Digital Defloration in Midrash and History

Manipulating Virginity: Digital Defloration in Midrash and History* David Malkiel

1. Introduction: Digital Defloration as an Anthropological Phenomenon Women are born virgins. Physically, this means that there is a hymen blocking their uterus. In order for women to copulate and become pregnant, this hymen has to be removed. This normally happens during a woman$s first sexual penetration, and it results in bleeding, which is understood to indicate that the woman was a virgin and has now lost her virginity. Typically, women lose their virginity as a result of being penetrated by a penis. However, the hymen can also be removed by other means, such as an intentional digital defloration, whereby the husband, or someone else, inserts a finger into the woman$s vagina and ruptures the hymen. This paper traces this practice in Jewish society in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Readers may find it surprising that Jews (or anyone, for that matter) found it necessary to digitally deflower maidens. I thus begin this paper with some sporadic and by no means conclusive ethnographic, anthropological and psychoanalytical observations on this practice, in general. I will then assemble accounts of such a practice from Jewish sources and comment on its historical significance. Digital defloration has been attested to in various nineteenth- and twentieth-century societies. Thus, for example, a study from the midtwentieth century reports that among the Bedouin of Cyrenaica, the groom deflowers his bride as part of the wedding ceremony, after wrapping part of his toga around one of his fingers; he then raises the bloodstained cloth aloft for public display. The anthropologists who observed * I would like to express my sincere and heartfelt thanks to Tal Ilan for her assistance with this article. Jewish Studies Quarterly, Volume 13 (2006) pp. 105—127 ' Mohr Siebeck — ISSN 0944-5706

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this custom remarked that this event is described as a virginity test, rather than as the bride$s and groom$s sexual initiation, which does not take place until after nightfall. Thus it would seem that the finger is used, rather than the penis, because defloration is not perceived as a sexual act.1 Earlier ethnographers described a similar phenomenon in other tribal societies. Writing about nineteenth-century Egypt, John Lewis Burckhardt reports: “There are many men who forego cohabiting with the girl at this time [the wedding night] and deflower her with their finger. The simple people also use a wooden key for this purpose, while the fellahin and the low-class people deflower the girl only with the key, and even deride those who do not do likewise.”2 Edward Westermarck, in his seminal study of marriage at the end of the nineteenth century, offers independent corroboration of the practice of digital defloration in Egypt. He also adduces ethnographic testimony about its practice in Samoa, where a white handkerchief is wrapped around the pointer of the bridegroom$s right hand before penetration. Other non-penile devices reported by Westermarck include a speciallyprepared bone (among the Jı´baros of Ecuador) and a stick (in Alice Springs, Central Australia).3

1 E. L. Peters, “Aspects of the Family among the Bedouin of Cyrenaica,” in Comparative Family Systems, ed. M. F. Nimkoff (Boston 1965), 122. 2 John Lewis Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs; or the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Illustrated from their Proverbial Sayings Current at Cairo, (reprint edition, London 1972), 140. Burckhardt wrote this particular passage in Arabic, rather than English, because, as he put it: “… The mode in which he acquires that conviction [of his bride$s virginity] is sometimes so repugnant to manly [!] feelings, that I must describe it in a language better adapted than the English to a detail of similar proceedings” (139–140). The English translation is provided in: Raphael Patai, Sex and Family in the Bible and the Middle East (New York 1959), 69. Elsewhere, Burckhardt notes that in Upper Egypt defloration is usually practiced in the presence of the village midwives; he does not specify whether defloration is penile or digital. See his Notes on the Bedouins and Waha´bys (London 1831), 1:266; Patai, 69. Ottokar Nemecek, too, mentions the Egyptian practice, which he calls artificial defloration – see his Virginity: Pre-Nuptial Rites and Rituals (London 1961), 38. For additional references to sources on digital defloration in contemporary Muslim society, see Abraham Stahl, Family and Childrearing in Oriental Jewry: Sources, References, Comparisons [Hebrew] (Jerusalem 1993), p. 112, n. 15. 3 Edward Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, 5th ed. (London 1921), 1:180–181. On digital defloration, see also Fernando Henriques, Love in Action: The Sociology of Sex (London 1964), 32–35. Two websites on the subject include: http:// www.changeproject.org/pubs/Egypt-biblio.pdf; http://www.pacific-credo.net/staff_pages /tcherkezoff/old_derekIsDoublyWrong.pdf. Thanks are due to the anonymous reviewer of this article for these last references.

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Westermarck links the use of the finger (or implement) to defloration by proxy, that is by people other than the spouse. He reports that among the Sakalava of Madagascar the girls deflower themselves if they have not already been deflowered by their mothers. He also mentions other societies, in which defloration is performed by the mother or by an old woman. Among other peoples, he records, brides are deflowered by priests, or even by white foreigners, and in some cases by the bride$s father.4 These societies, suggests Westermarck, share a dread of defloration, to the point that a girl has great difficulty finding a husband if her hymen is intact when she reaches the age of puberty and marriage. Earlier still, John Mandeville, the medieval traveler, expressed this dread of defloration in mythical terms, reporting that in the East Indies maidens are deflowered by “a professional person,” because of the prevalent fear that the bride$s body contains a serpent that will fatally sting the groom$s penis.5 Writers such as Mandeville and Westermark played into the hands of Sigmund Freud, whose theories about male anxiety of female anatomy are well known. Writing in 1918, Freud attempted to explain why men would prefer to have sex with a woman who has already been deflowered. In his explanation he associated the phenomena of digital defloration and defloration by proxy with “the taboo of virginity.” He hypothesized that grooms avoid “natural” defloration for fear of the “archaic reaction of enmity” aroused in a woman by her first sexual experience.6 But Freud$s explanation is not the only possible one, nor even is it the most likely one. I would draw attention to the fact that in traditional societies the bride and groom are expected to perform sexually (in a secluded location) while the wedding festivities are in full swing. Thus, it may be that digital defloration offers a simple alternative to the need of the newly-wed couple to copulate with the public congregated outside the door, a stressful situation that was thought to render the bridegroom impotent in some instances.7 With the announcement confirming the 4

Westermarck, 181–189. Psychoanalysts associate this fear with the castration complex; this is supported by the reference to the serpent, a common symbol of the penis, i. e. father. See Sybille L. Yates, “An Investigation of the Psychological Factors in Virginity and Ritual Defloration,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 11 (1930), 177–178, where Mandeville is cited. 6 Sigmund Freud, “The Taboo of Virginity,” in Collected Papers, trans. Joan Riviere (London 1925), 4:217–235. 7 On the problem of wedding-night impotence in Jewish culture, see Roni Weinstein, “Impotence and the Preservation of the Family in the Jewish Community of Italy in the Early Modern Period” [Hebrew] in Sexuality and the Family in History: Collected Essays [Hebrew], ed. Israel Bartal and Isaiah Gafni (Jerusalem 1998), 165–169, 174–176. 5

