Yevamot 34: Cases Demonstrating Prohibitions: Women's Bodies

The Gemara discusses a number of cases to help them understand different prohibitions.  Extended, more inclusive, and simultaneous prohibitions require different numbers of offerings.  Today's daf is one of those unusual dapim that focuses upon highly sexualized case studies.  Some of the rabbis' opinions are fascinating, some are offensive to modern sensibilities, and some seem simply ridiculous.  But all of them teach us about the mores of the society in which our Sags lives.

One point of interest, though it is not at all on-point, is that Rabbi Eliezer shares his opinion about babies, breastfeeding and intercourse.  He suggests that for two years following the birth of a baby, a husband should spill his seed outside of his wife's body to ensure that a subsequent pregnancy will not prematurely end mild production and thus risk the nursing baby's life.  We know that the halacha goes against this view; men are required to have sexual intercourse with their wives without "spilling seed" outside of their wives bodies.  But now we know that Rabbi Eliezer disagreed.

Some of the more difficult passages have to do with women's sexual functioning.  The rabbis agree that virgins cannot become pregnant through he first act of sexual intercourse.  If a pregnancy happens, it is because there was a second act immediately after that first act.  They speak about Tamar, who was said to become pregnant after her first act of intercourse with Judah.  But she had been married twice before!  Well, the rabbis argue, we know that Onan's seed was spilled on the ground, and Er must have had anal intercourse with her.  She did not become pregnant, but she did break her hymen with her finger before intercourse with their father.  This far-fetched fantasy demonstrates that the Talmud is a site for all of our rabbis' thinking.  All of it.

Under the age of three, intercourse with a girl does not carry a prohibition.  She is left as a virgin (we have learned earlier that the rabbis believe that her hymen grows back).  Between the ages of three and twelve, there is no fear that a minor girl will become pregnant -- thus intercourse is not prohibited.  If a girl is menstruating, it is prohibited to have intercourse with her due to ritual impurity.  When the rabbis consider right and wrong as they create halacha, their only stated motivation is accurately understanding the will of G-d.  But when their interpretations are so obviously misinformed and/or maintaining the societal structure of the time, how can we accept their interpretations as 'truth'?

At the end of today's daf, we learn that the Rabbis believe that women are in control of when we become pregnant through our wishes to become pregnant.  And thus women who are widowed and do not have intercourse for ten years will not become pregnant with a new husband.  Except, of course, if they want to become pregnant.  A number of women are mentioned - it is even said that one rabbi told his wife that she was being gossipped about by the Sages.  Rav Chisda's daughter married two different Sages with ten years between them.  We learn in a note (and in a novel) that as a child she predicted that she would marry both of them.  

It is clear yet again that the rabbis understand very little about women's bodies - their physiology, their emotional and psychological processes, their lives and concerns.  We cannot assume that we understand all of the concerns of girls who lives two thousand years ago.  However, we know that girls and women would have opinions about what they might do with their bodies and what others should be permitted to do with their bodies.  The Sages seem to be comfortable omitting women's voices.  Their conclusions regarding women's bodies and lives are shockingly mistaken and even dangerous.