[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Arie Folger]

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 5:12 PM, <T613K at aol.com> wrote:
> I was talking about women being witnesses in court, not women being
> defendants.  I was under the impression that women defendants /are/ allowed
> to defend themselves, and I would be very surprised if the death penalty
> could ever be carried out against a defendant who had no opportunity to
> defend herself in court.

Well, the source I quoted (by way of Rashi; it is from the Sifrei)
deals with a woman accused of adultery during her betrothal period,
which carries a potential seqila punishment, and she is quiet while
her father takes up her defense, whereupon Rashi quotes the Sifrei
that "mika'an she-ein reshut la-isha ledabber bifnei ha-ish." So, we
are talking about a defendant.

-- 
Arie Folger,
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