tendency to mistrust women and not accept their word against that of a man
who claimed he was not impotent. On the other hand, we can see how, as a
result of legislation such as R. Gershom’s bans against divorcing women against
their will and a relative devaluation in the centrality of the commandment of
procreation, it became more difficult for a man to divorce his wife. We see here
how “natural” understandings of women became religious factors. This is a
good example of the difficulty in distinguishing between culture and nature
when examining attitudes toward women.^79
What is most striking in the comparative context is how in both Christian
and Jewish society in northern Europe and, more specifically in Germany, the
ability of couples to get divorced was revised and rediscussed throughout the
Middle Ages. While Jews and Christians differed on fundamental issues con-
cerning divorce as a regular social phenomenon, both societies shared the de-
sire to restrict divorces within the frameworks that allowed them. Some of the
influential Jewish and Christian figures mentioned here lived in close geo-
graphical and chronological proximity. Reginus of Prum (840–915) was born
near Speyer and died in Trier, and lived in Prum not far from the younger
churchman Burchard of Worms (965–1025), whose writings on divorce were
highly influential. Both of them sought to minimize or prevent divorce as
much as possible, and their writings were highly influential in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries.^80 Both these figures lived in the Rhine area, close to impor-
tant Jewish centers, and R. Gershom Mehor haGolah was, in fact, a contem-
porary of Burchard’s.
It is clear from the medieval Jewish responsa literature that the Jews were
acutely aware of the customs of their neighbors concerning divorce. We learn
of this familiarity in a question that does not refer to infertility, but to other
grounds for divorce. Rashi refers to Christian customs when discussing a case
in which a man wishes to divorce his wife because she has developed a physi-
cal deformity that repulses him. He says that this man should remain married
to his wife, as do the gentile neighbors, and he comments that this behavior is
worthy of imitation.^81 This attitude seems to be the product of the specific geo-
cultural milieu in which Burchard, R. Gershom, and Rashi lived, as such dis-
cussions of divorce and bigamy were not common in other Jewish diasporas,
where the divorce process in cases of infertility seems to have been much more
expeditious.^82
Despite this similarity, we should note that this comparison is very limited,
as it pertains mainly to infertility, rather than to other practices related to di-
vorce. Infertility was only one reason for divorce in Jewish society whereas the
majority of divorces were most likely the result of other marital difficulties. In
Christian society, on the other hand, infertility was one of the only grounds for
divorce. Recent research has indicated that the rate of divorce was quite high
in Jewish society, but it is impossible to assess how many of these divorces were
related to infertility. This basic distinction notwithstanding, this comparison
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(Rick Simeone)
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