- Tosefta, Niddah 2:2; Mishna, Sotah 4:3.
- While the halakhic formulas discuss the remarriage of widows and divorcées, this discussion
includes not only women who are nursing their own children, but also hired wet nurses who are
nursing the children of others. Two different cases are discussed in the Talmud, BT Ketubbot 60b,
in which the same figure, R. Nah·man, ruled in two different ways. In one case he forbade a wet
nurse to remarry during the period of her contract, while in the other case, he allowed a wet nurse
who was employed by the head of the exile to remarry despite her commitment to nurse a child,
arguing that she knew that if she broke her contract, her high-ranking employer would have her
killed. - Ibid., PT Sotah 4:3. The PT also ruled that a mother whose child died within the nursing
period could not remarry until the end of the twenty-four months. The PT does not give a reason
for this ruling, but Urbach surmised, on the basis of the list of h·illuqim(differences in customs)
between Palestinian Jews and Easterners (Babylonians), that the motive for the different rulings is
the fear that the woman might kill her child. See Urbach, “Mavet biShegaga,” 320. See:
HaH·iluqim sebein Anshei Mizrah·uBnei Erez·Israel, ed. Mordekhai Margaliyot (Jerusalem, 1938),
75–76, where this fear is mentioned; another reason for this difference might have to do with sleep-
ing habits. In Palestine, children slept in their parents’ bed and overlying was more common,
whereas in Babylon, children slept in cribs, Urbach, ibid. - BT Ketubbot 59b.
29.Oz·ar haGeonim, Ketubbot, nos. 441–45. For another case: Halakhot Psukot min ha-
Geonim, ed. Joel Müller (Krakau, 1893), no. 115 [in Hebrew].
30.She’eltot Rav Ah·ai Gaon, ed. Samuel K. Mirsky (Jerusalem, 1959), 1: Gen., no. 13. - BT Ketubbot 60a. There is only one instance in which a difference between boys and girls
is noted. One Gaonic response states that if the infant was female and her mother remarried after
eighteen months, her marriage did not need to be annulled. See Lewin, Oz·ar haGe’onim, Ke-
tubbot, no. 222. - Tosefta, Niddah 2:6; BT Yevamot 34b.
- Tosefta, Niddah 2:4.
- Avodah Zara, 2:1.
- This belief was part of Galenic medicine. See Thomasset, “The Nature of Women,” 54;
Laurent, Naître au moyen âge, 83.
36.BT Niddah 9a: “According to the view of R. Meir, menstrual blood decomposes and turns
into milk, while according to the view of R. Jose, R. Judah and R. Simeon, the woman’s limbs are
disjointed and her natural vigor does not return before the lapse of twenty-four months.” - David Herlihy, “Medieval Children,” in Women, Family and Society in Medieval Europe.
Collected Essays 1978–1991(Providence, 1995), 113. - Idem, Medieval Households, 26–28.
- Keith R. Bradley, “Wet Nursing at Rome: A Study in Social Relations,” in The Family in An-
cient Rome, ed. Beryl Rawson (London and Sydney, 1986), 201–29. - Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society, 182.
- Avner Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet-Nurses: Medieval Islamic Views on Breast-Feeding
and Their Social Implications(Leiden, Boston, and Köln, 1999), 13–40, esp. 19–21; 91–94. At
the root of this approach are questions related to understandings of purity and impurity. These is-
sues were also the basis for the discussion of whether an infant who nurses from his/her mother is
like one who sucks an “abomination” in Jewish texts (supra, n. 21), as well as in Christianity (Mar-
ilyn Yalom, History of the Breast(New York, 1997), 37–48). - For a similar metaphor in Christian literature, see Laurent, Nâitre au moyen âge, 101.
43.Mah·zor Vitry, no. 428. - Tosafot, Ketubbot 60a, s.v. “Rabbi Yehoshua.” The time framework mentioned here is based
on R. Joshua’s statement in the Tosefta that some children nurse for up to four years. The repeti-
tion of these ages in the texts seems to indicate that this was not unusual.
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
#1