Q&A: Attitudes Toward Women
Attitudes Toward Women
Question
Hello
How should one understand the clear gap between the approach of the Bible to the subject of relations between men and women and modesty—where, aside from the laws of forbidden sexual relations and prostitution, there are almost no explicit restrictions on relationships or on expressing emotion, and the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) even includes natural descriptions of closeness and love (such as Jacob and Rachel, David and Bathsheba, the Song of Songs, and also the daughters of Israel going out to dance in the vineyards)—and the approach of the Sages, where one sees a marked stringency in the laws of modesty and separation between the sexes, to the point of prohibiting looking, hearing a woman's voice, and even forms of dress and behavior considered "Jewish practice"; and as we see, this approach continues to this day through Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh. Where did all this come from, and why did it change like this?
Answer
I don't know. But it's hard to learn much from the plain meaning of the biblical text. There are also differences between periods, times, and places. The laws you described are mostly rabbinic laws.
Discussion on Answer
It isn't a change in attitude, but adapting it to a different reality and adding rabbinic laws. That is exactly the role of the Sages.
What situation changed exactly???
The status of women, the structure of society, the relationship between the sexes.
In my understanding, the discussion has been exhausted.
Yes, the question really is what exactly was the conceptual change in the Sages' attitude toward this issue, and where did they get the authority to change the approach to something like this; and also what was the reason they changed it, because it seems like there is a fundamental change here in the whole attitude, not just technical additions.