Sexual Hospitality in the Hebrew Bible by Thalia Gur-Klein

Author:Thalia Gur-Klein [Gur-Klein, Thalia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, General
ISBN: 9781317545675
Google: eMLoBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-10-20T16:12:29+00:00

He also had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemimah, the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-Happuch. In all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance [nakhala] among their brethren [betokh akheihen].

(Job 42:13–15)

Job’s case supports the proposition that a father may allot asset rights to his daughters at will, despite having sons beside them. Eventually, Job treats his daughters as his paternal next of kin and heiresses like his sons. In corroboration, the asset Job endows to his daughters is entitled nakhala, which denotes a natal land of ancestors passing inter-generationally We detect the word nakhala in the case of Naboth’s refusal to sell his land to king Ahab, claiming it to be a nakhala and a land of his ancestors which cannot pass to alien hands (1 Kgs 21:1–4). By inference, it is improbable that Job would break up the land of his inheritance by allowing his daughters to inherit a portion of his estate and then let them transfer it to the possession of another clan by exogamous marriage. Though the text does not mention the marriages of Job’s daughters, connotations of endogamous marriage lie in the Hebrew phrase: betokh akhaihen, among their brothers (v. 15). Inferring among, within or alongside, the phrase could illustrate that, whilst inheriting land from their father, Job’s daughters remain on the natal land after their marriage, having husbands who join them on their father-in-law’s estate. Such marriage will infer that Job’s daughters’ husbands would relocate to their wives’ abode and land, instead of the other way around. The word betokh thus alludes to the fact that Job’s daughters mutually inherit and reside on their father’s land after marriage, presumably with their husbands. Eventually perpetuating their fathers name on his land by their offspring, Job’s daughters could have followed the precedent of Zelophehad’s daughters, although Job had sons.

We can presume the following. Inherently patrilineal, laws of inheritance endow inheritance first and foremost to a paternal son, but allow a paternal daughter to inherit if a man lacks sons. By a sliding scale of kinship, paternal kin of a deceased man may inherit if a man lacks offspring altogether while excluding a widow and maternal kin (Num. 27:5–11). Nonetheless, the ruling of Zelophehad’s daughters does not belong to punitive laws and is not mandatory (Num. 36:6–8). Being affirmative, the law does not seem to forbid asset rights to pass to a daughter, notwithstanding the presence of sons. Seen from the closure of Job’s chronology, a father may permit his daughters to inherit alongside his sons without jurisdictional consequences (Baker 1992: 161–71).

However, endogamous arrangements seem incumbent in asset rights passing to daughters, as it secures the integrity of the family’s natal inheritance and the clan’s territorial demarcation. Conforming to the family’s interests, law and choice of marriage become mutually complementary. The cases of Zelophehad’s daughters and Caleb’s daughter Acsah indicate that these women married their paternal close kin, substantiating their asset rights (Num.

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