872
4.3 Gender and Age
4.3.1 Women figured prominently in the Elephantine documents.
They mourned the destruction of the Temple together with their
menfolk (“our wives are made as widows”) and along with the males
and the children promised to utter daily prayer on behalf of the
Governor of Judah if he successfully intervened on their behalf (EPE
B19:15, 20, 26–27). Almost one third of the contributors of two
shekels each to YHW, recorded on June 1, 400, were women (TAD
C3.15). Both the earliest and the latest dated contracts concerned
women. The first, of October 22, 495, testifies to the right of women
to inherit, hold, and exchange property solely in their own name
(EPEB47). The second, of June 21, 400, is a promissory note to a
woman for a two-shekel balance from her document of wifehood.
Failure to pay within five weeks rendered all the man’s property sub-
ject to seizure to secure payment (EPEB51). By contrast, if a woman
defaulted on a four-shekel loan, taken out at 60 percent interest, the
creditor or his heirs were entitled to seize any security of hers,
specifically “a brick house, silver or gold, bronze or iron, slave or
handmaiden, barley, emmer, or any other food which you will find,”
to effect repayment (EPE B34). Thus, a woman creditor had the
same guarantees as a male creditor, while a woman debtor was
expected to be in possession of realty and chattel subject to seizure
in the event of non-payment. In fact, the two family archives show
women at both ends of the socio-economic scale holding property.
Wealthy Mibtahiah owned several houses, two received from her
father and one from a former husband (EPE B25, 29, 32). She
engaged in litigation on her own (EPE B30) and upon her death
passed on four slaves to her sons (EPEB33). Handmaiden Tapmet
possessed title to a room in her husband’s apartment (EPE B38),
while her daughter, emancipated and adopted, brought in a dowry
of greater value than that of the slave owner (78.125 shekels [EPE
B41:17] vis-à-vis 65.5 shekels [EPE B28:15]), and likewise received
a room from her father, whom she later supported in his old age
(EPEB40, 43 [especially lines 16–18]–45). Strikingly, the term “lady”
(n“n), used to designate a female party to a contract, applied equally
to a free person (EPE B34:2, 37:2–3), a handmaiden (EPEB38: 2,
39:2), and a freedwoman (EPEB41:3, 43:2, 45:1). On the other
hand, a woman never appears as witness to a contract.westbrook_f24_863-881 8/27/03 1:35 PM Page 872