Israel and Humanity - Pagan Women
§ 3.
PAGAN WOMEN
It should speak of a law that allows us to see no less than the previous feelings of delicacy and love of the Torah of Israel to respect abroad. We refer to the law on prisoner of war also applies to the Canaanite woman when she was in the midst of another tribe idolatrous. He was allowed the Israelite to marry her and she was recognized as legitimate wife ( Ischa ).
What is equally remarkable is that although the legislature, say the rabbis did not approve the marriage, which provides the fatal consequences reported by the regulations after the wife and son hated rebel it [1] However respects the affection of the Jew he thought it prudent to spare knowing it could be strong enough to break all barriers. So simply there to regulate this union with a foreign woman and how good for it! It prescribes the Israelite to introduce it into his house where she has to leave her clothes captive. He stresses the obligation of the Jew to live in her own house and he prescribed a very touching attention that before consummating the marriage, he is left a whole month of freedom to mourn his father and mother [2]. Only after these preliminaries that the Israelite can make her his wife.
But the concern of the Act for the pagan woman does not stop there. It provides for the case of disgust and abandonment by the husband and she absolutely prohibits the sale as a slave, any prisoner whatsoever, for, says Moses, thou hast humbled her. " These are the provisions of the Scripture. As for tradition, despite a double common among doctors, it does sum in outdo the benevolent intentions of the Bible. Suffice it to say that we can take only one foreign woman, it is forbidden to take another, even on behalf of a close relative, and to exercise any wife violence whatsoever on the battlefield. The parents that the Act authorizes prisoners to cry freely for one month to become rabbis gods of the captive and her tears are only she can worship freely give them during this period. It should be noted also that tradition as well as the Scripture is silent on the issue of religious conversion of the pagan woman. Assuming that the break with polytheism was imposed, you know, what we have said of the slave, the Act limits what drew this conversion and what guarantees it surrounded.
The eulogy is a patchwork of legislation author certainly above suspicion of bias or exaggeration seems perfectly justified: "The law, Mr. Lawrence wrote, listing in the legislature a delicacy of feeling that we looks in vain in the greatest philosophers of pagan antiquity. " And he concludes: "Moses has more respect for the female slave that Plato did for women free [3] ". [4]
