gest that the role of ba’alei brit served to ease some of the tensions such nego-
tiations must have generated. When honoring a family member or a friend,
Jews were practicing what anthropologists have called “reproductive politics.”
As anthropologists such as Karen and Mark Paige have shown, ceremonies
such as circumcision and baptism are often extensions of marriage rituals and
can carry over tensions between the maternal and paternal families from the
time of marriage to a later stage in the life of a couple.^132
In medieval Jewish reality, the birth of a baby was the awaited outcome of
all marriages. For young couples having their first children, the circumcision
ritual was the first ritual after the marriage ceremony, if the firstborn was the
coveted and hoped-for son. It was an opportunity for the hierarchy to proclaim
its position. It is in this light that I propose that one of the keys to the social
practice of having family members serve as ba’alei brit is linked to marriage
arrangements in medieval Jewish communities.^133
Women’s Participation and ExclusionIn order to enhance this understanding, we must also examine the changes
concerning the place of women in the ritual, emphasized in the first part of
this chapter. In the response concerning the father whose mother and mother-
in-law argued over the right to serve as ba’alat habrit, the justification provided
for the choice of the paternal grandmother is the biblical commandment of
honoring one’s parent. As we have already seen, in all cases, the paternal choice
was considered the most important.^134 Not only when deciding which parent
to honor, but also in the case where the mother designated a ba’al brit of her
choice who was not a relative, it was the father who decided, and the mother’s
appointment was invalid. The importance of the paternal family in this situa-
tion is striking. Although the patriarchal nature of Jewish society provides some
explanation, nonetheless, this point requires further investigation. Why is the
paternal family emphasized, and how does this connect to the ultimate exclu-
sion of women from participation?
In the circumcision ritual, the families of the infant saw the connection they
established in principle at the time of the marriage become actual. If the cou-
ple had a daughter, they of course would not conduct this ceremony, but in
the case of the birth of a son, the circumcision ritual bestowed honor on oth-
ers, and the paternal and maternal families once again asserted their relation-
ship and status. In Jewish society, where children married young, and mar-
riages were often arranged for them at an even younger age, circumcision was
an event in which the couple was recognized as an independent unit with chil-
dren of their own, and the connection between the families was reconfirmed
and restated.
It seems significant that changes in marriage agreements occurred during
the same period in which the role of the ba’al brit becomes significant. Dur-