The collection of Maimonides’s responsa that was published in its original
Judeo-Arabic along with a Hebrew translation by Joshua Blau contains some
wonderful material for the historian. The first volume (of four, 1957-1986) has
a responsum, numbered 45, with a question presented by a man living in Egypt in
the second half of the 12th century. Because responsa are not dated, we can only
approximate when it was written, which would be between 1135 and 1204, the
period when Maimonides, or Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, lived in Fustat,
Egypt.
This anonymous fellow (questioners’ identities are not revealed)
presumably approached the court with a query concerning his wife. He mentioned
that at some point during their marriage, he “happened to take a trip in
connection with personal matters and for business reasons, and he was absent
from his city on and off for four years.” (My translation.) We have no idea what
his profession was; it sounds as though he might have been a businessman but
there is no proof of this one way or the other.
Upon his return, he
learned that that his brother-in-law, his wife’s brother, was running a Talmud
Torah and was rather surprised to discover that his wife was teaching together
with her brother. The husband explained to the court that he was responsible for
initiating his wife’s education, having taught her some Torah; she apparently
filled in the gaps in his absence.
This new arrangement upset him
tremendously because, he claimed, of the demands of modesty and the
inappropriate behavior her activities entailed: the fathers of her pupils would
be apt to talk to her, a married woman. When his wife heard his objection, she
elected not to fulfill any of her wifely duties (baking, cooking, cleaning,
washing), and insisted upon continuing to teach from dawn until dusk. Her
husband complained that he now had no alternative but to pay for these services
and was sick and tired of the situation, to which he had been subjected for the
past four years! He then pointed out why he was loath to divorce his wife: she
owned property adjacent to that of his mother and sister-in-law which she might
not bequeath to their mutual sons after a divorce. After all, if she were to
remarry, he could not control the fate of this property. At this point, the
husband revealed the fact that her ketuba (marriage contract) contained what had
become a fairly standard clause in marriage contracts in Geniza society, namely,
the “monogamy clause” (a term coined by Mordechai Akiva Friedman).
This
clause prevented him from taking a second wife and from consorting with a
handmaiden, should his wife object. If the husband ignored her objection, he had
to grant his wife a bill of divorce along with the delayed marriage payment,
even if he preferred not to divorce her. (The mohar or bride payment made by the
groom was divided into two: an early payment usually made at the engagement or
at the wedding, and a delayed payment to protect the wife in case her husband
died or divorced her.) What is the question posed here? What does this man hope
to gain by turning to the court, which requested of Maimonides to serve as the
decisor in this case? He wanted to know if he could have permission to marry a
second wife without forgoing the first, in order to safeguard her property for
their sons.
Rabbi Moses ben Maimon informed this man that he could not
marry a second wife without the explicit permission of the first or unless he
divorced her and paid the delayed payment. However, he had the right, as her
husband, to prevent her from teaching; in this matter, the court would back him
fully and even prevent her from teaching and put obstacles in her way. A serious
attempt would be made to alter the wife’s behavior and encourage her to “behave
properly toward her husband.”
Maimonides’s ruling was based on the
information provided by the petitioner, who, as we can see, was not granted the
permission he sought, but rather provided with a means of changing the existing
situation within the bounds of Halacha.
(Stay tuned for the next
installment: “She Said.”)
The writer is a professor of Jewish history and dean
at the Schechter Institute as well as academic editor of the journal Nashim. She
has published books and articles on Sephardi and Oriental Jewry and on Jewish
women.
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