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（https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_marriage）
In the Bible
Biblical Hebrew has two words for "husband": ba'al (also meaning "master"), and ish (also meaning "man", parallel to isha meaning "woman" or "wife"). The words are contrasted in Hosea 2:18 (2:16 in Christian Bibles), where God speaks to Israel as though it is his wife: "On that day, says the Lord, you will call [me] 'my husband' (ish), and will no longer call me 'my master' (ba'al)."
A wife was also seen as being of high value, and was therefore, usually, carefully looked after. Early nomadic communities practised a form of marriage known as beena, in which a wife would own a tent of her own, within which she retains complete independence from her husband; this principle appears to survive in parts of early Israelite society, as some early passages of the Bible appear to portray certain wives as each owning a tent as a personal possession (specifically, Jael, Sarah, and Jacob's wives). In later times, the Bible describes wives as being given the innermost room(s) of the husband's house, as her own private area to which men were not permitted; in the case of wealthy husbands, the Bible describes their wives as having each been given an entire house for this purpose.
It was not, however, a life of complete freedom. The descriptions of the Bible suggest that a wife was expected to perform certain household tasks: spinning, sewing, weaving, manufacture of clothing, fetching of water, baking of bread, and animal husbandry. The Book of Proverbs contains an entire acrostic about the duties which would be performed by a virtuous wife.
The husband too, is indirectly implied to have some responsibilities to his wife. The Torah obligates a man to not deprive his wife of food, clothing, or of sexual activity; if the husband does not provide the first wife with these things, she is to be divorced, without cost to her. The Talmud interprets this as a requirement for a man to provide food and clothing to, and have sex with, each of his wives, even if he only has one.
As a polygynous society, the Israelites did not have any laws which imposed monogamy on men. Adulterous married women and adulterous betrothed women, and their male accomplices however, were subject to the death penalty by the biblical laws against adultery, According to the Priestly Code of the Book of Numbers, if a woman was suspected of adultery, she was to be subjected to the Ordeal of Bitter Water, a form of trial by ordeal, but one that took a miracle to convict. The literary prophets indicate that adultery was a frequent occurrence, despite their strong protests against it, and these legal strictnesses.
In the Talmud and Rabbinic Judaism
The Talmud sets a minimum provision which a husband must provide to his wife:[11]
• Enough bread for at least two meals a day
• Sufficient oil for cooking and for lighting purposes
• Sufficient wood for cooking
• Fruit and vegetables
• Wine, if it is customary in the locality for women to drink it
• Three meals on each shabbat consisting of fish and meat
• An allowance of a silver coin (Hebrew: ma'ah) each week
Rabbinic courts could compel the husband to make this provision, if he fails to do so voluntarily. Moses Schreiber, a prominent 19th century halachic decisor, argued that if a man could not provide his wife with this minimum, he should be compelled to divorce her; other Jewish rabbis argued that a man should be compelled to hire himself out, as a day-labourer, if he cannot otherwise make this provision to his wife.
According to prominent Jewish writers of the Middle Ages, if a man is absent from his wife for a long period, the wife should be allowed to sell her husband's property, if necessary to sustain herself. Similarly, they argued that if a wife had to take out a loan to pay for her sustenance during such absence, her husband had to pay the debt on his return.
In order to offset the husband's duty to support his wife, she was required by the Talmud to surrender all her earnings to her husband, together with any profit she makes by accident, and the right of usufruct on her property; the wife was not required to do this if she wished to support herself. Although the wife always retained ownership of her property itself, if she died while still married to her husband, he was to be her heir, according to the opinion of the Talmud; this principle, though, was modified, in various ways, by the rabbis of the Middle Ages.
Home and household
In Jewish tradition, the husband was expected to provide a home for his wife, furnished in accordance to local custom and appropriate to his status; the marital couple were expected to live together in this home, although if the husband's choice of work made it difficult to do so, the Talmud excuses him from the obligation. Traditionally, if the husband changed his usual abode, the wife was considered to have a duty to move with him. In the Middle Ages, it was argued that if a person continued to refuse to live with their spouse, the spouse in question had sufficient grounds for divorce.
