear examples of families in which all members bear Egyptian names, such as Teteharpoi, wife of Necho and mother of Wodjehor (TAD C4.1:2), and Tahena, mother of Paty and wife of Wahpre (C4.9:1). Mixed families also show up in the archives. Renepineferi, an Egyptian woman, has a son Ahusin, whose name points to a West Semitic (either Hebrew or Aramaic) linguistic affiliation. In this case, despite the absence of his father’s name, Ahusin’s own name could be interpreted as an indicator of his father’s ethnicity. Careful study of the documents reveals that the West Semitic name of a son often implies the affiliation of one of the parents. This specific case is further complicated by the fact that Ahusin is listed as a witness with only his matronymic, which is often an indicator of slave status. A similar case is that of Yedaniah, a Judean man, who is adopted by Uriah, son of Maḥseiah, in TAD B3.9 and whose mother is Tahwa, an Egyptian. These family situations share similarities with the case of ʿAnani, Tamut, and Palti mentioned above. Other examples of mixed families include the Egyptian woman Isireshut, wife of a possibly Judean Hoshea, and the Egyptian women Tasa and Taba, daughters of the daughter of Haniyah and Nathan, respectively, for whom we can reasonably postulate Egyptian mothers/wives (A4.4; C3.28:88; B8.10:6). The reverse situation is attested in only one document, where the appearance of a Judean woman named Berukah, daughter of the Egyptian Pasi

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(TAD D10.5), allows for the possibility that the wife of Pasi and mother of Berukah was Judean. The most striking discovery here is not the evidence of a high incidence of exogamous marriages, as I have already noted, but the higher number of marriages between Egyptian women, either slave or free, and Judean or Aramean men than the number of marriages between Egyptian men and Judean or Aramean women. The unique circumstances of these foreign populations in Egypt may be a determining factor in this ratio. For instance, the soldiers who came or were deported to Egypt as mercenaries may well have left their families behind and then married local women instead. Returning now to the question how the documents from Elephantine compare with the biblical material, we find that these documents are quite significant precisely because of their supposed contemporaneity with the formation period of Scripture passages that most clearly condemn the practice. 28 As we have seen, the archival evidence points to exogamous marriages involving both genders—that is, Judean men marrying foreign women and vice versa; furthermore, the documents attest intermarriages across social and economic strata. This demonstrates that neither the fear of idolatry nor the concern for purity was a factor in the choice of a spouse in the Elephantine Judean community, whose members, while very much involved in their public life around the temple, were clearly not opposed to mingling with other groups. In addition, other factors may have had an impact on the choice of marriage partners. For example, van der Toorn’s “geographical proximity” that in Israel would have led to endogamy, at Elephantine would have been a good reason for exogamy. 29 Concerns with inheritance and ownership of the land (à la Eskenazi and Marsman) would not have constituted an impediment to exogamous marriages at Elephantine because, as I have demonstrated, this legal system protected women’s landed prop­erty. 30 These documents show us that socioeconomic, class, and 28.  For a recent discussion of the possible contemporaneity of the biblical exogamy laws and the Ezra–Nehemiah materials, see Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Was the Pentateuch the Civic and Religious Constitution of the Jewish Ethnos in the Persian Period?” in Persia and the Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (ed. James W. Watts; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001) 41–62. 29.  See above, p.104. 30. Annalisa Azzoni, “Women and Property in Persian Egypt and Mesopotamia,” in Conference Proceedings of the Colloquium on Women and Property in Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Societies at the Center for Hellenic Studies–Harvard University,

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religious factors were not relevant with regard to the choice of spouse. Furthermore, I propose that gender was not a factor, because exogamy was treated the same for men and women at Elephantine, in contrast to most biblical examples. Also in this regard, both Judean and foreign women in Elephantine were better off than the women portrayed in the biblical material, because they were not specially targeted with regard to exogamy. Finally, the complex nature of religious, ethnic, and linguistic identity revealed by the Elephantine documents may enlighten our view of the contemporary scenario in postexilic Judah, where “Jewish” identity was only in its early formative stages.

Oaths Even though determining the circumstances underlying oath texts is quite difficult, in my view, the importance of considering oath-taking in a treatment of religious affiliations lies in the fact that oaths are sworn in the names of deities. Thus they are valuable for speculating on the religious identity of the person involved. Among our legal documents, six mention oath-taking as a part of the legal process. 31 Of these, four involve women either directly or indirectly. In TAD B2.2, Maḥseiah, father of Mipṭaḥiah, takes an oath with his wife and his son (who is probably also Mipṭaḥiah’s son). B2.3 refers to this same oath, because Mipṭaḥiah receives from her father the landed property disputed in the previous document. In B2.8, Mipṭaḥiah takes an oath on her own with regard to some immovable property. Finally, B7.2 tells us a rather violent story: the defendant is accused of having entered the claimant’s house, struck his wife, and stolen his goods. Generally, in the ancient Near Eastern legal tradition, the right to impose a judicial oath rested with the court. This was apparently the case also at Elephantine, given that all of our documents revolve around a court domain. The presence of women as parties in these sorts of cases testifies to their legal capacity to stand on their own as defendants in court.

Held in Washington, DC, 21–25 August 2002 (electronic publication, 2003), http:// zeus.chsdc.org/chs/files/women_property_azzoni.pdf. 31.  TAD B2.2; B2.3 (referring to B2.2); B2.8; B7.1; B7.2; B7.3; B8.9.

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As we have seen, Elephantine women had the right to take oaths, and they could do so either on their own or with someone else. 32 However, the case in which a man assaulted someone else’s wife (TAD B7.2) and the claimant was her husband shows that a woman could be under her husband’s jurisdiction. Based on this papyrus, one could speculate that, although a woman could be called on to take a judiciary oath, she was not entitled to participate sui juris in a case involving someone else taking an oath. However, other explanations are possible. For example, this case also involved damage to the man’s property, and the woman in question was under his authority. With regard to the religious sphere, papyrus TAD B2.8 is particularly significant—a remarkable and complex text. In this “document of withdrawal” (‫[ ספר מרחה‬meaning “quitclaim” or something similar]), Mipṭaḥiah wins a court case when she takes an oath by the Egyptian goddess Sati. The text describes how Pia, son of Pahi, a builder in Aswan, after litigation with Mipṭaḥiah regarding silver, grain, clothing, bronze, iron and, even more importantly, a “document of wifehood” (‫)ספר אנתו‬, relinquished this property. We also learn that on this occasion Mipṭaḥiah was required to swear an oath that she was telling the truth regarding this property. She complied, thus winning the case and leaving Pia, whose heart “was satisfied with the oath,” with nothing else to do but release his claims on all the goods mentioned (B2.8:5–6). Unfortunately, the papyrus reveals neither the relationship between the two parties nor the nature of the litigation (‫ )נפרת‬mentioned in the text. 33 Nevertheless, scholars have variously drawn on this scanty evidence to reconstruct the situation underlying this short text. In particular, several possible descriptions of Mipṭaḥiah’s relationship to Pia 32.  A woman had this right either by virtue of being sui juris or because her oath was of the judiciary type (TAD B2.8; B2.2). 33.  For a discussion of the word, see Porten, Archives from Elephantine, 247. A recent suggestion by Shaked for a derivation from the Persian paret appears briefly in B. Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change (2nd rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2011) 180. The syntactical problem with all of these interpretations is that the word does not fit well in apposition to the word ‫“( דינא‬lawsuit”) given that the two words are separated by a relative clause. Furthermore, an apposition of this sort should show agreement, and we would also expect ‫ נפרת‬to be in the emphatic state. I agree with Tavernier that the term should mean generic “litigation,” from Old Persian *niparta-. See Jan Tavernier, Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550–330 b.c.): Lexicon of Old Iranian Proper Names and Loanwords, Attested in Non-Iranian Texts (OLA 158; Leuven: Peeters, 2007) 448.

