could be called distinctively “Jewish” about families of ... although the evidence is
sparse, Jewish family .... Hezser, C. (2001) Jewish literacy in Roman Palestine.
1
Family, Jewish MICHAEL L. SATLOW
Throughout antiquity, there was little that could be called distinctively “Jewish” about families of Jews. The Hebrew Bible contains few prescriptions about family life, and although the evidence is sparse, Jewish family structures appear largely to have been similar to those of the wider cultures in which Jews often lived. This, however, is not to say that there were no instances in which Jews marked their family structures or practices as loci of Jewish identity, distinct from prevailing norms. The Hebrew Bible assumes polygyny (e.g., Deut 21:15). While some Jewish families in the Greek and Roman cultural worlds were polygynous, most appear to have been monogamous, like the Greeks and Romans themselves. Those Jews who lived in late antiquity in polygynous societies (e.g., Sassanian Babylonia) more often formed polygynous families (e.g., BT Ketubot 64a). The demographics of Jewish families also largely mirrored those of the cultural world in which they lived. There was nothing distinctively Jewish about the ages at which they married (which varied by class and location) or patterns of fertility. Jews were probably familiar with the same family-planning techniques discussed by Greek doctors, and there is no reason to think that they did not use them, with the same limited effectiveness. Similarly, Jewish families tended to live primarily in nuclear units in places where that was the norm (e.g., urban empires in the Roman Empire) and lived in more extended arrangements in rural or eastern areas. To be more concrete, in Palestine we might expect a relatively upper-class Jewish man to marry when he was in his late twenties or early thirties to a woman a bit over ten years younger. The chances are that by this time, his father would have died and, if lucky, he would run the family farm, thus establishing a respectable household (oikos). Infant mortality was high,
and it is also likely that he would die before his wife (assuming that they had not first divorced), who would still have young children. She would then typically remarry or return to her natal family. Jews in Babylonia in late antiquity appear to have married younger. They, like the Sassanians around them, ascribed more importance to the sexual aspect of marriage than its economic one, as in Palestine. Unlike for Palestine Jews, little evidence outside of rabbinic texts (e.g., legal documents, domestic architecture, and epitaphs) is extant to fill in the details of how they lived. On occasion Jews deliberately and selfconsciously diverged from common customs. The Jewish community at Qumran, for example, may have been ascetic and in any case appears not to have lived in family units. Asceticism and the avoidance of family life altogether (found also among the Therapeutae, if they ever really existed) may have resonated among early Christians. In the Dead Sea scrolls, there are polemics against both polygyny (CD IV 20–1) and uncle-niece marriage (CD V 11). Polygyny may have been uncommon among Jews in Palestine in the first century BCE–first century CE, but it is attested. There may also be a cryptic reference in Roman sources to the Jewish practice of uncle-niece unions (CJ 1.9.7), one that is much lauded later by the Rabbis (T. Qid. 1:4). Some Jewish communities may have used distinctive family laws. In the Galilee, some Jews saw betrothal as the act legally constitutive of marriage; the Rabbis call this act qiddushin and standardize it (M. Qid. 1:1). The rabbis also created standards for the ketubah, a prenuptial contract that grew from an Aramaic scribal tradition. Josephus states that it was against Jewish law for a woman to divorce a man (Ant. 15.11), but both his own report and documentary papyri from the Dead Sea region show that some women did. Biblical and rabbinic law highly restricts the inheritance rights of women (e.g., Num. 36:5–9). There is still significant uncertainty about the extent to which these laws were
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
2 observed and the mechanisms, if any, for their enforcement. Both Philo and Josephus strongly condemn the Greek and Roman practice of child exposure (Josephus, CAp. 2.202; Philo, Spec. Leg. 3.119). While there is some rabbinic evidence for the practice of child abandonment among Jews in Palestine in late antiquity (M. Qid. 4:1), it is likely that Jews distinguished themselves generally by refraining from it. If true, this might have resulted in a higher proportion in Jewish families of those who typically were exposed, girls and children with handicaps. There is no evidence that the Jewish divorce rate was significantly different from that of others. Those who had enough means to have had a prenuptial agreement would accompany the dissolution of the marriage with a document attesting to the fulfillment of the agreement’s stipulations. The rabbis standardized this notarial practice into the get, a document of divorce. A man who died without children left his wife as a levirate widow, who according to Scripture must either marry her dead husband’s brother or perform a ceremony releasing him from this obligation (Deut. 25:5–10). The institution is similar to the Greek epiklarate, and Jews who lived in Greek areas most likely understood it this way. Rabbinic literature demonstrates a vague notion of childhood. The Jewish child’s experience would hardly have been distinctive. Richer families would educate their children – mainly just their boys – more or less formally through the hiring of a tutor. Within Palestine there may have been primary schoolhouses, but this is much debated. The literacy rate was relatively low. Upon reaching “maturity” (a concept that the rabbis alternatively identify according to either the objective criterion of age or more subjective standards), a Jew was
expected to be more accountable for his or her actions. Many Jews in Judaea and Palestine practiced secondary burials. Prior to the third century CE, this frequently involved leaving the body in a cave or tomb until the flesh decayed, and then collecting the bones and interring them in an ossuary. Later the use of ossuaries was discontinued, but burial in the ground remains largely unattested. At Rome in late antiquity, some Jews were interred in Jewish catacombs. Internment often took place with immediate family members. Epitaphs often identify the interred as Jewish, but use largely conventional Greek or Latin formulae of praise and remembrance. SEE ALSO: Burial, Jewish; Death; Family, Greek and Roman; Intermarriage, Jewish; Marriage, Jewish; Qumran; Women, Jewish.
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS Cohen, S.J.D., ed. (1993) The Jewish family in antiquity. Providence. Hezser, C. (2001) Jewish literacy in Roman Palestine. Tu¨bingen. Marcus, I. (2004) The Jewish life cycle: rites of passage from biblical to modern times. Seattle. Satlow, M.L. (2001) Jewish marriage in antiquity. Princeton. Schremer, A. (2003) Male and female he created them: Jewish marriage in the late second temple, Mishnah and Talmud periods (in Hebrew). Jerusalem. Tropper, A. (2006) “Children and childhood in light of the demographics of Jewish family life in late antiquity.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 37: 299–343. Weisberg, D.E. (2009) Levirate marriage and the family in ancient Judaism. Waltham.
