Nujood
Ali may be the youngest girl in the world to get a divorce. Nujood’s father
sold her to a man in his 30s when she was nine years old for $750—a child bride
in Yemen. He beat her and raped her. Two months later, while visiting her
family, she hailed a cab and headed straight to a courthouse where she insisted upon seeing a judge.
At the age of 10 she was divorced from the man who had bought and abused her.
Just to put this all in perspective, Nujood was married in the second grade and
divorced in the third grade. Nujood’s story is told in I am Nujood, Age 10
and Divorced (written with Delphine Minui). Nujood’s royalties are paid to
her father. Rather than educating his daughter, as he agreed to do, he used the
money to buy himself two more wives, and sold Nujood’s younger sister to a
middle-aged man. Nujood may be the youngest girl to be divorced, but certainly
not
the youngest to be forcibly married. Girls as young as six have
the youngest to be forcibly married. Girls as young as six have
Is this
treatment of girls and women “natural” among
the human species? Is this “the way of the world?” Is this an ancient tradition
from time immemorial that modernity will eventually extinguish? Apparently not
at all.
Human
beings were not always monogamous. That is the intriguing starting point of the
thesis of Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality.
Moreover, the authors Christopher Ryan and Dr. Cecilia Jeth argue,
monogamy is a social institution that evolved among human beings as a result of
agriculture. Prehistoric humans, hunter-gatherers, had overlapping sexual
relationships. They were usually organized in bands of 20–50 people (adult and
children). They moved about, hunting game and seeking edible vegetation. The
had few possessions (too much trouble to shlep them) and were marked by
individual autonomy, sharing, cooperation,
Evidence
from archaeology, anthropology, and psychology tell us that with the advent of
agriculture and the domestication of animals 10,000 years ago (approximately 5%
of our approximately 200,000-year history as a species), people settled in one
place and began to accumulate and hoard property and possessions. Under these
conditions, paternity begins to matter because men want to hand down their
property to their sons, and they do not want to expend energy and effort to
support children that are not theirs. Women come to be seen as breeders and
treated as the property of men, as exemplified in both versions of the Ten
Commandments.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s
house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female slave,
or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbors. (Exodus 20:14)
You shall not covet your neighbor’s
wife. You shall not crave your neighbor’s house, or his field, or his male or
female slave, or his ox, or his ass, o anything that is your neighbor’s.
(Deuteronomy 5:18)
Where
nomadic hunter-gatherers formed egalitarian societies in which paternity was
unimportant, farmers developed hierarchical societies in which men owned and
controlled the sexuality and procreativity of women in exchange for food,
shelter, protection, and status. Under these conditions, the institution of marriage
and monogamy came into practice.
Anthropologists
provide a very different narrative about the nature of the human species and
the institution of marriage than one finds in Genesis and throughout religious
writings but it may explain, at least in part, the bizarre and disturbing
institution of the sotah, the suspected adulteress, described in Parshat
Naso. Anthropologists would note that this scenario would not happen in a
hunter-gatherer society because no man would presume exclusive right to the
body of a woman. Torah tells us:
If any man’s wife has gone astray and
broken faith with him in that a man has had carnal relations with her unbeknown
to her husband and she keeps secret the fact that she has defiled herself
without being forced, and there is no witness against her—but a fit of jealousy
comes over him and he is wrought up about the wife who has defiled herself; or
if a fit of jealousy comes over one and he is wrought up about his wife
although she has not defiled herself—the man shall bring his wife to the
priest. (Numbers 5:11-15)
If a
husband becomes dangerously jealous and potentially violent, thinking that his
wife has had sexual relations with another man, but there is no evidence nor
any witnesses (and quite possibly nothing has happened) Torah establishes a
recourse to violence. The husband is instructed to bring his wife to a priest
in the Tabernacle or Temple along with the ingredients for a “meal offering of
jealousy.”
