I’m not quite sure how to express this, but this topic in particular Ive come to believe is critical to building a successful poly culture for multiple generations. Understanding why the Jewish culture works for polygamy and the Roman culture will not is one of the major things I believe is missing from our perspectives.
This is what I mean about cultural bias. Under our culture a woman is either under her husband or fathers authority or she’s not and in rebellion. Because she’s under his authority everything she owns is also. The problem with this is that we operate under a Roman family model that is based upon monogamy where the inheritance passes to the children (the mother and father become the beneficiaries) The Jewish family model is structured to deal with inheritances that pass to the grandchildren from (possibly) multiple wives. The daughters portion of her fathers inheritance was entrusted to her stewardship in the form of a Dowry which she was to manage for the benefit of her children only, not for the benefit of the sister wives children or the benefit of the husband.
A wife with a dowry would be under her husbands covering and authority, but the dowry and anything pertaining to it would not be under his authority unless she preferred it that way. The dowry was basically her children’s inheritance and she was specifically entrusted with its oversight by her father. There were multiple ways that this dowry/trust could be administered including the possibility of having her husband oversee it as a trustee, never as a beneficiary. As such, he was accountable by law and could be removed as trustee and oversight regained by the wife. Any land, orchards, groves or servants that were included in the dowry was considered hereditary property to the wife’s family and would leave with the wife (if it ever came down to that) just as it came into the marriage with the wife. A ketubah would usually have an inventory of the dowry and if he divorced her or the reverse, he was held accountable by the beit din to make sure that she left with all of it.
Sometimes a wife would have no interest in managing her own affairs and would “loan” her dowry to her husband. It was basically a loan that was never called in as long as there was no divorce but as soon as a writing of divorce was initiated the principle only must be paid back and she had to be sent out with everything she came in with. In Christ’s day, (and even prior) wicked husbands would put away their wives without cause but withhold a writing of divorcement often because they didnt want to or couldn’t pay the dowry back as required. They would essentially kick them out of the house for the slightest or no cause, without any means of support or sustenance, and try to starve them out by delaying the writing of divorce as long as they could, hoping that she would resort to base measures to survive or just return to the fathers house. For this reason the beit din (who couldn’t force the writing of a divorce) would sentence the wicked man to being publicly whipped until he voluntarily offered a writing of divorce.
This is what I mean about cultural bias. Under our culture a woman is either under her husband or fathers authority or she’s not and in rebellion. Because she’s under his authority everything she owns is also. The problem with this is that we operate under a Roman family model that is based upon monogamy where the inheritance passes to the children (the mother and father become the beneficiaries) The Jewish family model is structured to deal with inheritances that pass to the grandchildren from (possibly) multiple wives. The daughters portion of her fathers inheritance was entrusted to her stewardship in the form of a Dowry which she was to manage for the benefit of her children only, not for the benefit of the sister wives children or the benefit of the husband.
A wife with a dowry would be under her husbands covering and authority, but the dowry and anything pertaining to it would not be under his authority unless she preferred it that way. The dowry was basically her children’s inheritance and she was specifically entrusted with its oversight by her father. There were multiple ways that this dowry/trust could be administered including the possibility of having her husband oversee it as a trustee, never as a beneficiary. As such, he was accountable by law and could be removed as trustee and oversight regained by the wife. Any land, orchards, groves or servants that were included in the dowry was considered hereditary property to the wife’s family and would leave with the wife (if it ever came down to that) just as it came into the marriage with the wife. A ketubah would usually have an inventory of the dowry and if he divorced her or the reverse, he was held accountable by the beit din to make sure that she left with all of it.
Sometimes a wife would have no interest in managing her own affairs and would “loan” her dowry to her husband. It was basically a loan that was never called in as long as there was no divorce but as soon as a writing of divorce was initiated the principle only must be paid back and she had to be sent out with everything she came in with. In Christ’s day, (and even prior) wicked husbands would put away their wives without cause but withhold a writing of divorcement often because they didnt want to or couldn’t pay the dowry back as required. They would essentially kick them out of the house for the slightest or no cause, without any means of support or sustenance, and try to starve them out by delaying the writing of divorce as long as they could, hoping that she would resort to base measures to survive or just return to the fathers house. For this reason the beit din (who couldn’t force the writing of a divorce) would sentence the wicked man to being publicly whipped until he voluntarily offered a writing of divorce.
