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Marriage Contracts in Ancient Egypt in the Light of Jewish Sources
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
In an article published in this Review some years ago, the present writer called attention to a remarkable similarity between a certain clause occurring in some Demotic marriage contracts of the late Ptolemaic period and Mishnah, Ketubot, 9,5. The clause in question reads: “I shall not be able to require an oath from thee in the house of judgment on account of the right of thy woman's property above (named), saying ‘thou didst not bring them to my house in thy hand’” (Adler Dem. 14 and Ryl. 16). The pertinent part of Mishnah, Ketubot, 9,5, reads: “If he declared to her in writing, ‘I will require of thee neither vow nor oath,’ he may not exact of her an oath…” (Danby, The Mishnah, p. 258).
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953
References
1 V. XXXVII, p. 52, n. 5.
2 F. LI. Griffith, Catalogue of the Demotic Papyri in the John Rylands Library, v. III, pp. 114–115. The sum of 50 staters is strikingly similar to the 50 shekel of the Biblical mohar, which in post-Biblical times developed into the ketubah. See Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon s.v. στăτήρ, citing Matt. 17, 27, where the shekel is referred to as a stater.
3 The English translation of all the passages from the Bible quoted in this article is taken from the version of the Jewish Publication Society.
4 A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C., p. 28.
5 Staerk's Die jüdisch-aramäischen Papyri not being available to the writer, he does not know whether the reference is to the Demotic document quoted in the text of this article, or to some other 4th century Demotic document.
6 See also M. Schorr, Urkunden des altbabylonischen Zivil- und Prozessrechts, p. 522.
7 See M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim etc., p. 1516b. Danby, The Mishnah, p. 319, renders this term somewhat less precisely as “letter of dismissal.”
8 H. Thompson, A Family Archive from Siut, p. 25.
9 See Exod. 22, 15–16; Deut. 22, 29.
10 Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot, II (The Soncino Press, London, 1936), pp. 520–521Google Scholar.
11 R. Taubenschlag, The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri, p. 78.
12 In support of the opinion that polygamy was permissible in ancient Egypt, Taubenschlag (op. cit. p. 78, n. 4) cites Erman (Z. f. äg. Spr. XXX, 63) to the effect that the secondary wife was called in ancient Egypt hated (msddt ) and that in Rabbinic literature the secondary wife was called enemy. With respect to enemy, there are two inaccuracies in Erman's assertion. First, the term ṣarah, which he undoubtedly had in mind, does not mean secondary wife, but rival. When a man has two wives, one is the ṣarah (rival) of the other. Secondly, the word ṣarah in this sense is also Biblical, not only Rabbinic. It occurs in I. Sam. 1, 6. With respect to the term hated, as applied to a wife in ancient Egypt, it seems, in view of the evidence discussed in the text of this article, that its correct meaning is divorced, not secondary.
13 A. Cowley, op. cit. no. 15, lines 31–33. The similarity between this provision in the Aramaic papyrus and the corresponding provision in P. Tebt. 104 has already been noted by Cowley at p. 50.
14 To be published by Prof. Emil G. Kraeling. Prof. Kraeling was good enough to allow the writer to inspect this and the other Aramaic papyri in the Brooklyn Museum collection, which he is preparing for publication.
15 See Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot, 47b; Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael (ed. Lauterbach), v. 3, p. 27. In accordance with the Talmudic interpretation of Exod. 21, 10, the standard form of the Jewish ketubah contains a clause enumerating the three items of marital duty. See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Ybbum Ve-Ḫaliṣah, 4, 33. For an English translation of this form, see McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, v. 5, p. 776.