Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> The Mishnah is a book of legal rules produced by Jewish sages in second-century Palestine and is to a great ex-tent still binding upon Orthodox Jews throughout the world. In this pioneer-ing work Judith Wegner scrutinizes the mishnaic laws governing women in an attempt to determine the image and status of women in the patriarchal so-ciety the Mishnah portrays. She focuses on a specific question: did the Mish-nah’s creators regard women as per-sons entities possessing legal rights powers and duties or mere chattels the property of some person or other? Considering a wide range of issues including women’s ability to give legal testimony and enter into religious vows the penalties for rape and seduction and the rules pertaining to betrothal marriage and divorce Wegner discov-ers a curious paradox: In some circum-stances the Mishnah clearly regards women as full legal persons with the same rights and responsibilities as the adult Israelite male. At other times. however the system treats women as virtual chattels of the men who control their lives. Through close analysis of individual cases Wegner isolates the factors that generate differences in the treatment of women. She finds that these differ ences hinge on whether a woman is le gally independent or subject to some man’s jurisdiction. The crocal point she demonstrates is the locus of own ership of the woman’s sexual and re-productive function. Whoever owns a woman’s sexuality exercises a degree of control over that function and hence over the woman in question that greatly resembles an owner’s control. (SP)