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bride$s virginity, the crowd could be expected to disperse, allowing the couple to proceed in a more private and relaxed atmosphere. A second alternate explanation concerns the anxiousness of the bride and groom$s families to confirm the bride$s virginity and avoid the possibility of subterfuge on the part of the bride and/or groom. The groom might be expected to collude in concealing the bride$s non-virginity, and this could only be prevented if the couple were not alone during copulation.8 However, on top of the anxiety over impotency just mentioned, considerations of modesty usually ruled out such action. Hence, manual examination by female relations, together with female members of the groom$s family, was a viable option for avoiding the need to observe the sexual act; a bloodied cloth displayed immediately by the relatives provided evidence even more concrete and unimpeachable than one produced by the bride and groom themselves. Finally, the use of the finger could allow for the defloration of child brides, whose orifice was thought to be so narrow as to be impenetrable with the male organ. This brings us closer to the topic of this paper, namely the Jewish world. Referring to this problem, Isaac b. Abraham of twelfth-century France observes that two or three years can sometimes pass before a bride$s vagina is sufficiently open, and he admits that the consummation of his own marriage was delayed by two years for this very reason.9 Yet, virginity needed to be proved, even in the case of child brides. Digital defloration provided a solution, enabling couples to verify virginity without intercourse, which in the case of child brides was considered impossible on account of the bride$s youth.

2. Digital Defloration in Talmud and Midrash In Jewish sources, digital defloration appears for the first time in the rabbinic literature of late antiquity. The use of a finger – the woman$s or someone else$s – in the initial act of vaginal penetration is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, nor does it appear in any Jewish text from 8 Among the Vugusu of east Africa and the Luo of Central Nyanza, defloration of brides is reported to be performed in public, see Arthur Phillips, Survey of African Marriage and Family Life (Oxford 1953), 50. However, it is unclear whether in these cases defloration was digital or penile. On the rabbinic fear of collusion, see Stahl, p. 111, n. 14. 9 Teshuvot Maimoniot, Ishut, #6. See Avraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Europe in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem 2001), 420.

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the Second Temple period, in any language, by any author or sect.10 It appears several times in rabbinic sources of the amoraic period (ca. 200– 500 CE), in the realms of law and lore. Although some of the texts discussed below are of Babylonian origin, they seem to indicate that digital defloration entered the Jewish conceptual lexicon in Palestine. Why this is so, and whether a cultural explanation for this is available, will be the focus of some of the following discussion, although no definitive answer will be proposed. The Mishnah itself does not mention digital defloration, but it generates the first discussion of the issue that we find in the Jerusalem Talmud. The text begins by establishing certain differences between the laws regarding the marriage of a virgin and that of a widow, focusing primarily on the fact that a virgin$s bride-price is double that of a widow, and on the procedure to be followed when a young woman married as a virgin proves not to be so (JT Ketubot 1:1–2). We then read the ruling of Rabbi Meir, that a woman who was deflowered when either she or her sexual partner was a child, or who was deflowered through injury (lit. “hit by wood”), receives the virgin$s bride-price, even though she had lost her virginity before marriage; “the Sages” (a collective, anonymous term, common in the Mishnah) concur in the former case but not in the latter (1:3). In the ensuing discussion a baraita is cited, in which Rabbi Halafta b. Saul notes that a High Priest, who by biblical law (Lev. 21:12) must marry a virgin, may nevertheless wed a woman who has been penetrated by a child or by a “non-man.” It is here that we encounter digital defloration for the first time. Rabbi Yirmiya and Rabbi Ami question Rabbi Halafta ben Saul$s comment, citing the case of a digitally deflowered woman (rbuab zlrboe), who is known to be ineligible for such a marriage.11 Rabbi Yirmiya and Rabbi Ami do not discuss the circumstances which might lead to digital defloration, but a series of midrashic texts offer an embellished version of two biblical accounts in which women deflower themselves manually. Although these tales involve different women and circumstances, a single midrashic problem and solution is applied to all. These midrashic texts, too, are of Palestinian amoraic origin, and they therefore seem to be culturally related to the discussion in the Jerusalem Talmud. 10 The biblical term for virgin, betulah, has been the subject of an enormous amount of scholarship, on account of its Christological significance. See, for instance, Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1997), pp. 781–784. 11 JT Ketuboth 1:3, 25b.

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a. The Midrashic Context i. Lot5s Daughters: The earliest Midrash to mention digital defloration is Genesis Rabbah. It raises the issue with regard to two episodes reported in the Book of Genesis: that of Hagar and that of Lot$s daughters. Commenting on the verse: “So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived” (Gen. 16:4), Genesis Rabbah imputes to Rabbi Levi b. Heyata the assertion that Hagar conceived from her first congress with Abraham. It follows this with Rabbi Eleazar$s contrary contention (for which no explanation is offered) that a woman never conceives from her first sexual act.12 The narrator then reports that “they,” i. e. certain unnamed amoraic scholars, challenged Rabbi Eleazar$s statement, by pointing to the story of Lot$s daughters, who reportedly were impregnated after lying with their father on a single occasion (Gen. 19:36). The opposing views are then harmonized by Rabbi Tanhuma$s observation that Lot$s daughters “controlled themselves,” which we are told means that they had the foresight to deflower themselves (pzfxjr fajufef pmurb fily) before having sex with Lot, in order to make conception possible.13 Genesis Rabbah leaves it at that, but the issue is taken up in a later midrashic context. Sekhel Tov, a twelfth-century midrashic anthology, offers a slightly different version of the Hagar story. Here Rabbi Eleazar$s statement is attributed to the tanna, Rabban Johanan b. Zakkai,14 who reputedly explained that first-time impregnation is impossible because “the doors do not open sufficiently until the second congress.” This explanation is followed by the clarification that although the doors do not open sufficiently for modest maidens, they do for promiscuous

12 Similarly, the Tosafists of medieval France write that Leah deflowered herself prior to her wedding night, in order to prevent Jacob from spilling his seed in vain, since first-time impregnation was considered an impossibility. This suggestion is triggered by an amoraic comment cited by the Tosaftists that Jacob never emitted semen unproductively, an assertion based on Jacob$s reference to his first-born as “first fruit of my vigor” (Gen. 49:3): see BT Yevamot 76a, s. v. shelo ra5ah. Samuel Edeles, a seventeenth-century talmudic exegete, goes down a different path, and suggests that Jacob could have penetrated Leah without ejaculating, since he had “quashed his flow” for all of his eighty four years: see his commentary on BT Yevamot 34b. 13 Genesis Rabbah 45:4, Theodor-Albeck ed. (Jerusalem 19652), 449. The story of Lot$s daughters is told again in Genesis Rabbah, in the context of their own story: the text opens with Eleazar$s remark about not conceiving on the first night; the story of Lot$s daughters is then adduced to challenge this notion, and finally, Tanhuma$s statement about digital defloration resolves the ostensible contradiction: see § 51:9, Theodor-Albeck ed., 538. 14 On this point, the tradition of the earlier Genesis Rabbah is to be preferred. Note that the statement of Levi b. Heyata is offered without attribution.

