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(‘ontrolling Passions- Mixed Results 99

the couple had already lived together for some time. The biblical law may have been well intentioned but was messy and difficult to enforce. Furthermore, it created communal antagonisms rather than promoting harmony. The talmudic tradition and later responsa on this matter remained out of the bed-chamber at that critical moment or made legal proof very difficult. The folk custom of showing the sheets from the wedding night remained as for example in Italy , but definitive proof of lack of virginity involved other details which made it hard.? This way of handling matters also provided greater protection for the young bride although that was never mentioned as a concern. For the rabbis this was an issue of boundaries beyond which it was not suitable for the court to venture. Neither social, communal, nor religious values would be served. The experiment in dealing with the passions and jealousy of the young groom was quietly abandoned.

SUSPECTED ADULTERY

Now let us look at another issue of passion, the case of a married couple and a jealous and suspicious husband. He suspected her of using what may have been ordinary meetings with another man for illicit sexual intercourse and therefore adultery. He was suspicious but had no proof. Scripture sought to solve the problem through the ordeal of the sotah- in other words the matter was left to divine judgment and it was the only instance in the biblical texts:

If any man’s wife go aside and act unfaithfully against him, and a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, she being defiled secretly, and there be no witness against her, she not be taken in the act; and the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled; or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled; then