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have emerged with the intent of connecting this puzzling oath to the relationship. In one of the first discussions about the background of this text, Vincent proposed that Pia must have been Mipṭaḥiah’s third husband and that this document should be considered a written record of the arrangements decided at the time of the divorce. 34 In Vincent’s view, the sentence ‫“( על דינא זי עבדן בסון‬about the lawsuit which we undertook in Aswan”) in line 3 of the papyrus implies the existence of an actual document of divorce that unfortunately has not been preserved. However, he does not explain why we should postulate the existence of another document when this is the actual record of the lawsuit. Furthermore, he offers no reasons why the archives should not be complete. I disagree that the expression “about the lawsuit which we undertook in Aswan” could be a reference to prior litigation because, in that case, the text would also mention the pertinent document, as happens elsewhere in this same archive (TAD B2.1 and B2.3). Moreover, the use of the perfect ‫ עבדן‬fits perfectly in this context: the litigation is over, the judgment has been given, and now the document is being composed. Interpreting the use of the perfect as implying the existence of a previous document is unwarranted. In any case, there are additional reasons to doubt this interpretation. First of all, one could and should question the claim that Mipṭaḥiah and Pia were married. Not only is the divorce document missing, but also the present text completely lacks any reference to a marriage or divorce. The wifehood document alluded to in the text does not necessarily relate to the marriage of Pia and Mipṭaḥiah but could simply be referring to Mipṭaḥiah’s marriage to either one of her two known husbands—namely, Yezaniah or Esḥor. In 1996, Porten questioned this interpretation and proposed a new explanation for the scenario underlying the document, conjecturing that the dispute involved goods left on deposit. 35 The reason for Porten’s new interpretation was to provide continuity with his new proposed date for TAD B2.6. 36 The new date would imply that this text was redacted at a time when Mipṭaḥiah was married to someone else: 34.  Albert Léopold Vincent, La religion des Judéo-Araméens d’Élephantine (Paris: Geuthner, 1937) 520–41. 35.  Porten, Elephantine Papyri in English, 188–90. 36.  Idem, “The Calendar of Aramaic Texts from Achaemenid and Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Irano-Judaica: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture through-

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her (possibly) second husband, Esḥor. Porten’s new interpretation at least offers a reason for the lack of evidence of a marriage between Mipṭaḥiah and Pia. Although I agree with Porten that the document of wifehood mentioned in B2.8 is the marriage document with Esḥor, I remain unconvinced that B2.8 refers to goods on deposit, especially because the text could mention this and does not. Another possible scenario merits consideration. Imagine that Mipṭaḥiah was at the time Esḥor’s widow and that the dispute was not over deposited items, as Porten has proposed, but over property that she came into possession of after her husband’s death. Various elements in this short papyrus point in this direction. First of all, according to Porten’s new chronology regarding TAD B2.6, Mipṭaḥiah had married her second husband, Esḥor, in 449 b.c.e. For some reason, Porten presumes that Esḥor must still have been alive when B2.8 was written. However, he does not explain why this is necessary, given that the man is not mentioned as being alive here or in any subsequent documents. He was certainly dead when the next document in the archive, B2.9, was drawn up in 420 b.c.e. Nothing prevents us from postulating that Esḥor had already died in 440 b.c.e, when B2.8 was composed. Thus, Mipṭaḥiah could have been a widow who was acting in her own right at that time. In support of this hypothesis is the fact that the text describes her as the “daughter of Maḥseiah, son of Yedaniah,” rather than the “wife of Esḥor.” 37 If this was indeed the case, litigation with the claimant could have been over the property that she received from her deceased husband, Esḥor, based on the marriage document, which is preserved. 38 Why would Pia sue Mipṭaḥiah, however, over property belonging to her and to her deceased husband? Once more, the text yields an elucidating piece of information on this point. Even though Pia’s and Esḥor’s out the Ages (ed. Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer; 6 vols.; Jerusalem: Mossad BenZvi, 1982–2008) 2.13–39, esp. pp. 21–22. 37. It is relevant to note that this unique document (TAD B2.6) reveals Mipṭaḥiah’s remarkable contractual power, because at Esḥor’s death she would have had possession of “everything that he has on the face of the earth,” which encompassed his movable and immovable property and only applied to his property. Her immovable property and this expression are absent in the reciprocal clause. It is therefore not surprising if someone took issue with this arrangement. 38. One should notice that the sorts of goods (i.e., silver, grain, clothing, bronze, and iron) is consistent with a dowry. This is probably the reason why many scholars have assumed a marriage between the two parties.

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patronymics differ, the two men have a connection: Pia is described as a “builder in Aswan” while Esḥor is called a “builder of the king.” Since relatives in an extended family commonly belonged to the same trade, some degree of kinship affiliation between Pia and Esḥor is readily conceivable. Furthermore, the withdrawal clauses in the legal document always mention relatives “near or far,” thus implying that any relative of the extended family might be tempted to claim property, regardless of the closeness of the relationship. With all of this information in mind, we now turn our attention to what this text is telling us with regard to women’s religion. The major religious issue raised by this document is that, although the woman bears a Yahwistic name, she swears by the Egyptian goddess Sati, consort of the god Khnum. 39 Vincent, one of the first commentators on the document, was puzzled by this oath and postulated that Mipṭaḥiah had embraced her husband’s religion while married. Of course, Vincent still thought her husband to be Pia. However, he did not find this conjecture completely satisfactory and commented that “il s’agit plus probablement d’un cas de syncrétisme, facile à expliquer par l’état d’esprit des Judéo-Araméens d’Élephantine.” 40 Although the possibility of syncretism is certainly not to be excluded and is in fact quite likely, it does not necessarily account for the choice of the specific deity named. One question remains to be answered: why did she swear by the goddess Sati and not the god Khnum, who was more commonly cited in these documents? In Yaron’s view, It is likely that in this case the wife taking the oath is the claimant, demanding the return of her dowry; however, the document leaves the role of plaintiff and defendant unattributed. 41

However, Yaron also admits that no other cases record a decision in favor of the claimant, and this would be the only case of a claimant’s having to take an oath. As for the fact that Mipṭaḥiah swears by Sati, Yaron considers the identity of the opponent to be a decisive factor in this 39. I choose to call her Sati based on the Aramaic orthography. Egyptian sources know her as st.t and Greek sources as Satis. For a comprehensive study of the sources for this goddess, see Dominique Valbelle, Satis et Anoukis (Mainz: von Zabern, 1981). 40.  Ibid., 525. 41. Reuven Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 33.

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case. 42 Verger considers it noteworthy that people bearing a Yahwistic name swore by foreign gods, but he refrains from attempting to resolve the issue. 43 Porten had originally also accepted the scenario of Mipṭaḥiah and Pia as husband and wife with TAD B2.8 having been drawn up after their divorce. In pondering the fact that Mipṭaḥiah took the oath in the name of Sati, he asks, Was the choice of the deity the prerogative of the claimant or of the court? . . . Would Pia have objected to an oath in the name of Sati unless he felt that Mipṭaḥiah revered that goddess? It should not automatically be assumed that Mipṭaḥiah’s marriage to Pia meant that she left or was forced to leave the Jewish community. 44

Furthermore, in his opinion, during her marriage, Mipṭaḥiah may have accommodated herself to her husband’s religious rites and participated in that worship. Such accommodation, however, ended with her divorce. Although her next husband was also Egyptian, he entered the Jewish community and their sons bore Hebrew theophoric names. 45

On the one hand, I completely agree with Porten’s premise that one should not assume an automatic conversion and consequent abandonment of the Judean religious community. On the other hand, the evidence proffered by Porten himself shows that, if anyone in this marriage adopted the other spouse’s religion, that person would have been Esḥor. Furthermore, Porten’s assumption that the woman would have “accommodated herself to her husband’s religious rites” is unsupported by any evidence. Muffs and Grelot accept the explanation offered by Vincent, Yaron, and Porten. 46 Grelot also claims that the reason for the absence of the marriage document is the fact that “son ex-époux a sans doute récupéré 42.  Ibid., 32. 43. Alessandro Verger, Ricerche giuridiche sui papiri aramaici di Elefantina (Rome: Centro di Studi Semitici, Università di Roma, 1965) 191–92. 44.  Porten, Archives from Elephantine, 153–54. 45.  Ibid., 154. 46. Yochanan Muffs, Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri from Elephantine (New York: Ktav, 1969) 3, 61; Pierre Grelot, Documents Araméens d’Égypte (Paris: Cerf, 1972) 189–91.

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son contrat de mariage.” 47 In a note on the translation of the text, he stresses that “ce contrat a dû être remis à l’époux,” referring to Porten’s explanation that “she may [italics mine] have had to surrender to him the marriage contract.” 48 Despite these assumptions, the text does not say that she returned the document mentioned in line 4. On the contrary, Pia is the one who relinquished the goods, which must have included the document of wifehood. At this point of the discussion and before putting forth my conclusions, I will survey the evidence from the other Aramaic documents involving oaths in search of elements that would allow us to shed light on this particular issue. In TAD B2.2, Maḥseiah, son of Yedaniah, father of our Mipṭaḥiah, swore “by YHW, the God in Elephantine, the fortress,” together with his wife and son, “all three” (B2.2:4–5). The oath involved a lawsuit regarding land about which Dargamana, son of Kvar­shaina, a Khwarezmian, had filed a complaint before the judge Damidata and his colleagues. The judges required him to swear an oath by YHW. Maḥseiah complied, and Dargamana withdrew from the land (B2.2:6). In this case, even though the claimant, Dargamana, is Khwarezmian and the judge is Persian, it seems perfectly acceptable (and possibly necessary) 49 to all concerned for Maḥseiah, as well as his wife and son, to swear by YHW. If this is true, then Yaron’s idea that one would swear by the god of the other party is not supported. Furthermore, this analysis allows for the possibility that the prerogative of choosing the deity would be left to the court. The comparison between the two documents renders Yaron’s claim that Mipṭaḥiah was the likely claimant in the litigation even more doubtful. In TAD B2.3, Maḥseiah refers to the previous document with these words: “There is 1 quitclaim that Dargamana . . . wrote to me on account of that land, when he brought a claim about it before the judges and an oath was imposed upon me and I swore to him that it was mine” (B2.3:23ff.). Maḥseiah gave Mipṭaḥiah this quitclaim when he gave her the land and a house. This example is also significant because it demonstrates that a reference to previous litigation would mention the documents involved if they existed. 47.  Ibid., 191. 48.  Ibid., 190, note f; Porten, Archives from Elephantine, 247. 49.  This interpretation would require us to take the meaning of line 6 literally: “They imposed upon you an oath to me to swear by YHW.”

