Procreation

In ancient Israel, a woman was primarily valued for her procreative potential. Israelite women fell into one of two classes:

1. Bound women, which includes minor daughters, wives, and Levirate widows. The women in this category are bound to some man due to their procreative potential: The minor daughter is bound to her father; a wife is bound to her husband; and a Levirate widow is bound to her dead husband’s kinsmen (Raccah, Widows at the Gates, 326–35).

2. Emancipated women, which includes emancipated daughters, divorcées, and widows with children. The women in this category had control over their own procreative potential because they were not bound to a man. However, these women often lived in poverty, especially if their children were too young to support them and they had no other kin ties. Prostitution was often the only source of income available to an emancipated woman (Raccah, Widows at the Gates, 18–23).

Men had two main concerns regarding procreation that had an impact on the Israelite understanding of kinship:

1. Men needed heirs—particularly male heirs—to pass on their seed (“the spark of life”).

2. Men desired to keep outsiders off their land and thus prevent the family estate from being broken into increasingly smaller units (Raccah, Widows at the Gate, 286–91).