DANIEL SCHIFF

times was treated as property, although—as we shall see— unlike elsewhere, the husband’s property rights were demonstrably less than absolute.’ One clear outcome of this“property mind set,” however, was the acceptance of male polygamy, a practice that remained“on the books” until the herem of Rabbeinu Gershom in the eleventh century." Beyond the“property” designation, a wife in ancient Israel also came to be seen as an“extension” of her husband" insofar as it was her responsibility to“build up” and continue his name by bearing his children.” As a result, clarity on the matter of paternity was of considerable societal importance, since it assured husbands that their names and status'® would be transmitted to offspring that were indeed theirs.

These two factors—polygamy, combined with the desire to obviate any possible doubts over paternity—led in Israelite society, as it did elsewhere, to a set of adultery restrictions considerably different for men than for women. According to the tradition, a married woman was forbidden to have sexual relations with any­body except her husband.” A married man, on the other hand, was forbidden to have sexual relations with any married or engaged woman, but since the Torah permitted both multiple wives and concubines, sex with a single woman—though frowned upon—was not considered adultery.” Hence, a single woman could never be an adulteress, a single or married man was an adulterer only if he had sexual relations with a married woman, and a married woman was an adulteress if she had sex with either a single or a married man. “In other words, the wife owed faithfulness to her own marriage; the husband owed faithfulness to another man’s marriage.”

The pivotal issue that decisively differentiated Israelite adultery laws from the surrounding societies, however, arose from

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