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Papyrus TAD B7.1 records an oath that PN 50 was required to swear before YHW about stolen fish. We do not know whether PN swore or not, due to textual damage, but the requirement for the defendant to take an oath is clear. As for the claimant, he bears the Yahwistic name Maḥseiah, even though he is defined as an Aramean of Aswan. Since we do not know the identity of the defendant, this document is not particularly significant for our purposes apart from the mention of a court and another oath sworn before YHW. 51 TAD B7.2 refers to an oath sworn before the god Herembethel that was required of Malkiah, son of Yašobiah, with regard to entering [Ar]­tafrada’s home, striking his wife, and taking away his goods. Malkiah’s description as an Aramean in spite of his Jewish name does not necessarily explain why he swears by the Aramaic deity Herembethel. The same person could be identified as either an Aramean or a Jew, interchangeably. This is the case, for example, with Mipṭaḥiah’s father, Maḥseiah, who is called an Aramean of Aswan in B2.1, 6, 7, and 8. This document demonstrates without a doubt that people with Jewish names could swear by deities other than the Jewish god. The same practice is also evident in TAD B7.3, which documents an oath sworn regarding a donkey, of which Mešullam claims part ownership. This oath is particularly noteworthy in that Menaḥem, the defendant, swears by “H[erem], the [go]d in the shrine, and by ʿAnatyahu” (B7.3:3). 52 This is the only text that mentions an oath sworn by more than one deity. The ‫“( מסגדא‬shrine”) could either indicate the location where the oath took place or a place of worship where the deity was thought to reside, given the ambiguity of the preposition ‫ב‬, which allows both meanings. In any case, B7.3 shows not only that one could swear oaths by deities other than YHW but also that one could swear in the name of a goddess. Mention of ʿAnatyahu together with another male deity and in a secondary position makes this occurrence quite different from the reference in B2.8. 53 TAD B8.9 mentions an “oath of 50.  The name is not preserved. 51.  For a discussion of the document, see Bezalel Porten, “An Aramaic Oath Contract: A New Interpretation (Cowley 45),” RB 90 (1983) 563–75. 52. . For a discussion of the goddess ʿAnatyahu, see idem, Archives from Elephantine, 170–71, 177–79; Vincent, La religion des Judeo-Araméens, 528. 53.  Taking oaths in the name of deity couples such as Shamash and Ayya was not unusual; for lists of gods invoked in oaths throughout Mesopotamian literature, see Samuel A. B. Mercer, The Oath in Babylonian and Assyrian Literature (Paris: Geuthner, 1912). Karel van der Toorn, “Anat-Yahu, Some other Deities and the Jews

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litigation” (‫)מומא נפרת‬, but the document is too fragmentary to understand its context. 54 All the evidence above points to the fact that it was not uncommon for people with Yahwistic names to take oaths in the name of deities other than YHW. In the Elephantine context, the discovery that people might swear by Heremebethel or other pagan deities is hardly surprising. But why Sati? In their attempts to explain why Mipṭaḥiah swore by an Egyptian deity, scholars so far have not considered the relevance of the deity’s gender, especially given the fact that the person who took the oath was a woman. Religious syncretism may well have been a factor but not necessarily the only factor in the choice of a patron deity for an oath. Furthermore, the Hebrew Bible mentions that the Israelites worshiped gods and goddesses other than Yhwh. If the biblical authors, in their efforts to introduce the monotheistic cult of Yhwh, condemned the population because they worshiped other gods, we may safely assume that they were doing so. 55 Israelite religion was certainly more varied than the official cult advocated in the biblical texts, and the fact that the polemics continued into the postexilic period until Ezra and Nehemiah indicates that this was still the case in the Persian period. The evidence from Elephantine does not need to be considered unique in this context. As Dandamaev and Lukonin have pointed out with respect to religious practices in the Persian Empire, “Individuals, who for whatever reasons happened to be in a foreign soil, retained fidelity to their own gods, but also worshiped the gods of that country to which they had gone.” 56 After all, in the Aramaic papyri from Egypt, Khnum is called “the god,” and Sati is called “the goddess.” Furthermore, many letters contain greetings to “all the gods,” even when the addressor or the addressee or both bear Yahwstic names. In any case, the significance of TAD B2.8 is that Mipṭaḥiah is the only woman in the corpus to swear on her own. In my opinion, it is more likely that her oath by Sati reflected her own religious view, of Elephantine,” Numen 39/1 (1986) 80–101; idem, “Goddesses in Early Israelite Religion,” in Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence (ed. Lucy Goodison and Christine Morris; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998) 83–97. 54.  Note here again the term ‫ ;נפרת‬see above, p. 111 n. 33. 55.  See, for example, 2 Kgs 17:7–17; Judg 2:19; and 1 Sam 7:3–4. 56.  M. A. Dandamaev and V. G. Lukonin, The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 359.

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regardless of who her husband was at the time or which gods or goddesses he worshiped. My suggestion is that Mipṭaḥiah’s personal connection to the goddess determined the choice of Sati, whether at the court’s prerogative or her own. Explanations that do not consider the role of Mipṭaḥiah’s personal religious practices are insufficient and erroneous. The evidence of the other texts, particularly TAD B2.2, demonstrates without a doubt that one could swear by YHW even with regard to a foreign party or in the presence of a Persian judge. It seems unlikely that Mipṭaḥiah would take the oath by the Egyptian goddess because of Egyptian influence (whether by the husband or the other party) since, among the oath documents attested in Demotic, none is by Sati. 57 Furthermore, Egyptian sources do not seem to differentiate between oaths taken by women and by men. On the other hand, in Mesopotamian tradition, which has had a “symbiotic” relationship with the Aramaic legal texts, this distinction is not unknown. An Old Assyrian tablet (Kt 94/k 131), found in 1994 in the kârum in Kültepe and published by Cécile Michel, 58 declares: Si (c’est) un homme, il (le) fera jurer par le poignard d’Aššur, (si c’est) une femme, par le tambour d’Ištar” 59 and points out that “l’emploi des ces termes précis implique une prestation de serment distincte pour les hommes et les femmes, la différence portant sur la divinité à invoquer. 60

Michel is aware that this is the only example where the distinction is stated so clearly. However, she provides evidence of gender-divided lists of people swearing oaths to King Zimrî-Lîm in Mari. 61 Unfortunately, the expression tuppi nîš ilim in these texts does not clarify in which deity’s name the oaths were taken. As part of her argument that, while men generally invoked divine couples or personal deities, whereas women 57. Ursula Kaplony-Heckel, Die Demotischen Tempeleide (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1963) 1.24–26. 58. Cécile Michel, “Hommes et femmes prêtent serment à l’époque paléoassyrienne,” in Jurer et maudire: Pratiques politiques et usages juridiques du serment dans le Proche-Orient ancien (ed. Sophie Lafont; Mediterranées 10–11; Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996) 105–23. 59.  Ibid., 112. 60.  Ibid., 114. 61.  Ibid., 114; see also M. Bonechi, “Les serments de femmes à Mari,” in ibid., 97–104.

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had a preference for goddesses, Michel also quotes a letter in which the woman Ištar-bāštī announced to her brother, “I will pray for you to Iš4tár and Iš4-tár-za.at.” 62 In her view, women’s special devotion to female deities could be the reason that women needed to take their oaths by the goddess Ištar and facing the ḫuppu, her symbol. 63 In support of Michel’s hypothesis is another example, text CT 8.12b, in which two male witnesses swear by Shamash and Adad, while a woman is obliged to swear by Ištar. 64 The religious differentiation between genders attested in Mesopotamia is not unknown in the biblical world. Though unfortunately women’s religion and private religion in the Hebrew Bible are difficult to document and consequently often overlooked, the best example of this dichotomy occurs in Jeremiah’s reference to worship directed to the Queen of Heaven ( Jer 7:18), where the prophet accuses women of kneading dough to make cakes for the feminine deity. In Jer 44:15–19, the population responds to these accusations. The first to reply are the “men who knew that their wives were making sacrifices to other gods.” Then, in v. 19, the women ironically ask, “Is it without our husbands’ knowledge that we have made cakes in her image and poured libations to her?” The women’s reply seems to respond to an accusation of making offerings and cakes as well as pouring libations to the Queen of Heaven without their husbands’ approval. Although some scholars have pointed out that both men and women, not to mention children, were involved in this cult, in my opinion one cannot deny the special association of the practice with women. Rather, this episode is a valuable attestation of women’s autonomous religious expression that reveals a particular bond between Israelite women and a female deity. As Ackerman has acknowledged, identification of the Queen of Heaven has received much scholarly attention without ever reaching a clear consensus. Ackerman herself is sympathetic to the view of a “syncretistic goddess who combines the characteristics of east Semitic Ištar and west Semitic Astarte.” 65 62.  Michel, “Hommes et femmes,” 115. 63.  For a discussion of this term and its symbolic significance, see ibid., 117–20. 64.  I wish to thank Prof. Marten Stohl for suggesting this reference in personal conversation. 65. Susan Ackerman, “ ‘And the Women Knead Dough’: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth Century Judah,” in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader

