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

[Shoshana L. Boublil]

From: Celejar <celejar at gmail.com>
> To: Avodah <avodah at lists.aishdas.org>
> Subject: [Avodah] Kol kevudah: a woman's place is in the home

> 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.]

I am not someone who can teach G'mara, but I can learn, at least to a 
limited extent.

What I was taught was that the first thing one should do is study the 
context of the saying.  To do so entails going back one daf to 76b.

The discussion is a famous one - Do'eig HaEdomi is trying to question 
David's antecendents. The issue surrounds the saying "Amoni VeLo Amonit" 
etc.

During that discussion the sentence "Kol Kevudah" is brought up.

>From the reading of the context and the content it appears that if there was 
an issue of staying home - it was in a historical context - that is, women 
at the Historical Time and Place behaved in one way, and the men acted in 
another way. Chzal are NOT trying to imply that women SHOULD stay home, they 
are saying there that it was customary at the time.

As this is not the only opinion concerning the understanding of Amoni etc. 
to be raised, including the understanding that this is a "Mekublannu" (that 
is - Torah LeMoshe MiSinai) and that Do'eig's various comments show that he 
didn't have a problem with women in the public place (though he was silenced 
for other reasons), I would dare say that the discussion is historical and 
not at all intended to teach a halachic law of "women should stay at home".

To compare, imagine saying that men are not allowed to drive b/c when they 
left Egypt they did not drive.  Sometimes history is just history.

Shoshana L. Boublil