What
happens next is not pretty. The Torah describes a humiliating public ceremony
in which the priest writes out a curse, also prescribed by Torah:
“If no man has lain with you, if you
have not gone astray in defilement while married to your husband, be immune to
harm from this water of bitterness that induces the spell. But if you have gone
astray while married to your husband and have defiled yourself, if a man other
than your husband has had carnal relations with you, may the Lord make you a
curse and an imprecation among your people, as Adonai causes your thigh to sag
and your belly to distend; may this water that induces the spell enter your
body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag. (Numbers 5:19–22)
The
priest then dissolves the words of the curse (i.e., the ink from the parchment
on which it was written) into water and adds a little dust from the floor of
the Tabernacle. He bares the woman’s head and pronounces the words of the
curse, to which the woman is required to say, “Amen, amen!” The priest offers
the meal offering of jealousy and compels the woman to drink the “bitter
waters,” the concoction of water, the ink of the curse, and dust. She literally
ingests the curse; once inside her, God will empower the words to reveal her
innocence or guilt.
This
procedure has been called a “trial by ordeal” because the ritual is presumed to
reveal the woman’s guilt or innocence.
Once he has made her drink the water—if
she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband, the spell-inducing
water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall
distend and her thigh shall sag; and the woman shall become a curse among her
people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she shall be
unharmed and will [be able to?] conceive. (Numbers 5:27–28)
The
ritual of the sotah has been condemned as misogynistic. It is understandable
why modern people would view it this way. If the suspected wife did, indeed,
have sexual relations with a man other than her husband, he is as guilty of
adultery as she, yet no mention is made of him, and there is no corresponding
ritual to ferret out his guilt or innocence. Moreover, if the woman is
vindicated by this ritual, Torah explicitly says that the husband who falsely
accused her, will
be innocent of any wrongdoing (Numbers 5:31).
There is no compensation for a woman who undergoes this demeaning public ritual
and is exonerated. In the end, going through the ritual will tarnish, if not
ruin, the woman’s reputation. Either way, she loses. Or does she?
The
precise meaning of Numbers 5:27-28 (above) is unclear. Torah could mean that if
the accused woman is guilty, she will die as a result of drinking the “bitter
waters,” but if she is innocent, she will conceive and bear a child.
Alternatively, it could mean that if she
is guilty, she will no longer be fertile, but if she is innocent, she will
retain the capacity to conceive and bear a child.[1] Yet another possibility presumes that the woman is
pregnant and the husband suspects that he is not the father: “Therefore, the
central issue is paternity: if the wife is innocent and the husband is truly
the unborn child’s father, then the fetus will grow to term. It follows,
therefore, that if the wife is guilty and the husband is not the father, then
the wife will not be able ‘to retain seed.’” That is, the spell of the ordeal
will induce a miscarriage…”[2]
I would
like to propose a fourth option. In an ancient society lacking police, jails,
and restraining orders[3], there were few safeguards for a woman whose
husband flew into a jealous rage, endangering her life. Even today, if you
google “jealous husband killed wife” an alarming number of accounts from all
around the world pop up—go ahead and try it.[4]
The
ritual of the sotah can be viewed as a valve that allows an husband
overwrought with jealousy to let off steam without physically attacking his
wife. The husband would haul his wife to the priest and compel her to undergo
an unpleasant, demeaning, and public ritual. The ordeal, he believed, would confirm his
suspicion in a forum that would garner priestly approval and public
acknowledgement that he was correct. The wife’s humiliation undoubtedly brought
the husband some measure of satisfaction and bought time for him to calm down.
Let’s
now look at the other side of the equation: the wife’s experience. As the
chattel of her husband, she had little power and no authority. Jealousy is a
powerful and dangerous emotion, and her life is in danger. She is brought to
the Tabernacle or Temple where, for the time being, she is safe. A priest
compels her to imbibe a strange concoction of water, ink, and dust. What are we
talking about here? In the ancient world, ink was made of a variety of
ingredients, among them soot, ferrous sulfate, gall nuts, and gum arabic. These
ingredients are innocuous, especially the tiny amount the woman would ingest — ink
enough to pen four verses. The dust added to the water is also unlikely to have
much effect. All in all, the “bitter waters” certainly don’t compete with a
daiquiri, but in all likelihood, the woman would be unaffected. The result?
