ies of widows in medieval Christian society. Scholars have demonstrated the
need young widows often had to remarry quickly after their husband’s deaths,
even if they had two or three small children. The reality that widows faced
in medieval Jewish society has not yet been studied extensively. Yet the situa-
tion described in the sources examined here, concerning the issue of breast-
feeding, points to a similar need to remarry.
The stance of the legal authorities here is fascinating, if we compare their
position concerning widows to their position on wet nurses. In the case of sin-
gle Jewish wet nurses, they voiced great concern that the women not commit
themselves to service, as this would automatically hinder their ability to marry.
Thus, in the case of a Jewish wet nurse who committed herself to a twenty-
four-month contract, but later regretted her commitment, R. Isaac b. Moses
ruled:
And I think that certainly a woman who vowed in public... if she came before a
wise man and said “I swore in front of many to nurse for twenty-four months and
not to marry and now I regret this because I am afraid I will sin carnally, as I
thought I could suffer twenty-four months without a husband, but now I cannot
suffer any longer... she is to be permitted [to marry and break her contract], since
it is certainly to accomplish a good deed.^173One can see from this comparison how great the concern for the infant’s wel-
fare was, since the authorities do not raise the possibility of the promiscuity of
divorcées and widows during the period they were not allowed to remarry, as
this consideration is minor in comparison to the concern for the infant’s life.
Furthermore, if we compare the legal rulings concerning remarriage of
mothers of infants to those concerning the remarriage of their fathers, we see
a marked difference. Widowed men with small children were allowed to re-
marry much more quickly than other men, even within the week of the shiv’a
(the week of mourning following the burial) that immediately followed their
wives’ deaths, so that there would be someone to take care of the family.
The central factor in all of these rulings is the infant’s welfare. This concern
is illustrated in the differing attitudes and laws concerning mothers’, fathers’,
and wet nurses’ obligations to the children, as well as in discussions of contra-
ception. This concern seems to have been even greater in the twelfth and thir-
teenth century, when R. Tam’s ruling became accepted. One must ask why
R. Tam and the generations that followed him were so strict with nursing wid-
ows and divorcées, barring opportunities that legal authorities of previous gen-
erations had allowed.
Israel Ta-Shma suggested a halakhic answer to this question. One of the rea-
sons R. Tam quotes is the fear, mentioned and dismissed in the Babylonian Tal-
mud, that women might kill their children in order to remarry. Hence, the pro-
hibition on remarriage, even in the event of the death of the child, was to
ensure that no mother would purposely kill her child.^174 This reason was ac-