Sex-Starved Wife Wins Divorce In Italy
Reuters reports,
An Italian woman whose angry husband refused for 7 years to have sex with her was awarded divorce damages by Italy’s high court this week.
Did you know if she was Jewish she would’ve been entitled to a divorce immediately under halakha? It’s true! The rabbis were all about horny housewives! That’s why as long as a woman’s been to mikvah post-niddah, if she wants it, her husband has to give it up. And on the other hand, if he wants it, she doesn’t have to. That’s fair!
No really, women have “conjugal rights” under Jewish law. Just one more reason why being a Jew rocks. Or sucks, depending on your gender. Or gender-confusion.
Ya see that, who says Women dont have rights in Judaism, please no barrage of angry people yelling at me….. Isn’t there something also that women have to be “satisfied” too, I dont know I got that from the movie “A stranger among us”
I think the minimum for the Jewish man obligated to perform is once-a-month.
On the other hand, the women is obligated to go to the mikvah at the end of her seven day clean period. If she doesn’t feel like going, ya know, ‘headache’ or alternatively light-rain, she has to ask her husband for permission to put off the dunking. Another reason why Jews shouldn’t live in snow infested areas – a blizzard on that special night might put off the ‘celebration’.
of course, these facts certainly make up for the fact that women are essentially chattel to the ultra-orthodox. keep up the good work. love that halakha!
And where did ‘scurvy’ get that particular bit of moronic bs from? There seem to be lots of ‘charedi’ (ultra-Orthodox) women blogging, and not one of them seems to be treated as chattel or be anything but well-educated…
a good book that pertains to this subject somewhat is Daniel Boyarin’s “Unheroic Conduct: Heterosexuality and the Creation of the Jewish Man”
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/p…
Yes, Boyarin is the king. Also check out his “Carnal Israel.”
Boyarin, shmoyarin. The guy is a big fat faygeleh. Who else but a faygeleh would use the word “synecdoche”?
Boyarin is lots of things, but fat he’s not. I live in Berkeley and see him around. He wears suspenders.
The halachic minimum for a man’s performance depends on how physically demanding his job is. The Torah source for this is the different male/female ratios among the presents of livestock that Jacob sends to Esau. Strange, eh?
so, michael, not one single charedi woman blogger is under a halakhic boot? seems your connection to that world is limited to perhaps, .00000001% of the charedi population. and their bloggers, you dope. they might be chinese midgets for all you know.
I had dinner at Boyarin’s house recently and would like to confirm that he is neither fat nor a faygeleh.
Yeah, but he writes like a fat, bloated faygeleh.
me wonders how many of you commentators are married? me knows mobius aint and he’ll say the same thing with a bit more tatse once he is a man wo hiis righteous woman.
scurvy saying “women are essentially chattel to the ultra-orthodox”… um- i would rip it part from the head down, but you outdid yourself with the chinese midget. hence- both woman and man have rights, according to Torah, it is the woman who has ‘the right’.
In conclusion I question the source of Simon’s ratio of performance. “Time” given is a commandment, no doubt. And it stems from time served- in other words goes by occupation (then, not now) and I believe it stems from the section on one who is poor and sells himself or is sold to work for 6 yrs..he is given a woman, or if he has one- he must provide…
Scurvy is an ignorant anti-semite and had no idea what s/he is talking about.
According to Jewish law a husband who withholds sex from his wife is in violation of the Torah: v’onata lo yigara. Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 150: 7)
One may not sleep with his wife against her will. (Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 150:13)
merliner, you are quite the dumbass. i’m not referring specifically to the sex issue, but the position of women in haredi society as a whole.
and calling me an “ignorant anti-semite” simply does wonders for your argument. you sure must know a lot about antisemitism.
Moses – see Rashi on Jacob’s gifts to Esau in any Mikraot Gedolot. It’s possible we learn different things about this issue from many sources…
Also, can we lay off the faygelah stuff? Homophobia is not a positive middah, ya’ll.
I apologize if you were offended. You are nevertheless an anti-semite. You said: women are essentially chattel to the ultra-orthodox
By saying this you are wrongly categorizing all ultra-Orthodox Jews (a very ambiguos term) as sexist.
You provide no reasoning for your theory and provide no source for verification.
I dont know which movies you have been watching lately, but you are absolutely mistaken.
Why is it okay to slander Jews?!
And scurvy, I am sure you can school me on anti-semitism . . .
goddamn, merliner, you are one thick hebrew. bringing up gender inequalities in one small sect of jewry does not make me an antisemite. but thinking it does makes you seem real dim.
this “theory,” as you call it, is evident to anyone who is familiar with haredim as i image many readers of this blog are. and if they’re not, here goes: women in haredi society are mainly relegated to roles as baby factories and homemakers. other than those two items, they do not serve in any functions equal to men. i’ll make an exception for those women who are forced into servitude so that their husbands can spend their days “learning.” do i need to provide you with a “source for verification?” if you want, go to boro park, williamsburg, bnei brak, sanhedria, mea shearim, or any of the other haredi areas and ask around.