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ones, such as Lot$s daughters.15 This explanation would make the claim for digital defloration of Lot$s daughter redundant. The “open doors” explanation is a novel element, for it contrasts the virtuous Hagar with the promiscuous daughters of Lot, rendering this ethical-physiological distinction miraculous. By “opening the doors” of the promiscuous, God points them out. This, however, would make the case of Hagar problematic, and label Hagar as promiscuous. Probably in order to counter such an argument, Sekhel Tov introduces Rabbi Tanhuma$s claim that Lot$s daughters deflowered themselves. It appears that the anthologist knew of this midrashic move, but viewed it more as an afterthought than as the major explanation for the instant impregnation of Lot$s daughters. It is striking that, in contrast to Sekhel Tov, Genesis Rabbah does not stigmatize Lot$s daughters as promiscuous. This attitude is not unique: an amoraic source describes Lot as lustful but the daughters as pure.16 Yet the view of Lot$s daughters as depraved is not a medieval invention. On the hermeneutical level, the issue of the daughters$ virtue draws the rabbis$ attention because, as is often the case in Genesis, they view the saga of Lot$s daughters as an adumbration of later events, in this case as foreshadowing the seduction of the Israelites by Moabite women in the desert (Num. 31:17). Seduction, we are given to understand, runs in the family, or in the famous idiom of Nahmanides, the great medieval commentator: “whatever happened to the fathers [or in this case mothers] is a sign for the sons.”17 Yet not all the offspring of these unions were patently negative: one of Lot$s daughters was also the foremother of the virtuous Ruth the Moabite, and hence of King David.18 Thus, the comment that Lot$s daughter digitally deflowered themselves leaves us uncertain whether the action is considered virtuous or promiscuous. ii. Tamar: The theme of promiscuous virgins or virtuous harlots, and in particular of holy incest, is also at the heart of the second Genesis tale tagged by the rabbis with the element of digital defloration. This story, too, is linked in midrashic thought to the events of later generations and with King David$s forefathers (and foremothers). The direct connection 15

Sekhel Tov, ed. Solomon Buber (Berlin 1900), 9. BT Nazir 23a. Similarly, Pesikta Rabbati, an early medieval midrashic compilation, emphasizes the daughters$ holy intention, namely to fulfill the commandment of procreation: see Pesikta Rabbati, trans. William G. Braude (New Haven and London 1968), 2:739–740. 17 See his commentary on Genesis 12:6 and also Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley 1993), 98–121. 18 Cf. BT Horayot 11a and Rashi ad loc. 16

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is made by Midrash ha-Gadol, another medieval anthology of midrash, collected in Yemen. It tells the story of Lot$s daughters more or less as it appears in Genesis Rabbah, but follows Rabbi Tanhuma$s statement about the auto-defloration of Lot$s daughters with the following comment: “And thus, too, did Tamar control herself, and crush and remove her virginity, and she was impregnated from Judah$s penetration, which was her second.”19 The subject of this midrash is Genesis 38, which tells the tale of the sexual encounter of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, the childless widow of Er and Onan. Like Lot$s daughters, she too committed incest for an ostensibly non-promiscuous purpose, and is therefore frequently depicted in midrashic sources as a virtuous harlot, as in the following statement, also from Midrash ha-Gadol: “Three acted promiscuously and as a result the world survived: Tamar and Lot$s two daughters.”20 The problem of Tamar$s impregnation at first intercourse is not obvious, as her biblical story is complex and involves many aspects, addressed in the Midrash. Like the tales of Hagar and of Lot$s daughters, the story of Judah and Tamar stimulated the digital-defloration Midrash, because of the same assumption that defloration cannot result in pregnancy. Of course this line of thought depends on the assumption that Tamar was a virgin. The Midrash ponders how Tamar could have been a virgin after having been married to Er and Onan. True, the Bible says nothing about her relationship with Er (Gen. 38:7), but about Onan we read that he spilled his seed on the ground (Ibid. 38:9), which seems to refer to coitus interruptus,21 an activity that would have deflowered Tamar, precluding the Midrash. This is precisely why the Babylonian Talmud prefers the view that Er and Onan had relations with Tamar “unnaturally,” a euphemism which medieval talmudists generally took to refer to anal intercourse. This interpretation is then seemingly confuted by a tannaitic text, which describes the act of Er and Onan as “threshing inside and winnowing outside,” namely coitus inter19

Midrash Haggadol, ed. Mordecai Margaliyot (Jerusalem 1947), 327. David haSAdani, Midrash Haggadol on the Pentateuch – The Book of Numbers [Hebrew], ed. Zvi Me$ir Rabinovich (Jerusalem 1967), 278. The issue of impregnation from a woman$s sexual initiation and the tale of Tamar$s auto-defloration became part of Jewish lore. It was a crucial element in an innovative midrashic interpretation of the Tamar story proposed by Jacob Reischer, an eighteenth-century rabbi. The Bible states that Tamar sat “at the opening of the springs” (Gen. 38:14), and Reischer suggests: “she opened her spring, to become pregnant from him on the occasion of her first sexual act.” See his :Iyyun Ya:akov on BT Yevamot 34b. 21 This is the casual assumption of Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York 1981), 6. 20

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ruptus.22 This textual difficulty is resolved in the Babylonian Talmud with the explanation that anal intercourse is, indeed, the correct interpretation, and that it is termed “threshing inside and winnowing outside” to connote simply that, like coitus interruptus, it is non-procreative.23 Thus, the rabbis assume that Tamar$s hymen would have remained intact. The fact that Judah would certainly have reacted to the discovery that the prostitute he thought he was propositioning was in fact a virgin induces the rabbis to offer the plausible explanation that Tamar was no longer a virgin when she united with her father-inlaw. Since she was not deflowered by her two husbands, as the Midrash imputes, she could only have achieved this if she deflowered herself beforehand. The biblical narratives of Lot$s daughters and Tamar are confusing, because women who appear promiscuous might actually be virtuous.24 By adding the element of digital defloration, the midrashic versions load another level of ambiguity onto the story, as the reader is forced to wonder whether women who are alleged to be virgins might not be so. This formulation could also be reversed: Tamar and Lot$s daughters might well be viewed as virgins despite their defloration, not only because their intention was pure (say some), but because they truly had not engaged in intercourse prior to the incident narrated in the biblical account. Apparently the message is that where sexuality is concerned, things are not necessarily what they seem, particularly in the ethical realm, but the midrashic twist is the devaluation of the anatomical criterion of defloration. This is starkly evident in the following source, which appears not in a Midrash, but in a talmudic discussion, and which is actually the earliest rabbinic allusion to Tamar$s digital defloration. The Mishnah rules that if two grooms unintentionally marry each other$s fiance´es, and the error is not caught until after consummation, the cou22 The source of this expression is Tosefta Niddah 2:6, where it is attributed to Rabbi Meir. With reference to Tamar, this expression is first cited in Genesis Rabbah 85:9–10 (Theodor-Albeck ed., 1039). The material is therefore of Palestinian, tannaitic, origin. 23 BT Yevamot 34b. See Jeremy Cohen, “Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master it”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text (Ithaca 1989), 136–138; Michael Satlow, Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality (Atlanta 1995), 236– 238. 24 That the rabbis viewed Tamar as virtuous is evident from mMegillah 4:10, which states that the Tamar story may be read in the synagogue, and even presented in simultaneous translation into Aramaic, unlike other biblical stories about improper behavior. See: Susan Niditch, “The Wronged Woman Righted: An Analysis of Genesis 38,” Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979), 149; Leila Leah Bronner, From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructions of Biblical Women (Louisville 1994), 154–156.