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In the Elephantine context, it seems plausible that Judean women worshiped a female deity and that, in this particular time and place, the obvious choice would have been the local goddess of the island. Sati appears in Egyptian sources as old as the Pyramid texts, and the presence of the goddess and her temple on Elephantine date back as far as the Sixth Dynasty. Among her titles are “Mistress of Elephantine” (nb.t ibw) and “Mistress of Heaven” (nb.t pt). In my opinion, Mipṭaḥiah had no need to adopt her husband’s religion. There is no reason to assume that she left the Judean community, for which the Temple of YHW was such an important communal center. However, this did not prevent her from seeking Sati, the island’s local female deity. The possibility that gender played a role in her choice of deity appears even more likely if we take into consideration ostracon TAD D7.21, on which a man named Micaiah blessed Giddel, his lord, “by YHW and by Khnum.” This document is yet another example of how acceptable it was for Judeans to address the local gods, Sati and Khnum, whose presence on the island, side by side with YHW, is well attested in both Egyptian and Aramaic sources. However, it seems to me too unique to be coincidental that Micaiah chose Khnum, a male god, while for Mipṭaḥiah, a woman, the choice was the goddess Sati, “Mistress of Elephantine” and “Mistress of Heaven.” (ed. Alice Bach; London: Routledge, 1999) 21–32. For a different view, proposing Anat as the Queen of Heaven, see van der Toorn, “Goddesses in Early Israelite Religion,” 83–88.

Chapter Seven

Private Life “And what is this that you did not send me a letter?”

Some of the most fascinating information about private lives is found in letters, though many of them are difficult to translate and, perhaps even more, to interpret because the sender and the addressee shared a common knowledge of the backround, about which in many cases we remain clueless. It is worthwhile to examine the letters, however, in search of details about the private lives of men and women, which in this case can be heard in their own voices and are thus all the more important. Private letters, on papyri and ostraca, record everyday business matters and concerns about family relationships, and they are invaluable for understanding how people interacted in the past. For these reasons, in this chapter I examine the Aramaic letters and ostraca from Egypt that involved women and try to catch a glimpse of their everyday life.

The Hermopolis Papyri The Hermopolis letters are a group of late-sixth- to early-fifth-century papyri that were found in a jar in the Ibieion at Tuna el-Gebel, together with a straw basket and some ropes. 1 It is not known why the carrier, who came from Memphis, never managed to deliver them to their two destinations (Luxor and Aswan) or why they ended up in Tuna elGebel. They are especially valuable because they give us a glimpse of the Aramean community in Egypt, which is less well documented than 1.  The Ibieion is a Temple dedicated to the Egyptian god Thoth. Other jars found in the underground gallery of the Ibieion contained mummies of ibises. See Editio Princeps of E. Bresciani and M. Kamil, Le lettere aramaiche di Hermopoli (Atti dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Memorie: Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 8/12/5; Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1966) 357–428; J. T. Milik, “Les papyrus araméens d’Hermopoulis et les cultes syro-phéniciens en Égypte Perse,” Bib 48 (1967) 547–621.

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the Judean community in Israel–Palestine. Even though these letters are slightly earlier than the majority of the other Aramaic documents from Egypt and they do not come from Elephantine, I include them here. Most of them are addressed to or involve women, and they paint a vivid picture of familial relationships in a community that was closeby both in space and in time. Among the eight letters of Hermopolis, seven are rather well preserved (TAD A2.1–7), while one (D1.1) is quite fragmentary and consists of only two strips of papyrus that preserve only the beginning and the end of each line. As a result, it is almost impossible to extract any relevant information from D1.1, aside from the fact that the verbal forms and the suffix pronouns clearly show that the addressee of this letter was a woman as well. The greeting formulas of the letters directed to Aswan (TAD A2.1– 4) were different from the greetings in the letters directed to Luxor (A2.5–7). In the Aswan group, the letters open with greetings to the temples of Bethel, the Queen of Heaven, Banit, and Nabu. This feature is missing from the Luxor group, and we can only speculate that in Luxor there were no temples to Aramaic deities. 2 However, although the salutatio of the letters sent to Aswan begins with greetings to the Aramaic temples, almost all of the letters open with the characteristic sentence “I bless you by Ptaḥ that he may show me/let me see your face in health.” 3 This is not unusual in the Persian Egypt religious environment, where local Egyptian deities are at times invoked alongside the deities associated with a given group. 4 Different aspects of these documents have been variously discussed, but the topic I investgate here is the intricate web of familial relationships reflected in the letters, which are further complicated by the use of the terms “brother” and “sister” with a much broader sense than the strictly literal. The letters were written by two soldiers, Nabuša and Makkibanit, to their families in Aswan and Luxor. The two men are clearly connected, if not related, because they often mention each other. Because both of them often send greetings to the family of the other, and they jointly write a letter addressed to two women in Luxor, it is indeed possible 2. Pierre Grelot, Documents Araméens d’Égypte (Paris: Cerf, 1972) 146. 3.  The exception is TAD A2.7. 4.  For a discussion of the letters in the religious context of Aswan and Elephantine, see Karel van der Toorn, “Anat-Yahu, Some other Deities and the Jews of Elephantine’,” Numen 39/1 (1986) 80–101.

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that they were related, perhaps siblings. They both write to a woman called Mama (‫)ממה‬, and they refer to her as “my mother.” However, it is possible that each would have addressed his own mother as “Mama,” regardless of her personal name. 5 Even if Mama is the mother of Nabuša and Makkibanit, the men’s fathers have different names: Psami is Makkibanit’s father, and Peteḥnum is Nabuša’s father. It is also possible, as Milik suggested based on his reconstruction of line 3 of TAD A2.6, that Nabuša was Makkibanit’s father-in-law. 6 Grelot speculates that Mama could have first married Peteḥnum and subsequently Psami, or that Nabuša married a daughter of Psami and Mama who was still living with her parents. 7 This second hypothesis was also suggested by the original editors. 8 Porten and Greenfield suggested that Peteḥnum died after the birth of Nabuša and that Mama remarried. 9 This is also possible, given that both Nabuša and Makkibanit address Psami as “father.” 10 Another possibility is that Psami and Mama were Nabuša’s in-laws, and it would have been natural for Nabuša to address them as his parents. In any case, these are all speculations but, regardless of the specifics, I think we can positively affirm that all these individuals at least belonged to an extended family. It is difficult to ascertain from the papyri which of the women, if any, were the two men’s wives, especially considering the fact that the men used the word “sister” to address them. 11 Both Milik and Grelot advance the hypothesis that Tašai was Makkibanit’s wife, and Nanayḥem was Nabuša’s wife. 12 If this is correct, it is possible that Tašai and Nanayḥem were sisters and that they were living with their parents while their husbands were away. 5.  See Yoshiyuki Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West Semitic (SBLDS 153; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999) 126. Both possibilities—that is, either a lallname or a derivative from Eg. mꜢmꜢ, “palm-tree” (compare Hebrew Tamar)— are equally possible. 6.  Milik,“Les papyrus araméens d’Hermopoulis,” 549. 7.  Grelot, Documents Araméens d’Égypte, 147. 8.  Bresciani and Kamil, Lettere Aramaiche di Hermopoli, 365. 9. Bezalel Porten and Jonas C. Greenfield, “The Aramaic Papyri from Hermopolis,” ZAW 80 (1968) 218. 10.  Psami in TAD A2.1:13; A2.2:4, 18; A2.3:14; A2.4:1, 14. 11.  Probably according to the Egyptian custom, where husband and wife called each other sn, “brother,” and sn.t, “sister.” Grelot, Documents araméens d’Égypte, 146; Bezalel Porten and Jonas C. Greenfield, “Hermopolis Letter 6,” IOS 4 (1974) 2. 12.  Grelot, Documents araméens d’Égypte, 147.

