ANCIENT JEWISH MARRIAGE: Ha'aretz has a review of two recent books on the subject:

Wedded to the past?
By Evyatar Merinberg

Two important additions to the study of Jewish marriage customs in the ancient world and what we call the "Talmudic period" have come out in the past few years: Three years ago, Michael Satlow of Brown University published "Jewish Marriage in Antiquity," and more recently, Adiel Schremer of Bar-Ilan University published "Man and Woman He Created Them."

Schremer examines the institution of marriage in Jewish society in the late Second Temple period and the days of the Mishna and Talmud, i.e., in the fifth and sixth centuries C.E. Satlow begins his study some 500 years earlier. Both write mainly about the Jewish communities in Eretz Yisrael and Babylonia. While there were other centers of Jewish life at this time, Schremer and Satlow focus on these two communities because it is well known that they were home to groups of respected scholars who considered themselves the successors of the Pharisees and the tannaim (Jewish scholars and teachers). But there is probably a practical reason, too: Very little source material has come down to us from these other communities. Wherever possible, however, both authors, and especially Satlow, look at outside sources: the literature of the Dead Sea sect, the books of the apocrypha, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, the New Testament, inscriptions on stone and papyrus.

Schremer follows in the footsteps of the social historians. His interest lies not in the theory of marriage, but in how it was practiced. He tracks down rabbinic sources that discuss the realities of married life at that time. While Satlow is also interested in this kind of data, he gives pride of place to ideology. In certain issues, at least, he believes that valuable information can be gleaned from sources outside the rabbinic canon, such as women's archives that have somehow survived.

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