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ples must part for three months, until it can be determined whether or not the brides became pregnant on their wedding night.25 The Babylonian Talmud questions this law, on the grounds that a woman cannot become pregnant from her first act of intercourse, at which point Rava, a Babylonian amora, cites the case of the biblical Tamar, who ostensibly did so. This is brushed aside with the explanation that Tamar “crushed digitally” (ekrm rbuab), which is followed by a statement attributed to Rabbi Isaac, a Babylonian tanna: “All of the crushed ones of Rabbi$s house – their name is Tamar; and why were they called Tamar? – after Tamar, who crushed with her finger.”26 This statement is of major importance and I shall shortly return to it, but first I wish to discuss the third biblical heroine for whom the Midrash also claims digital defloration. iii. Rebecca: The story of Rebecca$s digital defloration, which appears in midrashic literature, takes us beyond late antiquity into the early Middle Ages. This is evident not only from the late dating of the relevant sources, but also from significant differences in the concerns of the narrators and perforce of their audiences, too. In brief, if in amoraic times we are led to believe that the issue was the ambiguity of the meaning of virginity, in the middle ages it was the anxiety over its verification. The medieval discussion is arguably a separate story, with its own cultural context, but to truncate it from the traditions of late antiquity would be to arbitrarily sever it from its literary and textual roots. As is often the case in the genre of Midrash, the virginity legends are a kind of chain story, which emerged in Palestine in the early centuries CE but continued to engage rabbinic scholars for as long as midrashic literature continued to evolve, long after the fall of Rome and the rise of medieval civilization. We will follow this chain, paying due attention to continuity as well as change.27 The midrashic tales dwell on three stages of Rebecca$s sexual history: early childhood, youth and the eve of her marriage. At every stage the discussion focuses on her virginity, and in the final stage on her digital defloration.

25

Yevamot 3:10. BT Yevamot 34b. For late variations on this talmudic text, see: Midrash Haggadol, 648; Sekhel Tov, 229; Midrash Leqah Tov, ed. Solomon Buber (Vilna 1880) 98a. 27 On the midrashic versions of the Rebecca story, see M. J. H. M. Poorthuis, “Rebekah as a Virgin on her Way to Marriage: A Study in Midrash,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 29 (1998), pp. 438–462. 26

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The rabbis relate that only divine intervention saved Rebecca from being deflowered by her father in early childhood, in accordance with the incestuous norms of Aramean society.28 A variation has it that the Arameans practiced jus primae noctis, and when Rebecca was born, the citizens watched closely to see whether Bethuel, their sovereign, would do unto his own daughter as he did unto theirs, failing which, they would assassinate him.29 The midrashic basis for this tradition is, first, the paronomasia of Bethuel and bethulah, namely virgin. Second, the biblical narrative recounts that Abraham$s servant gave presents to Rebecca$s brother and mother (Gen. 24:53), without mentioning the father, and this omission suggested that Bethuel had been struck down.30 This is a reasonable midrashic step, but it does not contain the germ of the notion that Bethuel$s demise was intended to preserve Rebecca$s chastity. This leap can be credited not only to the creativity of the midrashic author, but also to a passage from Genesis Rabbah. Here midrashic lore and tannaitic law come together, for the passage from Genesis Rabbah concerns Rabbi Meir$s statement, already quoted above and codified in the Mishnah (Ketubot 1:3), that the bride-price of a woman who loses her virginity through injury is the same as that of a virgin. In Genesis Rabbah Rabbi Eleazar speculates that Rabbi Meir derived his law from a close reading of the biblical phrase describing Rebecca: “a virgin, and no man had known her” (Gen. 24:16). The apparent redundancy of the latter half of the phrase, reasoned Rabbi Eleazar, suggested to Rabbi Meir that a woman penetrated by an object rather than a man is still considered a virgin. The sages, continued Rabbi Eleazar, derived the opposite conclusion from the redundancy of the word “virgin” in the first part of the phrase. This midrashic exercise introduces some further comments on the nature of Rebecca$s virginity. Rabbi Johanan, the leading Palestinian amora of the early third century, observes that Rebecca was the only 28 Soferim 21:9. This work is among the “minor tractates” of the Talmud, generally dated to the early middle ages. Cf. Massekhet Sofrim, ed. Michael Higger (New York 1937), 370–371, addendum 1, § 4. The tale rests on the phrase “and no man had known her” (Gen. 24:16), which elicits the comment: S“man” refers only to her father.$ The rabbis may have thought that father-daughter incest was the sort of abomination that motivated Abraham to leave Mesopotamia, particularly since the Bible conflates the motifs of sexual abomination and idolatry in its exhortations to shun “the ways of the gentiles” (Lev. 18, 20). 29 See Raphael Patai, “Ius Primae Noctis,” Studies in Marriage Customs, ed. Issachar Ben-Ami and Dov Noy (Jerusalem 1974), pp. 177–180. 30 Midrash Aggadah, ed. Solomon Buber (Vienna 1894), 59a. This midrashic work is classified among the late works, i. e. no earlier than 1000 CE. See also Yalqut Shim:oni, pericope Hayyei Sarah, § 109.