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In reading the letters addressed to these two women, I think it is rather obvious that their relationship to Nabuša and Makkibanit was close, but there is no clear evidence that either one of them was a wife instead of a sister. TAD A2.1 recounts that Nanayḥem provided Nabuša with his clothes and that she participated in the family business by sending him castor oil, which he could exchange for other goods. A look at the other documents shows that these activities were not exclusively those of either a wife or a sister. Regarding the exchange of oil, Porten and Greenfield point out that castor oil, which is also attested in all the dowries in the documents of wifehood, was probably a common commodity, used for medicine, lamps, and anointing the body. They speculate that castor oil was a local product, while olive oil was probably imported from Palestine. 13 In any case, considering that at least some of these women must have been biological sisters, it is interesting that the interaction between and reciprocal responsibilities of a brother and sister did not end with the marriage of either sibling. After all, upon the death of the father, the brother would have been the head of the family. In TAD A2.2, Makkibanit reassures Tašai regarding Nabuša, which raises the possibility that Nabuša may have been her husband instead of Makkibanit; in fact, this is even more likely in light of the fact that, if Tašai were indeed Makkibanit’s wife, it is very strange that in his letter to her he does not ask about her son (which one would expect to be his). He does mention him, however, in the letter that he addresses to Reiah. If Tašai was Nabuša’s wife, then Makkibanit could be her brother, and Makkibanit and Nabuša could be brothers-in-law. An interesting feature of TAD A2.3, a letter from Makkibanit to Reiah, is the fact that the external address of the letter does not mention Reiah but reads: “To my father, Psami, son of Nabunatan, from Makkibanit. Carry to Aswan.” This could be explained by assuming that Reiah lived under Psami’s authority. The simplest explanation would be that she was Psami’s daughter, but it is also possible that she was Makkibanit’s wife and was living in her father-in-law’s house while her husband was away. If this were the case, then we must assume that Nanayḥem and Tašai did not live under Psami’s roof, because they are the external addressees on their letters; Reiah’s dependence on Psami would then be harder to explain. 13.  Porten and Greenfield, “The Aramaic Papyri from Hermopolis,” 223–24.

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TAD A2.3 also contains a puzzling reference to a certain Harudj, whose relationship to Reiah and Makkibanit is difficult to ascertain. Makkibanit declares: Harudj is well here. Do not worry about him; as you could do for him, I am doing for him. And Tapamet and Aḥatsin are supporting him. And now, really, you have not sent a letter in his name. And now that you are full of anger saying he did not ask about Harudj as much/behold as I am doing to Harudj, so may Banit do to me. Really, is Harudj not my brother?

Milik proposes that Harudj was a young soldier, 14 but if this were the case, there would be no reason for Tapamet and Aḥatsin to take care of him. The most likely explanation is that he was a child who needed the care of the two women, because the text records that they received a salary (‫ )פרס‬for their service. However, it is not clear why, if the child was so young that he needed care, he was not staying with Reiah, who was supposedly his mother and who worried about him. Nabuša and Makkibanit also wrote to Luxor. In TAD A2.5, the two men wrote together to Taru and Tabi, again calling them their sisters. These women might have been their actual wives because this letter, as explained below, contains personal information that is not provided in the other letters. Although the letter is sent by both men together, Nabuša speaks in 1st-person singular. He begins by writing about the lack of communication between the men and the people in Aswan: And now, know that they do not bring us out anything from Aswan. And moreover, after I left Aswan, Shail has not sent me a letter or anything.

It is puzzling that he specifies that they should know about this, as if this should be a matter of concern to them. People have generally assumed that he is complaining about it, but it is also possible that, since the letter continues by asking that certain items be sent to them, perhaps the claim is to reinforce that the items are needed because they are certainly not coming from Aswan. After the request for these items, TAD A2.5 changes and assumes a much more personal tone: 14.  Milik,“Les papyrus araméens d’Hermopoulis,” 549.

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And what is this that you did not send me a letter? And I, a snake bit me, and I was dying and you did not send (a note to ask) whether I was alive or I was dead. I send this letter for your well being.

It is strange that this is the only letter in which this event is mentioned. It almost seems to be recounted to make the women feel guilty, as though the men are asking for attention. Do these women occupy a special position? We do not receive much help from letter TAD A2.6, where Tabi is being addressed, since unfortunately in this case the sender is not identified. Tabi is mentioned in A2.2. If Tabi and Taru were the actual wives, we should assume that Taru was Nabuša’s wife and Tabi was Makkibanit’s, since Tabi is elsewhere mentioned as Nabuša’s sister. Even though we cannot be certain about the relationship between the women in this correspondence, the letters yield first-hand information on the interaction between men and women within a family and highlight the human connection. That the letters focus so much on caring and reassuring is not surprising, and the fact that the women are major players is not completely surprising either, but it does need to be underscored. It is clear from the Hermopolis letters that the correspondence between the various members of the family was quite frequent and that it went in both directions. That is, the women of this particular family were not only receiving letters from their male relatives but were sending them as well. Unfortunately, this does not allow us to speculate about female literacy, considering that the letters in question were written by the same hand (except for one), which raises the likelihood that they were written by a scribe. We do not have evidence that men or women wrote their own letters. Can we detect any differences in the ways that women and men were treated in the letters? Regarding the salutation, only one difference is apparent in the way men and women were addressed. In TAD A2.4, Makkibanit addresses his father, Psami, as “my lord” and describes himself as “your servant,” 15 while in A2.7, ʾAmi addresses his mother, ʿAttardimri, as “my sister,” just as he describes himself as “your brother.” Unfortunately, Mama is not directly addressed in the letters, and we do not know whether Makkibanit and Nabuša would have addressed her as “my lady” or “my sister.” The blessings and the greetings to the temples, which can still be considered part of the salutation, are divided along 15.  As does Nabuša, whether Psami was his father or not.

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geographical lines or in consideration of personal preferences toward some gods, 16 but there does not seem to be a separation along gender lines. Note also the less-common formula ‫י שלם וחין‬/‫שלחת לכ‬ I have sent you health and life. This is apparently a substitute for a blessing used by Ptaḥ in two other letters. That blessing was used for both a man and a woman, 17 which shows that there was no reason from the standpoint of gender for choosing one formula over the other. As for the interaction between men and women in the family, both the men and the women express concern about the health of their relatives. Furthermore, the words of reassurance in Makkibanit’s letters reveal that women felt free to express their opinions, that they could intervene regarding family matters, and that their opinions and worries were taken into consideration. Though we cannot conclude that Makkibanit’s words are to be taken at face value, the fact that he felt the need to reassure the women in his family about other family members suggests that he at least had to act as though he valued their opinion. The women also appear to have had authority as far as their relatives were concerned, because the men felt obliged not only to report to them regarding their relatives but also to reassure them that they were acting properly on their behalf. Another element that is clearly evident in the letters is that women actively participated in the family business. Although all the letters contain well wishes and greetings, they also refer to business matters that required attention. 18 It seems that, in the family business, women as well as men were in charge of sending garments, 19 oil, 20 and other goods and that they were also responsible for transactions regarding wool (TAD A2.2 and A2.6). Finally, if my interpretation of A2.3 is correct, the letter attests that women were hired to take care of a young child. 16.  Nabuša greets the temples of Bethel and the Queen of Heaven (TAD A2.1), while Makkibanit seems to prefer Banit (A2.2; A2.4) and Nabu (A2.3). 17. Man: TAD A2.4 (to Waḥpreʿ); woman: A2.7 (to ʿAttardimri). 18.  With the exception of TAD A2.7, where the only concern appears to be the care of some children. 19. Women: TAD A2.1; A2.3 (she is told not to send it); men: A2.2; A2.4. 20. Women: TAD A2.1; A2.5; men: A2.2; A2.4

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Miscellaneous Papyri Letters Aside from the Hermopolis letters, there are other examples of correspondence on papyrus that include women in Persian Egypt, from various provenances. Since these letters are not found in a single group or in a specific archive, we know even less about the family relationships of the individuals involved. TAD A3.4:1–4 To my mother, Yehoyišmaʿ, your son Šallum [. . .] to you. Galgul is well here. The babies are well. And n[ow . . .] give that [. . .] of mine to Paḥnum, son of Nabudalah, and he will ma[ke . . .] they will sue him. And if there is money, give (it) to him. Though very fragmentary, this document nevertheless provides precious information. It tells us that Yehoyišmaʿ was in charge of giving money and perhaps something else to Paḥnum. Furthermore, in the following section of the letter, where Šallum sends greetings to other people, he says, “Greetings to my mother, Menaḥemet,” which proves that the term “mother” was also applied quite broadly, just as was the term “sister.” Still, it is possible that Yehoyišmaʿ was indeed Šallum’s mother 21 and that Menaḥemet was either his mother-in-law or an elderly relative to whom he was showing respect by addressing her as “my mother.” TAD A3.7:1–2 To my lady Šalluah, your servant Hošea, g[reetings . . .]. May all the gods greet you at all times. Greetings to my lord Menaḥem. Greetings to my lady Abihi. And now, you sent to me [. . .]. Yauš said to me, saying, “Give for gold[. . . .]” To Salluah, your servant[. . . .] The importance of this letter, which is also quite fragmentary, lies in the fact that it is clearly a salutation in which the woman is addressed as “my lady” by someone who describes himself as “your servant.” 22 In this case, we are not told whether Hošea and Šalluah are related, but they do not 21.  Although the papyrus is too damaged for us to know how he addressed her on the endorsement. 22.  A similar case may be the fragment TAD A1.11:1, where the ending ‫[אתי‬. . .] suggests the possibility of ‫[על מר]אתי‬,, “to my lady.”

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appear to be, especially if we consider that no kinship term is used in either the opening address or the endorsement. In this case, therefore, I do not think that Hošea was using the expression “my lady” as an honorific for his mother. It may just be that the lady held a higher position, and perhaps her whole family had higher status, as suggested by the fact that other men and women, who were presumably her relatives, are also called “my lord” and “my lady” in the extant part of the letter. Also noteworthy is the fact that a man named Menaḥem is mentioned as “my lord” in the letter right after the blessing, 23 but the servant’s letter was addressed to a woman, despite the fact that there was a man with high status in the household. Due to the fragmentary state of the remaining portion of the letter, it is impossible to determine the nature of the business involved, although the fact that gold is mentioned is definitely worth noting.