Most Jewish religious authorities held that a husband must allow his wife to eat at the same table as him, even if he gave his wife enough money to provide for herself. By contrast, if a husband mistreated his wife, or lived in a disreputable neighbourhood, the Jewish religious authorities would permit the wife to move to another home elsewhere, and would compel the husband to finance her life there.
Expanding on the household tasks which the Bible implies a wife should undertake, rabbinic literature requires her to perform all the housework (such as baking, cooking, washing, caring for her children, etc.), unless her marriage had given the husband a large dowry; in the latter situation, the wife was expected only to tend to supposedly "affectionate" tasks, such as making his bed and serving him his food. Jewish tradition expected the husband to provide the bed linen and kitchen utensils. If the wife had young twin children, the Talmud made her husband responsible for caring for one of them.
Clothing
The Talmud elaborates on the biblical requirement of the husband to provide his wife with clothing, by insisting that each year he must provide each wife with 50 zuzim's-worth of clothing, including garments appropriate to each season of the year. The Talmudic rabbis insist that this annual clothing gift should include one hat, one belt, and three pairs of shoes (one pair for each of the three main annual festivals: Passover, Shabu'ot, and Sukkoth). The husband was also expected by the classical rabbis to provide his wife with jewellery and perfumes if he lived in an area where this was customary.
Physical obligations
The Talmud argues that a husband is responsible for the protection of his wife's body. If his wife became ill, then he would be compelled, by the Talmud, to defray any medical expense which might be incurred in relation to this; the Talmud requires him to ensure that the wife receives care. Although he technically had the right to divorce his wife, enabling him to avoid paying for her medical costs, several prominent rabbis throughout history condemned such a course of action as inhuman behaviour, even if the wife was suffering from a prolonged illness.
If the wife dies, even if not due to illness, the Talmud's stipulations require the husband to arrange, and pay for, her burial; the burial must, in the opinion of the Talmud, be one conducted in a manner befitting the husband's social status, and in accordance with the local custom. Prominent rabbis of the Middle Ages clarified this, stating that the husband must make any provisions required by local burial customs, potentially including the hiring of mourners and the erection of a tombstone. According to the Talmud, and later rabbinic writers, if the husband was absent or refused to do these things, a rabbinical court should arrange the wife's funeral, selling some of the husband's property in order to defray the costs.
If the wife was captured, the husband was required by the Talmud and later writers to pay the ransom demanded for her release; there is some debate whether the husband was required only to pay up to the wife's market value as a slave, or whether he must pay any ransom, even to the point of having to sell his possessions to raise the funds. If the husband and wife were both taken captive, the historic Jewish view was that the rabbinic courts should first pay the ransom for the wife, selling some of the husband's property in order to raise the funds.
Fidelity
In the classical era of the rabbinic scholars the death penalty for adultery was rarely applied. It forbids conviction if:
• the woman had been raped, rather than consenting to the crime;
• the woman had mistaken the paramour for her husband;
• the woman was unaware of the laws against adultery before she committed the crime;
• the woman had not been properly warned. This requires that the two witnesses testifying against her warn her that the Torah prohibits adultery; that the penalty for adultery is death; and that she immediately responded that she is doing so with full knowledge of those facts. Even if she was warned but did not acknowledge those facts immediately upon hearing them and immediately before doing the act, she is not put to death. These conditions apply in all death-penalty convictions.
These rules made it practically impossible to convict any woman of adultery; in nearly every case, women were acquitted. However, due to the belief that a priest should be untainted, a Kohen was compelled to divorce his wife if she had been raped.
Even when a woman was convicted, the punishment was comparatively mild; the death penalty (for all crimes) was abolished in 40 AD, and adulteresses were flogged instead. Nevertheless, the husbands of convicted adulteresses were not permitted by the Talmud to forgive their guilty wives, instead being compelled to divorce them; according to Maimonides, a conviction for adultery nullified any right that the wife's marriage contract (Hebrew: ketubah) gave her to a compensation payment for being divorced. Once divorced, an adulteress was not permitted, according to the Talmudic writers, to marry her paramour.
As for men who committed adultery (with another man's wife), Abba ben Joseph and Abba Arika are both quoted in the Talmud as expressing abhorrence, and arguing that such men would be condemned to Gehenna.
(End)