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woman [until that time] who was first penetrated by a man circumcised on the eighth day of his life. Simeon b. Laqish, Rabbi Johanan$s brotherin-law and disciple-colleague, adds that in contrast to gentile girls, who Spreserve themselves from the site of their testimony31 but are promiscuous with another part [i. e. the anus], this one [Rebecca] was a “virgin” from the site of virginity “and no man had known her” [Gen. 24:16] from another part.$32 All these speculations about Rebecca$s virginity are to be found in various amoraic traditions. Her actual defloration is not discussed in these texts. The tale of Rebecca$s eventual defloration is told in midrashic embellishments of the biblical account of her betrothal. A late tradition, expressed in two legends from the High Middle Ages, recounts that Rebecca lost her virginity when she fell from the camel after catching sight of Isaac (24:64). She explains this to Isaac, but although the servant confirms her account, Isaac continues to suspect her (and the servant), until they return to the scene of the incident and locate the blood of her defloration. This discovery is depicted as miraculous, on the assumption that the blood would have evaporated in the sun and been driven away by the wind had a dove not hovered continually over the site.33 One of the two legends explains what caused Rebecca to fall: upon seeing Isaac she realized, prophetically, that she was destined to bear the evil Esau and promptly lost her balance. This narrative also relates that the servant was compensated, with immediate admission to Paradise, for the humiliation of having been suspected of betraying his master by despoiling Rebecca.34 In terms of the midrashic stimulus, the other medieval source focuses on the Bible$s seemingly redundant statement that Isaac loved Rebecca (24:67), and explains that the phrase is necessary, because initially Isaac was inclined to hate her, after discovering that she was not a virgin.35 31 Scribes often confused this word, :edutan, with :ervatan, meaning “nakedness,” which is almost identical, orthographically. :Edutan is preferred, because of the principle of lectio difficilior. Needless to say, both terms are euphemisms for the genitals, but :edutan stresses the legal significance of virginity and refers to the occasional need for its verification, about which more below. 32 Genesis Rabbah 60:16 (Theodor-Albeck ed., 644–645), and subsequently in later midrashic compilations. This midrash parallels the Jerusalem Talmud$s discussion of Haggai$s statement concerning anal intercourse. 33 In a slight variation, the blood was preserved not by a dove but by a beast, as a result of which the Torah enjoins the Israelite nation to cover the blood of slaughtered animals. 34 Yalqut Shim:oni, pericope Hayyei Sarah, § 109. See also M. M. Kasher, Torah Shelemah (Jerusalem 1934), 4:985–986; Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia 1947), 5:263, n. 301. 35 Sefer Tosafot ha-Shalem, ed. Jacob Gillis (Jerusalem 1983), 2:285.

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The key element in this account is the suspicion that the servant took advantage of Rebecca during the return journey from Aram. Given their late date, these legends seems to be based on the following text, from a somewhat earlier medieval source, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (PDRE). Moses D. Herr dates PDRE to the eighth century, because it anticipates the downfall of the Omayyad dynasty, and therefore must precede the Abbasids. Moreover, PDRE is cited in the polemic of Pirkoi ben Baboi of early ninth-century Babylonia. Scholars differ on whether PDRE was redacted in Babylonia or Palestine, but all agree that it contains material from Roman Palestine. The book is also known as a repository of Palestinian customs of the early centuries of Islamic rule.36 In this Midrash we encounter again the element of digital defloration: Rabbi Simeon said: Abraham spoke to Isaac his son (saying), This servant is suspected of all the transgressions of the Torah, and deceit is in this servant … See, lest he has touched [with] the pipe.37 Bring the girl into the tent and remove [the blood of] her virginity with your finger; if she is pure, she is destined for you from her mother$s womb. He brought her into the tent and removed [the blood of] her virginity digitally, and showed it to Abraham his father, and afterwards he took her to be his wife … Thus the Israelites were accustomed to digitally removing [the blood of] virginity, as it is said, “the girl$s father and mother shall produce the evidence of the girl$s virginity” [Dt. 22:15].38

This text confirms that Rebecca was not a virgin at marriage, but whereas in the previous legends she was deflowered through injury, here she was still intact, and Abraham – not Isaac – suspected her unjustly. The tale also differs from those of Lot$s daughters and Tamar. The most glaring difference is that Rebecca$s defloration occurs in the context of a virginity test, and not for a procreative purpose. But Rebecca$s story also differs in the significance of the deflorative act. For Lot$s daughters and Tamar, defloration is an instrument of empowerment, as they manipulate their destiny along with their virginity; Rebecca, on the other hand, is completely passive, and hers is literally a story of manipulation at the hands of others.39 36

Herr, “Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem 1971), 13:558. A euphemism crafted from 2 Sam. 5:8. Cf. Poorthuis, p. 455: “if he has not touched her waterchannel (euphemism for vagina).” 38 See Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, trans. and annotated by Gerald Friedlander (New York 1965), 110–111, § 16. I have offered a slightly more literal translation of the Hebrew original. See also Midrash Haggadol, 411. 39 Amoraic scholars also noted a similarity between the Rebecca and Tamar stories: both covered themselves with a kerchief prior to their sexual encounters (Gen. 38:14) – see Genesis Rabbah 60:65. Frymer-Kensky suggests that the veil connoted modesty, 37

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What peculiarities in the biblical text moved the creator of this Midrash to embroider this particular tale? The PDRE text does not cite a midrashic trigger, and it was not until the nineteenth century that David Luria of Lithuania traced the Midrash to a redundancy in the verse: “And Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother, and he took Rebecca as his wife” (24:67). Commenting on the fact that the text notes both that Isaac “brought her” and again that he “took” her, Luria suggested that initially Isaac “brought” Rebecca, to test her virginity, and only afterwards did he “take” – marry – her.

b. The Historical Context The most striking feature of the PDRE Midrash is its closing observation: “Thus the Israelites were accustomed to digitally removing [the blood of] virginity.” Like the reference to Tamar in the Babylonian Talmud, here too digital defloration is associated with present-day customs practiced in Israel. Why would the story of Tamar$s digital defloration induce a statement by a rabbi about a custom known to him from his day, and why would a legend about Rebecca$s digital defloration induce a similar statement by the redactor of PDRE? We need to assume that these statements are grounded in some social-historical context. In the following lines I shall first discuss the evidence for digital defloration in the Holy Land in the amoraic period and then address the issue in the early Middle Ages. i. The Amoraic Evidence: The crucial source, cited above, is the text in the Babylonian Talmud that refers to Tamar$s digital defloration and concludes with the words: “Said Rabbi Isaac: All of the crushed ones of Rabbi$s house – their name is Tamar; and why were they called Tamar? – after Tamar, who crushed with her finger.”40 Rabbi Isaac$s dictum is remarkable in its own right. it sheds on the social mores of the late tannaitic period (the time of Rabbi) or at least on the times of Rabbi Isaac. This period is roughly contemporaneous with Genesis Rabbah, specifically the modesty of brides, and therefore notes, logically, that Leah, too, must have been veiled, or Jacob would have detected Laban$s deception. See Tikva FrymerKensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York 1992), 124. This interpretation would not, however, apply to Tamar, who veiled herself to prevent Judah from identifying her. 40 BT Yevamot 34b. For late variations on this talmudic text, see: Midrash Haggadol, 648; Sekhel Tov, 229; Midrash Leqah Tov, ed. Solomon Buber (Vilna 1880) 98a.