Ostraca In addition to papyrus letters, ostraca are another valuable source for learning about the everyday life of women in Persian Egypt. They generally record shorter and more concise notes than letters and, like the letters, they are usually fragmentary, which means that in many cases the sender or the addressee (or both) is missing. Unfortunately, while it is usually clear from the inflection of verbs and pronouns whether the addressee is a woman, this is not the case when the sender is a woman, because 1st-person verbs and pronouns are not distinguishable by gender. In the ostraca, the salutation, whenever available, is usually limited to a simple ‫“( שלם‬Greetings”), followed by the name of the addressee, and no gender distinction is apparent. Although various scholars, in the absence of a name for the sender, have by default assumed that they were all men, I think that it a worthy exercise to explore the possibility that some of the senders were women. After all, it is clear from the rest of the material that women also corresponded—apparently often—and therefore, the default in this case is not justified. I suggest therefore that, in the absence of evidence demonstrating otherwise, the possibility that a woman was the sender should be taken into consideration. In this section, I highlight the passages that clearly involve women and suggest new interpretations. 23.  Note the blessing “by all the gods” in a context of Jewish personal names.

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An unknown sender writes to his “mother,” Kaviliah, and says: TAD D7.1 Now look, Npnʾ, the shepherd of Sekhmere, your ally, came to Aswan with the sheep to sell. Go, stand with him in Aswan today. If you do good for him in Aswan, [so he] will do for me. Look, tomorrow I have to go home, so let them give you a goat before I reach you. Now, see what is good to do for him. Look, they are hungry. Give to him both bread and flour and ask him, “What do you seek . . . ?” The note demonstrates that a woman was allowed and perhaps was even expected to participate in what appears to have been a market scene in Aswan. Furthermore, Kaviliah was involved in the family business and was expected to take care of the needs of the people surrounding her. A woman named Aḥuṭab emerges from several ostraca (TAD D7.2– 10). Some of these do not reveal the identity of the sender or the relationship of the sender to Aḥuṭab. TAD D7.2 [Gr]eetings, Aḥuṭab, Now, send me a little salt today. And if there is no salt in the house, buy it from the boats of grain that are in Elephantine. Look, I do not have salt to put in the flour one. . . . This note demonstrates that ostraca were used for messages that were sent frequently—often requiring a reply within the same day. As I mentioned above, this is a case in which the sender did not identify himself. Grelot posits, perhaps given the content, that it is Aḥuṭab’s husband, but there is no evidence to support this conjecture. This is also the case for TAD D7.3, 4, which are so damaged that it is impossible to determine their context, other than the fact that the person appears to be giving instructions to Aḥuṭab. Finally, D7.5 records the name of the sender, a certain Mikaiah. The note mentions Aḥuṭab’s health in the salutation but does not clarify how Mikaiah is related to her. Because the letter seemingly contains instructions, much like the previous letters, it is perhaps not too farfetched to suggest that this is the same sender, but I think that the information is too meager to venture additional suppositions.

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Chapter Seven TAD D7.5 From Mikaiah to A[ḥuṭab], Your health[. . .]. Now, look [. . .] the large and also the small.[. . .] Do not let (one) sift from them. Lo, many that are not [. . .] them/theirs. Regarding the wood that I [dispatched] to you in the hand of Pamin. Give it [to Peṭo]siri. Moreover, seek the skin [(about) which] I said (spoke) to you. Lo, it is upon you. Let it not be lost.

In the following ostracon, Aḥuṭab is mentioned, but she is not the addressee: TAD D7.6 To Hošaʿyah, your health. 24 Now, you alone look after the children until Aḥuṭab comes, not others. If their bread is ground, knead for them 1 qab before their mother comes. Send me (a message) when you make the Passover. Do send news of the child. Since the sender instructs Hošaʿyah to take care of the children until Aḥuṭab comes and a few lines later repeats “until their mother comes,” I think it is fair to assume that Aḥuṭab was a mother. It is possible, although definitely not certain that the sender was her husband. The context of the note is somewhat obscure: Why was Aḥuṭab away? Since the children appear to be small, why was she not with them? What is the relationship of Hošaʿyah vis-à-vis Aḥuṭab and the children? Why would the sender be worried that other people would take care of them? It is possible that Hošaʿyah was a younger brother or a relative and that the father is trying to make sure that he takes full responsibility for them. We do not know where Aḥuṭab is or when she is coming back. Considering the content of TAD A7.1, in which a woman was going to the market to sell sheep, and that in A7.4 Mikaiah told Aḥuṭab to take care of some business, it could be that this note is referring to one of those eventualities. In any case, it seems that women were not housebound but could be away. 24.  The expression probably stands for the fuller formula: “May all the Gods/ DN seek your health at all times.”

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If the sender was not the husband, it may have been Aḥuṭab’s mother (the mother-in-law of the addressee) who wrote to make sure that Hošaʿyah was taking care of the grandchildren and was not leaving them in the care of someone else. The question about Passover would then make more sense, because they may have been planning to spend it together. Aḥuṭab is also mentioned in TAD D7.7:9, where she is supposed to deal with wool; she is greeted in D7.8:12, which is addressed to a certain Uriah; and she is mentioned in a fragmentary context in D7.10, which is addressed to a certain Yedaniah. Although every one of these letters is unique in that each one deals with a particular personal situation, we can nevertheless notice a few similarities about the concerns and issues. In contrast to situations portrayed by the legal documents, in which women activities are somewhat limited, in all of these texts women appear to be outspoken, worried about their relatives, and involved in family matters and business.

Chapter Eight

Three Remarkable Women In lieu of a traditional conclusion, I offer the stories of three ancient women. I do so because this book, like other studies in the past, uses only part of the information available about these women’s lives and focuses primarily on legal details, contracts, and letters. Although I provide new interpretations of the ancient texts that concern them, the women found in the briefly quoted lines of this book are nevertheless only partially visible. In this chapter, I present the stories of these three remarkable women, who deserve to be acknowledged.

Mipṭaḥiah Of all the women from Elephantine, Mipṭaḥiah is probably the most often cited. The secondary literature portrays her as a wealthy Jewish woman who had three husbands, owned slaves and immovable property, and carried out business transactions. The image revealed by my research is slightly different. The first time we find her name in a document is on December 1, 459 b.c.e., when she was in the process of being married to a certain Yezaniah, also called Yezan. On this occasion, her father, Maḥseiah, presented her with a plot of land and a house in which she and her husband could live (TAD B2.3). This document is evidence of a rare situation, in which a couple moved into a house belonging to the bride instead of the husband. Furthermore, on that same day, Maḥseiah had a document drawn up in which Yezaniah limited his rights to this house (B2.4). He could move into it, enlarge it, and improve it, for which he would be compensated in the event of a divorce, but he could not sell it or give it away. His rights to the house were tied to his being married to Mipṭaḥiah. Although other scholars have assumed this marriage to be a fait accomplit, I raise the possibility that it was in the inchoate stage, because the couple does not appear to have been living together yet. There is a fragment that may have been a betrothal agreement preliminary to this marriage document, but the text is too damaged to draw any conclusions from it. 134

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The fact that their marriage is not recorded in the archive does not in itself constitute a reason to believe that it did not happen, since this was probably a first marriage, and, as I have proposed, in a “normal” situation there was no need for a written document. However, we do not know that this marriage was ever finalized (by which I mean that the couple moved in together and consumated the marriage) because Yezaniah is never found again in these documents. He may have died, the couple may have changed their minds, or they may have married and later divorced (although in that case we would expect to find a record of the divorce). Mipṭaḥiah did marry again (TAD B2.6), or eventually, in 449 b.c.e. The new groom was the Egyptian Esḥor, a “builder of the king.” The marriage is recorded in a contract that contains quite remarkable provisions. Because she already possessed at least a plot of land and a house, she entered this marriage in a position of strength, and it shows. In the divorce clauses, her ability to divorce Esḥor comes first, and if she decided to do it, she would pay a standard penalty, but she would take with her everything that she had brought into her husband’s house, “from straw to string” (lines 24–26), and go wherever she pleased. In the event that Esḥor died while the couple was childless, Mipṭaḥiah would gain control, at least for her lifetime, of his house, his possessions, “and everything that he has on the face of the earth, everything” (lines 17–20). The same would not have been true in the reverse situation: the reciprocal clause mentions, laconically: “her goods and her possessions” (lines 20–22). Furthermore, in a unique example in ancient Near Eastern tradition, she managed to have her husband declare in the contract that he would not be able to say, “I have another wife besides Mipṭaḥiah and other children besides the children whom Mipṭaḥiah [bore] me” (lines 32–33). She did bear him two children, Maḥseiah and Yedaniah, but at some point between then and 420 b .c.e . (TAD B2.9), Esḥor died. In my opinion, his death must have been prior to 440 b.c.e., when in papyrus B2.8, she was sued by the Egyptian Pia (presumably a relative of her deceased husband) regarding goods connected to her marriage document (see chap. 6). We know that on this occasion Mipṭaḥiah swore a judicial oath and won the lawsuit. It is this Pia that scholars have previously considered to be Mipṭaḥiah’s husband, assuming also that B2.8 was a divorce settlement. I have argued, however, that it could not be (see chap. 6). In