Immediate vindication from heaven in a public forum overseen and witnessed by
priests. What is more, it is now clear to the priests (and probably to the
broader community before long) that this man over-reacted and is potentially
dangerous. The priests (and perhaps the community) will keep an eye on him. And
what if the woman were pregnant, either by her husband or perhaps she actually
did have an affair and carried another man’s child at the time of the ritual?
It appears that the promise of fertility that accompanies her divine
vindication will cover this: the husband will be presumed to be the father—surviving
the ordeal promises her this outcome—and the child will be considered a very
special “gift from heaven.” What is more, the jealous husband will be under the
radar of the priests and community; he would be most unwise to harm his wife.
If what I have postulated was not the intent of the ritual of the sotah,
it seems likely to be the outcome.
The
husband who is overwrought with jealousy looks different through the lens of
anthropologists’ view of marriage as an institution that arose as a result of
human cultivation of agriculture which allowed people to settle in one place
and begin to amass property and possession. Men began counting women among
their property and possessions. This is a situation ripe for exploitation and
abuse. The Rabbis, recognized the problem, though they certainly did not
understand the anthropologists’ long historical view. Mishnah Sotah 9:9 (47a)
reports that R. Yochanan b. Zakkai, (late second century C.E.) suspended the
procedure because adultery had become so common at the time. He cites a verse
from Hosea: I will
not punish their daughters for fornicating, nor their daughters-in-law for
committing adultery; for they themselves turn aside with whores and sacrifice
with prostitutes, and a people that is without sense must stumble (Hosea 4:14). To accuse women, alone, would be sheer hypocrisy.
In the Rabbis’ discussion of the sotah, they determine that in order for
the husband to bring his wife to the Temple and charge her as a sotah,
he must warn her in the presence of a witness not to seclude herself with
another man, and there must also be a witness to her seclusion. It is difficult
to imagine a situation in which these conditions are met. What is more,
harkening back to R. Yochanan’s stark observation about the state of marriage
in his day, the Rabbis state that if the husband had at any time committed
adultery, his wife would be immune to the bitter waters. Hence her vindication
could be understood as meaning either that she was innocent, or that her
husband was guilty.
We
would hope that marriages would be based upon trust, respect, and freedom, but
we must acknowledge that the institution of marriage, when first developed, had
a very different, and deeply disturbing foundation. The historical entanglement
of monogamy with treating women as chattel does not mean that monogamy should be
jettisoned. It means that we must disentangled marriage from control and exploitation of
girls and women. Sadly, the situation of Nujood and countless other girls is
the direct outgrowth of the institution of marriage as it developed in human
societies 10,000 years ago. Religions may envelop the institution with
There
is more. Alas, the problem of marriage extends beyond girls and women to boys
in some cultures. In Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Uzbekistan, the ancient
tradition of Bacha Bazi (“boys for play”) is for young boys what child marriage
is for young girls. It is sexual slavery. Wealthy men purchase poor boys as
young as eleven for their entertainment: they dress them in girls’ clothing and
force them to sing and perform sexualized dances for them, and then exploit
them sexually.[5] In 2010, journalist Najibullah Quraisi made a
documentary film entitled The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan about the
Bacha Bazi. Ironically, when the homophobic Taliban was in control, they
outlawed Bacha Bazi and executed those engaged in the practice, but now that
they are no longer in control, Bacha Bazi is returning. American troops serving
in Afghanistan were instructed to ignore child sexual abuse, including rape,
and even when it occurred on a military base, all the while training and arming
the people who perpetrated it.[6]
We can
do better and we must do better, not only here at home, but for girls and boys
around the globe.
Please
check out some of these links for ideas on how you might help:
Videos:
© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman
[4] We might be
tempted to compare these to so-called “honor killings” that occur in some cultures; these, too,
are about men controlling the sexuality of their daughters and sisters, who are
viewed as chattel.
[6]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html?_r=0.
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