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and hence the reality reflected in Rabbi Isaac$s statement can reasonably be projected onto the tales in that midrashic work. This presumes that ideas floated in midrashic texts were rooted in concepts and behaviors from the social and cultural environment of their authors. In the words of Joseph Heinemann: “… most aggadot have two levels of meaning, one overt and the other covert. The first deals openly with the explication of the biblical text and the clarification of the biblical narrative, while the second deals much more subtly with contemporary problems that engaged the attention of the homilists and their audience.”41 As we have noted, the biblical account makes no mention of digital defloration, and Rabbi Isaac$s remark strongly suggests that the social conditions of Jewish Palestine in late antiquity directed the thought of the midrashic author in this particular direction. This conjunction of Midrash and history was of no interest to the authors and redactors of late antiquity; on the contrary, the Midrash is presented as existing entirely in the world of the biblical narrative. Nevertheless, the abrupt intrusion of an alien element lays bare a later historical layer, exposing the narrator and his world despite the convention that effaces his presence. The term “Rabbi$s house” appears once in the Mishnah and a number of times in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, always in reference to the domus of Judah the Patriarch, the rabbinic leader of Palestinian Jewry in the late second and early third century, to whom the redaction of the Mishnah is traditionally attributed; as he was an early contemporary of Rabbi Isaac, it is safe to assume that he is the intended referent.42 Why there should have been digitally deflowered women literally in his house, or metaphorically under his patronage, is, however, a 41 Joseph Heinemann, “The Nature of the Aggadah,” in Midrash and Literature, ed. Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick (New Haven 1986), 48–49. Heinemann goes on to acknowledge the problem of the priority of horse or cart, that is whether aggadic discourse originates in the rabbinic, contemporary, context or in the difficulties posed by the biblical text. This question cannot be answered, for it is a classic hermeneutical cycle. Indeed, even if the narrator intended merely to comment on a particular passage, willy nilly his sensitivity to the problem at hand and the direction taken by his interpretation testify to his own cultural context, and hence render moot the question of priority. See also the prior formulation of Leopold Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vortrage der Juden: historisch entwickelt (Frankfurt a. M. 1892), 61. 42 See Sheqalim 6:1 and, e. g., BT Berakhot 43a, PT Shabbat 6c. Note that the term “of Rabbi$s house” seems to refer to officials of the Patriarchal domus, as opposed to the Patriarch himself, be it Judah or one of his descendents: BT Megillah 3a; PT Pe5ah 17a and elsewhere. See Alexei Sivertsev, Private Households and Public Politics in 3rd–5th Century Jewish Palestine (Tu¨bingen 2002), 117–139. I am grateful to Stuart Miller for alerting me to this discussion.

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mystery. What Isaac$s dictum seems to convey is that “Rabbi” did not look askance upon such women. Clearly this is why they were called Tamar, although we know nothing about the context of this so-called naming, i. e. who did so, when and to what end. What mattered to Isaac, and apparently to Judah the Patriarch, was that the honor of latter-day Tamars should not be sullied with the stain of promiscuity, or in positive terms, that they be perceived as no less virtuous than the biblical Tamar. We are not told why the reputation of women who deflower themselves was at risk, but they may have been suspected of rupturing their hymen digitally in order to make future acts of fornication impossible to detect. This, of course, has nothing to do with the story of Tamar, but it makes sense on the social plane. In combination with the midrash references, it suggests that digital defloration was practiced by some women in this society and approved by some men in authority, who even defended their honor. ii. The Medieval Evidence: Similar conclusions can be obtained from the closing comment of PDRE on Rebecca$s digital defloration: “Thus the Israelites were accustomed to digitally removing [the blood of] virginity.” These words are followed by a reference to the verse from Deuteronomy, in which a maiden$s parents prove her innocent of the charge of promiscuity by producing the sheet bloodstained on her wedding night. This portion of the Midrash has several surprising features. First, it offers a historical observation, a rare occurrence in a text of this nature, and moreover one which cannot be confirmed by any biblical or postbiblical source.The digital defloration of Rebecca as described in the PDRE Midrash is different from the practice detailed in Deuteronomy, for although it is the result of suspicion, it is performed prior to marriage and digitally, rather than through the initial act of intercourse. Taken together, these peculiar characteristics suggest that the concern of the author of PDRE was contemporary, rather than historical, and that he identified this particular Midrash as an appropriate basis for a current practice which he wished to legitimate. What we have, then, is testimony that digital defloration was customary in the period and place of PDRE$s composition. One more point: the reference to the custom places the entire text in an apologetic light, so that it seems as though the raison d5eˆtre of the Rebecca legend is to justify the current custom of defloration in the face of criticism. But what historical context are we talking about, and is there any other evidence of such a practice and of friction over its legitimacy? In the following lines I will attempt to trace a continuous preoccupation

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with digital defloration scattered throughout medieval Jewish literature, showing that the issue, although not a major concern, remained on the agenda. That digital defloration was practiced among Jews living in medieval Islamic society is confirmed in a list of the conflicting customs of Palestinian and Babylonian Jewry. The list was compiled under Islamic rule in the Early Middle Ages, so it is roughly contemporaneous with PDRE. The fortieth of the more than fifty divergent customs reads: “Oriental [i. e. Babylonian] men touch, during intercourse, with the pipe,43 with the penis, as he was created [to do], and in the Land of Israel with the finger.”44 In addition to documenting the custom, this text confirms that digital defloration was not universally respected, for the reference to the natural quality of the Babylonian norm is plainly disparaging towards the Palestinian one. However, the complexion of the practice in the customs list differs from that of PDRE: the latter links digital defloration to the biblical procedure for testing suspected brides, while the list does not depict the ritual as having any public aspect whatsoever.45 There is a liturgical trace of the PDRE rite in the virginity blessing recited by bridegrooms after consummation in some medieval Jewish communities.46 The blessing has survived in liturgical collections, in print and manuscript, including fragments of the Cairo Genizah, and in the legal literature of Judaeo-Arabic society in the early middle ages. Its social context is, however, recounted only in a responsum by 43 As in PDRE, “with the pipe” serves as a phallic symbol in the present context, but its source is II Sam. 5:8, where it is enigmatic but not metaphorical. The addition of a direct reference following the metaphor reflects the concern that this poetic license might cause confusion. The use of the euphemism in the customs list indicates its author$s familiarity with the PDRE text. 44 The list has been published three times: Hiluf minhagim she-bein benei Bavel uvenei Erez Yisra5el, ed. Joel Mu¨ller (Vienna 1878), 37; Ha-hiluqum she-bein anshei mizrah u-venei Erez Yisra5el, ed. Mordechai Margaliyot (Jerusalem 1938), 87; Ozar hiluf minhagim bein benei Erez Yisra5el u-vein benei Bavel, ed. Benjamin Menasheh Levin (Jerusalem 1942), 80. 45 Avraham Grossman has documented the rise in the incidence of child marriage in Jewish society in the middle ages, in Europe and the Islamic realm alike, and this trend could explain the emergence of digital defloration: Pious and Rebellious, 71–82. For the Ottoman empire in the sixteenth century, see Ruth Lamdan, A Separate People (Leiden 2000), 46–57. 46 On the virginity blessing, see: Israel Ta-Shma, “Maimonides$ Responsum on the Virginity Blessing” [Hebrew], in Maimonidean Studies, ed. Arthur Hyman (New York 1991), 2:9–15; Ruth Langer, “The Birkat Betulim: A Study of the Jewish Celebration of Bridal Virginity,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 61 (1995): 53–94; Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 177.