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the end, we know for certain that Mipṭaḥiah had one husband, possibly two, but certainly not three. Mipṭaḥiah died before February 10, 410 b.c.e., and it is then that we learn that she owned a handmaid and had children. It is because of them that we are told about her death because, on this occasion, her sons divided the slaves among themselves. Unfortunately, we do not have a record of when these slaves came into her possession or from whom, but I have suggested that she may have inherited them from her mother (see chap. 3).h We know that Mipṭaḥiah was a dutiful daughter who helped her father during a time of hardship (TAD B2.7). He repaid her with a house, which may seem a bit generous, but there is no doubt that this father loved his only daughter. This document is considered by some scholars to be evidence of Mipṭaḥiah’s business activity, but in my opinion it is not. Although she must have been quite wealthy, there is no other evidence that she was in business. Through this legal archive we also know, remarkably, something of her religious life. At the timewhen Pia sued her, she was required to take an oath to defend herself, and she did so. The fact that has puzzled most scholars is that she swore by the Egyptian goddess Sati, although we know that she was Judean. By a comparison with other ancient Near Eastern material, I have demonstrated that the choice of the goddess was not determined (as most scholars conjecture) by her conversion to her husband’s religion or by the religion of the other party in the lawsuit but simply because of her autonomous religious viewpoint. I think that my research on this topic has shown that, while she was always part of the Jewish community, she and other Jewish women at Elephantine may also have participated in the cult of Sati, the goddess of the island.

Tamut When we first meet Tamut, on August 9, 449 b.c.e., she was already a mother. At the time, she was also a slave of Mešullam, son of Zakkur. The reason for the legal document (and the way that we know of her) is probably because she had a son, Palti, by ʿAnaniah, also known as ʿAnani (TAD B3.3). Her document of “wifehood” was probably needed for the purpose of clarifying the rights and privileges of the spouses and (especially) of Mešullam with regard to Palti. Mešullam was relinquishing all rights to this child.

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Tamut’s marriage document is in many ways even more remarkable than Mipṭaḥiah’s. Although technically still a slave, she could possess joint property with her husband and gain possession of all of it, at least during her lifetime, if he died. This is especially interesting because this clause in the other documents involved the death of a childless spouse. The fact that we find it applied in a case where there were heirs is therefore remarkable—all the more so considering Tamut’s status as a slave. The couple never split up, but Tamut could have divorced ʿAnani without grounds. Obviously, she would have had to pay a prohibitive penalty, but it was equal to what ʿAnani would have had to pay in the reciprocal situation. In both cases, she would have taken with her everything that she had brought into the marriage, “from straw to string” (TAD B3.3: 7-10). One is tempted to imagine a true love story between Tamut and ʿAnani, but aside from the feeling one receives from reading the documents, there is no evidence of this. However, this Jewish man, who was employed in the Temple of YHW, married an Egyptian slave with a dowry consisting of a garment, a mirror, a pair of sandals, and some handfuls of oil, after she had given him a child. This decision was hardly based on economics. Furthermore, 15 years after the marriage and after the couple had another child, this time a daughter by the name Yehoyišmaʿ, ʿAnani gave Tamut part of a house that he had bought two years earlier, to prevent anyone from evicting her in the event of his death. Tamut was at this point still a slave, and she not only owned property jointly with her husband but also owned immovable property of her own. Although we cannot speak of love, we can at least say that this husband was very concerned about his wife’s future and, being aware of her precarious situation, decided to protect her in case he died. The proof of this gift is TAD B3.12, according to which ʿAnani and Tamut jointly sold the house to their son-in-law. The story of Tamut becomes even more fascinating: on June 12, 427 b.c.e., she and Yehoyišmaʿ, her daughter, were manumitted by their owner. They were obligated to treat him as a daughter would treat her father, for the rest of his life and in cooperation with his son Zakkur, but they were nonetheless free. Tamut’s change of status appears in TAD B3.12, where for the first time she is mentioned with her patronymic; thus we know that the name of her father was Patu. In this document, she is also called ‫לחנה‬, which

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is the feminine form of her husband’s title at the Temple of YHW, and this is quite remarkable, considering that she was an Egyptian. After February 10, 402 b.c.e., we do not know what happened to Tamut.

Yehoyišmaʿ Yehoyišmaʿ is the only one of the three women considered here whom we have a chance to meet before her marriage. She is first mentioned on October 1, 434, when her mother received part of a house as a gift from her husband (TAD B3.5). The problem with regard to Yehoyišmaʿ ’s birth is knowing whether she was born before or after the marriage of her mother, Tamut, to ʿAnani and whether she was the daughter of ʿAnani or Mešullam. Although she is not mentioned in TAD B3.3, she may already have been born at the time when it was drawn up because, unlike her brother Palti, she appears always to have been under Mešullam’s authority; this may have been due to the difference in the children’s gender. Considering that Yehoyišmaʿ married in 420, presumably as a virgin, I argue that it would have been more likely for her to have been born right before 434. In this scenario, she would have been at least 14 when she was married. This seems more likely than that she was born before 449 (the date of Tamut and ʿAnani’s marriage), in which case she would have been at least 29 years old when she was married (see chap. 2). Although Mešullam describes her to Tamut as “your daughter whom you bore me” (TAD B3.6:4–5), I do not think we can take this at face value, considering that it may simply refer to the fact that she was born when Tamut was still a slave and therefore was under Mešullam’s authority. There are very good reasons to believe that Yehoyišmaʿ was in fact ʿAnani’s daughter, most importantly because there does not seem to be any evidence of a sexual relationship between Tamut and Mešullam. Moreover, ʿAnani calls Yehoyišmaʿ his daughter in B3.5; B3.10; and B3.11. In 427 b.c.e., Yehoyišmaʿ was manumitted together with her mother and, as a free woman, she married ʿAnani, son of Ḥaggai, in 420 b.c.e. However, on this occasion she was given away by her “brother” Zakkur, son of her former owner, Mešullam, instead of her biological father, ʿAnaniah. This was probably because of her status as an ex-slave who was still bound to her owner’s family by her manumission con-

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tract. Yehoyišmaʿ ’s legal position was halfway between Tamut’s and Mipṭaḥiah’s. She was not a slave anymore at the time of her marriage, but her dowry was valued even higher than Mipṭaḥiah’s (see TAD B3.8 and chap. 3). From the point of view of property, her situation was closer to Mipṭaḥiah’s. Although her dowry was given to her by her “brother” Zak­ kur, she received immovable property from her father, ʿAnaniah, in 404 b.c.e. (TAD B3.10) and again in 402 b.c.e. (B3.11), when it was described as an addition to her dowry. Also in 402 b.c.e., her parents sold a house to her husband (B3.12). The documents in this archive end in this year, thus preventing us from knowing anything more about Tamut, Yehoyišmaʿ, and their family. The gift and sale of the immovable property, in my opinion, was done by the older couple in view of their potential decline. They were married in 449 b.c.e. If we allow for the fact that they were together at least 15 years before their marriage, Tamut must have been around 60 years old at this point, and ʿAnaniah was probably older.

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Index of Authors Abraham, K.  50, 60 Ackerman, S.  120 Archer, L.  9, 42, 62, 63, 102, 103, 104 Arnaud, D.  71 Ayad, B. A.  7 Azzoni, A.  56, 77, 109 Becking, B.  107 Benoit, P.  11, 27, 62 Betrò, M. C.  60 Blenkinsopp, J.  109 Bolin, T. M.  100 Bonechi, M.  119 Botta, A. F.  viii, 7, 37 Brenner, A.  9, 102, 103 Bresciani, E.  3, 122, 124 Briant, P.  1, 2, 4 Brosius, M.  9 Campbell, E. F., Jr.  100 Choong, J. H.  100 Contini, R.  4 Cooper, J. S.  18 Cotton, H.  11, 28, 29 Cowley, A. E.  17, 46, 52, 86, 117 Cross, F. M.  11 Dalley, S.  54, 59 Dandamaev, M. A.  96, 118 Dion, P.-E.  100 Driel, G. van  106 Driver, G. R.  14 Edgar, C. C.  32, 41, 42 Erichsen, W.  52, 62 Eskenazi, T.  102, 104, 109 Fant, M. B.  8 Fitzmyer, J. A.  4, 54 Fleming, D. E.  52 Fowler, J. D.  105 Freeman, G.  74

