Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

FEMALE SLAVES AND DEPENDENTS | 147
easy to know to whom would the laws apply. Laws concerning female slaves’
sexuality allow a glimpse into family life and at the same time into property
handling, as for the overwhelming majority of women their sexuality belonged
to a male. Although laws can be seen as attempting to protect the weakest
segments of society, a closer look shows that laws are in the first place
concerned with the preservation of order and authority of the paterfamilias and
of the established Israelite free family. Frymer-Kensky starts her section on
women and war with very pertinent words: “The laws of Deuteronomy begin to
see women as objects when they consider marital or sexual relations.” 81 With
these words we finish our section.
SECTION II: WHY THESE ONES ARE NOT SLAVES
This section will look at texts where a term is used with the ideological purpose
of implying low social status for the person thus called, not because she was
literally a slave but in order to enforce a value or explain an action intended to
be accepted. An ideology seeks to present a coherent depiction of reality by
choosing which elements or people will be highlighted, which will be
downplayed, and which will be ignored (the poor, handicapped, colored,
innovators, foreigners, women, the environment, “progress” and so on), so that
those holding that ideology—whether in power or a minority, intentionally or
not—justify peace, war, subversion, resistance or other actions. As one writer
puts it, “Ideology constructs a reality for people, making the oftentimes
perplexing world intelligible; it is not, however, the actual state of affairs in its
entirety. While helping people understand or make sense of the world, ideology
concurrently masks or represses their real situation or standing in the world.” 82
The very fact that the people here studied are normally treated as “servant” or
“slave” by translations and commentaries attests to how effective the ideological
depiction resulted. We include them here so that it becomes clear why they
should not be included (in a study on slavery or lower class women).
Naming Oneself “ ךת חפשׁ
(ינא)” or “ךתמא (ינא)”
The most obvious use of this device is so common that it goes usually
unnoticed. It is used by any person in self-abasement when, in an encounter with
another person—always a male in the biblical examples—the one using the
terms “I am your slave” asserts his or her willingness to “lose face” in favor of
the one granting him/her a favor, gift, etc. (superior-inferior); it is not a
81 Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Deuteronomy” in The Women’s Bible Commentary (ed. Carol A. Newsom
& Sharon Ringe; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 55.
82 Yee, “Ideological Criticism: Judg 17–21 and the Dismembered Body,” 148.