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Maimonides, of twelfth-century Cairo. The question posed was whether the virginity blessing has a firm basis in Jewish law or belongs in the less binding category of custom. Maimonides$ anonymous interlocutor describes the ritual, apparently suspecting that Maimonides might be unfamiliar with it: “When the community comes to the groom$s house on the Sabbath to pray or to bless, the person reciting the blessing takes a goblet in his hand and recites [the blessing] over the [fruit of the] vine, and [over] spices, and recites this blessing …”47 Clearly the ritual surrounding the bride$s virginity was a communal matter, at least in the milieu of Maimonides$ correspondent. Maimonides flatly rejects the practice, and says that it is tantamount to taking the name of God in vain. With an extra measure of vehemence, he adds that the ritual is “a very reprehensible custom, for it has in it the quality of the absence of modesty, and of the abandonment of the holiness of religion and its purity, than which there is nothing loftier. I refer specifically to that reprehensible gathering at which the virginity blessing is recited.”48 The repetition of the word “reprehensible” underscores the depth of Maimonides$ passion on the matter at hand. Maimonides$ responsum confirms the social setting intimated in PDRE, namely the communal celebration of the bride$s virginity, in a context of ritual rather than litigation. What is missing in the Maimonides text, of course, is any reference to digital defloration. A late medieval source, Ma5or ha5Afelah, a midrash from fourteenth-century Yemen, links the PDRE tale, digital defloration and Maimonides$ responsum. It perpetuates the legend of Rebecca$s digital defloration, cites the contemporary custom and denigrates it in the following terms: “From here did the men of the East49 learn that one removes virginity with the finger. And this matter is reprehensible and obscene. The scholars said: Whoever does this is cruel and an ignoramus and has no shame.” The text goes on to declare that laws are not based on midrash, and that this particular midrash should not be interpreted literally, and neither should it serve as the basis for accepted practice.50

47 R. Moses b. Maimon, Responsa, ed. Joshua Blau (Jerusalem 1986), 2:364–365, #207. Note that the text does not identify the bridegroom as the one to recite the blessing. 48 Ibid. 49 This term usually refers to the Jews of Babylonia and Persia, rather than Palestine, contradicting the tradition that associates digital defloration with Palestinian Jewry. 50 Netanel b. Isaiah, Sefer Ma5or ha5Afelah, ed. and trans. Joseph Kafih (Jerusalem 1957), 119. The book was written in Yemen, 1329.

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Although an enormous chronological gulf separates Ma5or ha5Afelah from both PDRE and the customs list, it offers some indication of why medieval Jews might have found digital defloration objectionable. Echoing Maimonides, this text denounces the practice as “reprehensible” and obscene (in Maimonides$ terms: “the absence of modesty”). Ma5or ha5Afelah says nothing about the context of the practice in question, nor does it spell out precisely what about it is obscene or cruel. Although Maimonides does not mention digital defloration, and the Yemenite midrash does not describe a communal setting, the rhetoric of opprobrium in Ma5or ha5Afelah so closely resembles that of Maimonides that the two sources seem to be talking about the same issue. I suggest that in both cases digital defloration was problematic for the same reason that any virginity test was – because it was public. Virginity, these sources imply, is a private matter, relating to the most intimate parts of the bride$s anatomy and personal life; exposing it to public scrutiny is seen as pornographic and hence as cruel towards the bride. The final question is why digital, rather than penile, defloration? The only medieval scholar to tackle this issue is Rabad, i. e. Abraham b. David of twelfth-century Posquie`res, in southern France. Normally, vaginal bleeding renders a woman impure, forcing her to abstain from conjugal relations for a stipulated period, at the conclusion of which she must undergo ritual immersion before resuming her sexual activity. It was unclear, however, whether this principle applies to bleeding resulting from defloration. Rabad writes that even women whose defloration did not result in the issue of blood have been known to bleed following their first coitus, from the pain of the experience. Nonetheless, he rules that such an occurrence would not warrant implementation of the usual regulations associated with vaginal bleeding. Rabad closes with the suggestion that the Tamars of Judah the Patriarch$s household deflowered themselves in order to obviate this very problem, since they could then be certain of not bleeding on their wedding night.51 This would explain why a woman might deflower herself prior to her sexual initiation, but not why a groom would deflower his bride with his finger. Menahem Mendel Kasher, a twentieth-century rabbinic scholar, proposed that unlike normal sexual activity, digital defloration does not stimulate the “blood of desire,” i. e. bleeding brought on by orgasm or its imminent prospect, which renders a woman impure and forces her to 51 See his Ba:alei ha-Nefesh, ed. Joseph Kafih (Jerusalem 1964), 29–30. See also Solomon Ibn Adret, Responsa, pt. 3, #244. Other medieval responsa on digital defloration include, inter alia: Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, Responsa, #127; Hayyim Or ZaruSa, Responsa, #103, Jacob Moellin Segal, Responsa, #72.

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separate from her partner for the requisite period of time. In support of this suggestion, Kasher notes that on the customs list, Palestinian and Babylonian Jews differed on this issue, too: the former forced the couple to separate following consummation, but the latter permitted them to cohabit, provided that the defloration was digital, since this procedure would not produce orgasmic bleeding. Kasher$s suggestion may or may not be anachronistic, in terms of the mindset of the medieval Jew, but it is controverted by two simple textual facts: first, almost all versions of the customs list associate digital defloration with the Jews of Palestine, rather than Babylonia, which does not fit their conservative stance vis-a`-vis the blood of desire. Second, digital defloration and the blood of desire appear on the list separately and not even contiguously, and it is therefore unlikely that they were linked in the thinking of early medieval rabbis or simple folk.52

Conclusion: Digital Defloration and Virginity in Late Antiquity “In later antiquity,” writes Simon Goldhill, “virginity was a hot topic.”53 This is a pithy summation of an important conclusion to emerge from recent scholarship on the development of attitudes towards the body in late antiquity. Christianity has generally been seen as the principle driving force behind the transformation of virginity into a powerful cultural concept. Peter Brown$s magisterial work traces the religious and social changes that took place in the Roman Empire during Christianity$s first few centuries, and how these affected attitudes towards the body, and particularly towards virginity and continence. Fervent advocates of this ideology included Jerome and Ambrose, while Augustine charted a moderate course.54 The new fascination with virginity influenced attitudes towards the female body. Virginity tests as a manual examination make their first 52 Kasher, 985–986. For more on the halakhic issues discussed here, see Arba:ah Turim, YD, § 192. 53 Simon Goldhill, Foucault5s Virginity: Ancient Erotic Fiction and the History of Sexuality (Cambridge 1995), 2. 54 John Bugge, Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal (The Hague 1975); Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York 1988); Teresa M. Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis 1998); Rousselle, 185–193; Jo Ann McNamara, A New Song (New York 1983); Joyce E. Salisbury, Church Fathers, Independent Virgins (London 1991); Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge Mass. 1996); Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York 1988), pp. 78–97.

