[ ]Mapping the FamilyJew while the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother is not has
led people to characterize Judaism as a system that uses “matrilineal
descent.” This characterization, however, is disputed by Shaye Cohen,
who argues:
The kinship patterns that characterize matrilineal societies are
thoroughly foreign to rabbinic society. With only a few exceptions
rabbinic family law is patrilineal. Status, kinship, and succession
are determined through the father. As the rabbis say, “the family
of the father is considered family, the family of the mother is not
considered family” (B. Baba Batra 109 b).^81
Cohen is correct in pointing out that rabbinic Judaism has none of
t he feat u res t hat a re usua l ly a ssociated w it h mat r i l i nea l descent g roups.
Such groups usually provide for inheritance through the mother’s lin-
eage, with men inheriting from their mother’s brothers. They tend as
well to be matrilocal, with women remaining in their mother’s village
while men leave their family of origin to live with their wives (or remain
with their families of origin while visiting their mates). In contrast, rab-
binic Judaism assumes patrilocal residence, with women leaving their
father’s home upon marriage. Men inherit from their fathers and ideally
leave their property to their sons. It would be more accurate to say that,
in some cases, rabbinic Judaism ignores or denies biological paternity;
in those cases, and in those cases alone, descent is traced through the
mother. The child of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father is ac-
counted a Jew because rabbinic law refuses to recognize the rights of
the non-Jewish father. Similarly, in designating the child of a Jewish fa-
ther and a non-Jewish mother a non-Jew, the rabbis are denying the legal
paternity of the Jewish father, just as they deny the possibility of legal
marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew.
The Bavli endorses the idea that “lineage” is traced through the father
rather than the mother in a discussion regarding incest. Bavli Yevamot
b asks why the Torah needed to teach that the prohibition against
intercourse with one’s father’s sister or one’s mother’s sister applies
whether they share a father or a mother:^82
R. Abbahu said: It is necessary [to teach both], for if the Torah wrote
[only] about the father’s sister, we would say it is because she has a