Frei, J.  100 Frymer-Kensky, T.  18 Geller, M. J.  28, 29, 45, 50, 28, 63 Ginsberg, H. L.  42, 46, 68 Greenfield, J. C.  11, 27, 42, 62, 97, 98, 124, 125 Greengus, S.  13, 24, 26 Grelot, P.  7, 17, 54, 58, 86, 100, 115, 116, 123, 124, 131 Gropp, D. M.  11 Gross, A.  7 Hamilton, M. W.  106 Harris, R.  96 Herodotus  1, 2, 3 Hughes, G. R.  84 Hunt, H. S.  32, 41, 42 Ilan, T.  9 Jastrow  54, 84, 92 Johnson, J. H.  18, 25, 31, 106 Joisten-Pruschke, A.  100 Jones, S.  106 Kadish, G. F.  74 Kamil, M.  122, 124 Kaplony-Heckel, U.  119 Kaufman, S. A.  viii, 4, 50, 92, 107 Koshaker, P.  24, 29 Kraeling, E. G.  46, 92, 100 Kuhrt, A.  3, 96, 97, 99 Kutscher, E. Y.  4 Lafont, S.  9, 12 Lefkowitz, M. R.  8 Levine, B.  63 Lewis, N.  11, 28, 29 Libbey, P.  26 Lidzbarski, M.  28 Liverani, M.  103

147

148

Index of Authors

Lüddeckens, E.  52 Lukonin, V. G.  118 Malinine, M.  98 Marsman, H. J.  9, 12, 13, 14, 33, 43, 102, 104, 109 Martin, C. J.  26, 49, 61, 62, 73, 74, 75, 77 Mattha, G.  84 Meier, S. A.  103 Menu, B.  98 Mercer, S. A. B.  117 Meyers, C.  9, 102, 103 Michel, C.  119, 120 Miles, J. C.  14 Milik, J. T.  11, 27, 62, 122, 124, 126 Millard, A.  8 Muchiki, Y.  124 Muffs, Y.  7, 44, 115 Muraoka, T.  4 Noblecourt, C. D.  8 O’Brien, A. A.  8 Oppenheim, A. L.  97 Pestman, P. W.  23, 25, 26, 60, 61, 62, 73, 74, 75 Porten, B.  4, 7, 15, 17, 21, 35, 40, 44, 57, 66, 84, 86, 87, 88, 95, 100, 101, 102, 107, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 124, 125 Posener, G.  2 Quack, J. F.  75 Robins, G.  8, 13, 25, 75 Roth, M. T.  18, 20, 23, 24, 26, 29, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50, 59, 60, 69, 70, 72, 77

Sachau, E.  95 Safrai, Z.  27 Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H.  2, 9 Smith, H. S.  18, 26, 41, 49, 75 Sokoloff, M.  93 Spiegelberg, W.  3 Stohl, M.  14, 120 Stolper, M. W.  97 Szubin, H. Z.  84, 86 Tavernier, J.  57, 88, 89, 92, 111 Toorn, K. van der  102, 103, 104, 109, 117, 121, 123 Türck, U.  32 Tyldesley, J.  8 Valbelle, D.  114 Vaux, R. de  11, 27, 62 Verger, A.  7, 115 Vincent, A.  100, 112, 114, 115, 117 Vogelsang-Eastwood, G.  52 Volterra, E.  106 Watterson, B.  8 Wells, B.  13 Westbrook, R.  14, 15, 17, 22, 24, 26, 29, 40, 43, 44, 47, 48, 54, 59, 63, 67, 68, 70, 76 Yadin, Y.  11, 27, 42, 62 Yardeni, A.  11, 15, 27, 35, 40, 42, 62, 87, 88 Yaron, R.  7, 11, 22, 26, 28, 30, 37, 42, 45, 46, 47, 54, 64, 66, 67, 68, 78, 81, 84, 85, 93, 94, 95, 99, 106, 114, 115, 116 Yaron, Y.  47

Index of Ancient Sources TAD A1.11  129 n. 22 A2.1  123, 124 n. 10, 125, 128 nn. 16, 19, and 20 A2.2  105, 123, 124 n. 10, 125, 127, 128 n. 16, 19 and 20 A2.3  105, 123, 124 n. 10, 125–26, 128 nn. 16 and 19 A2.4  123, 124 n. 10, 127, 128 nn. 16, 19, and 20 A2.5  123, 126, 128 n. 20 A2.6  123–24, 127 A2.7  123, 127, 128 nn. 17 and 18 A3.4 120 A3.7 129 A4.1 5 A4.4 108 A4.7 5 A4.8 5 A4.9 5 A7.1 132 A7.4 132 B2.1  81, 89 n. 26, 112, 117, B2.2  95, 107 n. 23, 110, 111 n. 32, 116, 119 B2.3  110, 112, 116, 118, 134 B2.4  16f, 34, 57–, 134 B2.5 15–16 B2.3  16–17, 34, 57, 91, 107 B2.6  18, 20 n. 23, 21, 30 n. 64–66, 33–35, 39–40, 44–47, 51–52, 54–56, 62, 64–65, 67–68, 71, 76, 78–80, 107 n. 23, 112–13, 117, 135 B2.7  89, 91, 117, 136 B2.8  36 n. 4, 96, 110–15, 117, 135 B2.9  113, 135 B2.10 81 B2.11  58, 92 n. 32, 97 B3.1  93, 95 n. 38 B3.3  19, 20 n. 23, 21, 30 n. 66, 33, 38, 45–46, 51–53, 56, 58 n. 58, 64–66, 68, 77–79, 87, 136–138

149

B3.4 92–93 B3.5  19, 98, 138 B3.6  90, 138 B3.7  58, 91 B3.8  20 n. 23, 21–22, 30, 33, 35–36, 41–42, 44–47, 51–52, 55–56, 64, 66, 76, 78–80, 139 B3.9 108 B3.10 138–39 B3.11  57–58, 81, 138–39 B3.12  92–93, 136–37, 139 B4.6  93–94, 95 n. 38 B5.1  83, 86, 88–89 B5.2  85, 87 B5.5  87, 89 B6.1  20 n. 23, 21, 50 B6.2  20 n. 23, B6.3  20 n. 23, B6.4  20 n. 23, 55 B7.1  110 n. 31, 117 B7.2  82, 110–11, 117 B7.3  110 n. 31, 117 B8.9  110 n. 31, 117 B8.10 108 C2.1 6 C3.28 108 C4.1 108 C4.9 108 D1.1 123 D1.17 88 D2.19 50 D3.7 58 D3.10 91 D7.1 131 D7.2 131 D7.3 131 D7.5 131–32 D7.6  5, 132 D7.7 133 D7.8 133 D7.21 121 D7.10 133 D10.5 109

Index of Ancient Sources

150

Other Aramaic Legal Documents Babatha’s ketubbah  27, 42, 62 Murabbaʿat 20  27, 31, 62 Murabbaʿat 21  27 n. 50, 31, 62

Egyptian Papyri Papyrus Berlin 13593  52 Papyrus Louvre E 9204  98 Papyrus Louvre 2717  74 n. 39 Hermopolis Code VIII 32–IX 4  84

Greek Papyri Loeb, Selected Papyri Elephantine no. I  31–32, 41 Naḥal Ṣeʾelim  28, 31 Naḥal Ḥever  28, 31

Babylonian Source CT 8.12b  120

Laws of Eshnunna §§17–18  86 n. 19 §§163–64  86 n. 19

Laws of Hammurapi §128 23–24 §§131–32 13 §§137–38 69 §§139–40 69 §141 69 §142 69 §143 70 §§163–64  40 n. 12, 47–48 §§170–71  40 n. 12 §173  40 n. 12 §176a  39 n. 10 §177  40 n. 12

Neo-Babylonian Laws §§8–12 23 §§10–12  40 n. 12 §13  40 n.12 §15  40 n. 12

Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements No. 1  No. 2  No. 4  No. 5 

72 29, 72 48, 72 72

Roth, Bab. Marriage Agreements (cont.) No. 6  72 No. 8  72 No. 15  72 No. 16  72 No. 17  72 No. 19  72 No. 20  72 No. 25  29, 72 No. 26  72 No. 29  29 No. 30  72 No. 32  60 No. 34  48–49, 60, 72, 77 No. 35  48–49

Assyrian Sources Middle Assyrian Laws §§40–41  52 Kt 94/k 131  119

Peripheral Akkadian Sources Emar 124  70 TBR 75  71 TBR 28  71

Babylonian Talmud and Mishnah b. Baba Batra 8a 84 12a 84 167a 84 b. Ketubbot 82b 28 m. Ketubbot 8:7 63 b. Nedarim 62b 84 b. Yebamot 37b–38a 84

Hebrew Scripture Genesis 34:12  43 n. 2 Exodus 22:26  43 n. 2 21:10 42 34:16  101 n. 2 Numbers 25:1–9  101 n.2

Index of Ancient Sources Deuteronomy 7:1–4  101 n. 2 7:3 103 23:4–9 101

Malachi 2:11 101

Judges 2:19  118 n. 55

Ezra 9–10  101, 102 n. 5 9:2 104

1 Samuel 7:3–4  118 n. 55 18:25  43 n. 2 2 Kings 17:7–17  118 n. 55 Jeremiah 7:18 120 44:15–19 120

Proverbs 1–9  101 n. 2

Nehemiah 13  101 n. 2, 102 n. 5

151