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appearance in Christian sources. The Protevangelium of James tells of Salome the midwife, who doubted the virgin birth, saying: “Unless I thrust in my finger and search the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth … And Salome put in her finger and cried out …”55 Scholars differ over the dating of this text, placing it between the second and fourth centuries. For the fourth century there are a number of firmly dated sources. The Theodosian code (9.8) discusses the need to physically examine prospective brides in order to verify their virginity, although it does not refer explicitly to the use of the finger or hand. Augustine tells of a manual examination which resulted in the loss of hymeneal integrity: “During a manual examination of a virgin a midwife destroyed her maidenhead, whether by malice, clumsiness, or accident.”56 John Chrysostom of fourth-century Antioch remarks that “midwives were always running to the houses of virgin cohabitants who took, or refused, tests to demonstrate their continued virginity … just as people have their slaves tested on purchase.”57 Here the reference to midwives is the indication that the virginity test involved physical inspection, traditionally performed by women, rather than by male doctors. This obsession with virginity may offer a cultural context which greatly enriches our understanding of the corpus of rabbinic texts discussed above. Although these texts can be interpreted without reference to themes and issues pertinent to the broader community, in this case such an analysis affords only a very limited understanding of their historical sitz-im-leben, for while the Jews of late antiquity often rejected concepts and values originating in the broader community, the latter must have informed their thoughts and writings to a greater or lesser extent. Michael Satlow applies this argument specifically to the realm of sexuality: Although Palestinian rabbinic rulings on sexuality occasionally differ from their Greek and Roman equivalents, all share fundamental thoughtcategories and assumptions … Whether or not particular customs or practices are consciously adopted or rejected by the Palestinian rabbis, their 55 Protevangelium of James, sec. 19–20. See Monique Alexandre, “Early Christian Women,” in From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints [A History of Women in the West, vol. 1], ed. Pauline Schmitt Pantel, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge Mass. 1992), 419. 56 City of God, 1.18. See Giulia Sissa, “Maidenhood Without Maidenhead: The Female Body in Ancient Greece,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. David M. Halperin et al. (Princeton 1990), 361. 57 Gillian Clark, Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Life-styles (Oxford 1993), 74.

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fundamental way of thinking at least about sexuality is virtually identical to those whom they label Sthe other.$58

Was virginity a matter of concern for the Jews of late antiquity? Looking back to the biblical period, we note that the Bible does not generally portray virginity in terms of purity or holiness. This is certainly true for Genesis through Numbers, but also for the laws on seduction and adultery set down in Deuteronomy 22. The prophetic books sometimes describe the Israelite nation as a virgin brought low, either through sin or by her enemies, but as mentioned, the term “virgin” may refer simply to a young girl, rather than to her sexual naivete´. Virginity appears as a matter of concern to Hellenistic-Jewish authors, writing towards the end of the Second-Temple period, who worried that daughters might engage in pre-marital sex unless strictly supervised. In highly erotic terms, Ben Sira warns fathers that the headstrong daughter “will open her mouth as a thirsty traveler, and drink of every water that is near; at every post will she sit down, and open her quiver against any arrow.”59 Philo, too, frets that if a father fails to supervise his daughter carefully, she might lose her virginity (willingly), which would shame him, as well as damage him financially. It seems safe to conclude that Hellenistic-Jewish society valued virginity, but not obsessively so. The Jews of Qumran appear to have taken the matter a bit further. A document from Qumran prefers a virgin bride to a woman who “has known to do the deed,” from which Michael Satlow generalizes that “in its marital regulations, the Qumran community stressed the importance of a man marrying a virgin.”60 Moreover, Qumran documents contain provisions for the confirmation of a woman$s virginity through examination, though whether this was a physical or ritual examination is uncertain.61

58 Michael Satlow, “Rhetoric and Assumptions: Romans and Rabbis on Sex,” in Jews in a Graeco-Roman World, ed. Martin Goodman (Oxford 1998), 143. 59 26.12. See The Apocrypha, the revised edition (Oxford 1913), 151. 60 Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton 2001), 118. Note 138 cites 4Q271 3 10–15. See Joseph M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4 XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) [=Discoveries in the Judaean Desert vol. 18] (Oxford 1996), 175–177. The Hebrew original of the phrase translated above is yad:ah la:asot ma:aseh. The translation is mine – Baumgarten translates: “who has had sexual experience” (p. 176), as does Satlow. This text appears again in 4Q269 9 5 (Baumgarten, 132); 4Q270 5 18 (Baumgarten, 154), as cited in Satlow, 339, n. 94. 61 Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 119, n. 139. Cf. Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Examination of the Accused Bride in 4Q159: Forensic Medicine at Qumran,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 22 (1993): 129–134. The latter text refers to the examina-

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All this suggests that the Jewish society before the rabbis, and certainly during their time, probably under the influence of Christianity, became more and more preoccupied with the issue of virginity. Does this preoccupation suggest that virginity became more highly prized? A series of anecdotes recounted in the Babylonian Talmud suggests that the Patriarchs of the tannaitic and early amoraic period downplayed the importance of virginity-at-marriage. In these stories, the Patriarchs Gamliel the Elder, Judah and his son Gamliel reject claims brought by disappointed grooms who on their wedding night either encountered “an open opening” or failed to find any blood.62 These stories express, on the one hand, the anxiety about virginity typical of late antiquity, and proceed, on the other hand, to allay it with the soothing responses of the Patriarchs. Perhaps the practice of pre-nuptial digital defloration was part of the negative reaction of Jewish society to the virginity craze evident in Christian society.

tion (u-veqaruha) of a bride whose virginity has been questioned by her husband. Tigay assumes that the examination was done by respected women. The examination of the suspected bride is also mentioned in 4Q271 3 13–15. 62 BT Ketubot 10a-b. For the amoraic virginity test, which does not involve physical examination of the hymen, see Yevamot 60b. On the “open door” claim, see Shulamit Valler, Women and Womenhood in the Stories of the Babylonian Talmud [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv 1993), 39–55, esp. 41–48; Tal Ilan, Integrating Women into Second Temple History (Tu¨bingen 1999), 249; Idem, Mine and Yours are Hers: Retrieving Women5s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden 1997), 191–199; Idem, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine: An Inquiry into Image and Status, Tu¨bingen 1995, 98–100. Given that these anecdotes appear in the Babylonian Talmud, Ilan asks why a liberal attitude towards non-virginity should have been popular in Babylonia, and suggests that: “Babylonian girls were no longer virgins on their wedding night, either because Babylonian society was not as strict as its Palestinian counterpart, or perhaps (to assume the worst) because in Babylonia it was considered normative for a father to deflower his daughters” (Mine, 199). I am unaware of any source for the idea that in Babylonia fathers deflowered their daughters. Moreover, having concluded that the anecdotes in question are of Palestinian origin, the attempt to explain this supposed Babylonian liberality seems superfluous.