[Avodah] Kol kevudah: a woman's place is in the home

[Celejar]

[We are discussing, on Areivim and off-list, the early sources for the
interpretation of the verse "kol kevudah bas melech penimah".]

[An edited version of an email of mine:]

> How about Gittin 12a?  The Gemara there clearly understands it to imply
> that a woman's place is in the home, so this is not some sort of recent derash.

[Someone objected (off-list) that the Gemara's maskana seems to actually
be a rejection of the assumption of the hava amina that a woman's place
is in the home.  An edited version of my response:]

Yevamos 77a is another explicit source that derives the norm that a
woman's place is in the home from "kol kevudah".  [It is possible,
albeit implausible in my view, that there is also a dissenting
exegetical view there.]

Indeed, Hasam Sofer (Resp. EH II:99) also initially suggests that the
maskana of the Gemara in Gittin is a rejection of the principle of kol
kevudah (in the sense we are discussing here), but he proves from the
Gemara in Yevamos (which he considers to be an undisputed assertion of
the principle) that the maskana in Gittin is simply that although it is
certainly true that kol kevudah, this is still insufficient basis to
require the husband to maintain his wife in the circumstance in
question.

Additionally, we still have Rambam (Ishus 13:11 - the quote which
sparked this subthread) who does use the verse as a source for the
injunction against a woman leaving her home too often.

Yitzhak
-- 
Bein Din Le'din - http://bdld.info - *** Note change of address ***
http://bdld.info/2009/07/19/by-any-other-url/
A discussion of Hoshen Mishpat, Even Ha'Ezer and other matters