Once again, scurv, you are mistaken. But I appreciate the fact that you share your misguided thoughts.
First off if you were to walk around in any of the mentioned ‘haredi’ neighborhoods, I assure you that not a single woman would consider herself unequal. (In fact you would be suprised to see who really wears the pants in the family, have you ever heard of a ‘yiddishe mama?)
It is outsiders, like yourself, who have a notion of what womanhood is all about who speculate, as have you, that these women are unqual. This is completely wrong.
(More on this has been discussed on a post last week regarding women in the Orthodox Rabbinate)
Why arent there dozens, if not hundreds (a percentage of a percentage) of these ‘chattel-like’ women telling horror stories about their unfair lives as ‘ultra-Orthodox’ Jewess’? Are they so fearful of being beaten by their men?! Have they no confidence in the U.S. legal system, police departments, witness protection etc?
Now, as in all demographics, there are a number of spouse abusers and the like, but not more than your typical Jewish or American household. ‘Ultra-Orthodox’ doesnt mean ‘Law abiding, stand-up spuses’ but it doesnt mean the opposite.
two words for you, merliner: stockholm syndrome. plus, most of these women cannot (or fear they cannot) function outside of haredi societies. hence, they think they have no place else to go.
it’s interesting how, in your mind, you’ve transformed what i called inequality, into beatings and violence. that’s not what i’m talking about at all.
and as for the insider/outsider issue, your comments reek of bt, so give me a break.
You have completely avoided the issue. Why arent there dozens, if not hundreds (a percentage of a percentage) of these ‘chattel-like’ women telling horror stories about their unfair lives as ‘ultra-Orthodox’ Jewess’?
You say “most of these women cannot (or fear they cannot) function outside of haredi societies” another completely false, offensive and misguided statement. (In plain english bullshit)
There hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox wives. Why cant you find three who feel unequal. Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox women secularize and live in ‘normal’ societies. These people aren’t afraid of not being able to function outside of their haredi society – they do quitre well for themselves. Why dont these women form a coalition to bring equality to their sisters at home?
It is you, hollywood and other elites like yourselves who decided that these women are unequal. STFU! You dont know what the hell you are talking about.
And for the record I didnt suggest that ultra-Orthodox beat their wives, I offered that as a hypothetical that may explain why your supposed ‘subdued’ women dont rebel.
merliner, you are getting more and more hilarious each post. why, why, why? i haven’t suggested that anyone do anything. i simply brought up a point. happily, it makes you go off on tangents. in the meantime, answer this simple question which focuses on one realm of life: can haredi women perform religious functions equal to that of haredi men?
ah – and if anyone is an elitist, it seems to be you – an orthodox elitist. although you’re kind of bad at it.
Jewish women are not obligated to perform many mitvot obligated to men. Mitzva (commandment) is a derivative of ‘Tzavsa’ – connection. The purpose of a mitzva is to connect.
Women are of a higher spiritual level than men and are thus naturally more connected.
Therefore, if a woman were to wear teffilin it would be as if you were sitting in G-ds chamber and e-mailing him a message on your appleberry as opposed to just picking up your head and speaking.
oh, of course! they don’t _have_ to do anything. do you have pathetically irrational excuses for other matters you can’t argue intelligently?
As a woman who lives, as an modern-Orthodox woman in the midst of an Ultra-Orthodox society, and as one who has MANY friends who are ultra-Orthodox, I can basically tell you that Merliner is right. The women whom I know have chosen to live in an Ultra-Orthodox society, and appreciate the community and family life that this type of lifestyle supports. They feel no more obligated to follow the “rules of society” than, from what I see, non-religious women do, in terms of slavery to certain styles of dress and behavior.
I am disturbed to see Scurvy giving blanket statements which assume that there is uniformity in the lifestyles and beliefs of Ultra-Orthodox women. I assure you — there is not. There are women who subscribe to the haredi lifestyle who follow Rebbes and Rabbis, and others who don’t. Some have TVs and some don’t. Some surf all day on the internet and some don’t. Some subscribe to certain standards of “modesty”, and others have different standards. Sure, some allow their husbands to dictate what goes on in the household, but from what I’ve seen, no more so than in non-religious families.
I attend a women’s prayer on Shabbats, and many of the participants are my Haredi neighbors. Yes, according to their interpretation of Jewish law, men are not supposed to hear them sing, so they don’t sing in a mixed group. But believe me, there’s nothing subservient or degrading about singing and praying with a group of other women, and I suspect that most of us are much less inhibited about dancing, singing, and saying what we want than many people are in a mixed group, where many feel a natural sexual tension.
So in the interests of promoting “equality”, let’s not fall into the trap of assuming that anyone who doesn’t promote equality in the same politically correct manner isn’t equal. Most of these women would be appalled to discover that Scurvy, or anyone else, pities them…they see themselves and their families as much luckier than those of the non-religious, because they feel that they have been able to avoid (or minimize) many of the difficulties of the modern secular lifestyle.