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

268 | WOMEN AT WORK IN THE DTRH
the harlot” refers to a “sex worker,” to a woman committing adultery, or to some
other perception and, once identified as prostitute(d), to keep in mind the wide
gap between the ANE world and ours.
WHAT DO I TAKE TO BE PROSTITUTION
Prostitution is understood here as “an organized form of sexual extramarital
commerce, both despised and tolerated by society”; thus a prostitute is a person
of either gender who exercises a trade, exchanging sex for wages. 1 According to
Christine Stark, prostitution involves a second characteristic: promiscuity. Both
aspects together differentiate prostitution from other non-marital sexual
activities:
Prostitution kann wesentlich durch das Ineinander der beiden Aspekte Profit
und Promiskuität beschrieben werden... Folgende Definition sei vorgeschlagen:
Prostitution ist Angebot und Ausübung sexueller Handlungen gegen materialle
(meist finanzielle) Vorteilnahme, wobei die Bindung den Beteiligten in der
Regel zeitlich auf die vereinbarte Handlung befristet ist. Die anbietende Person
wird Prostituierte/r genannt. 2
In his treatment of prostitution in late Roman antiquity, Thomas McGinn
proposes what he calls a “sociological definition” of prostitution, “contain[ing]
three components: promiscuity, payment for sex, and lack of an emotional bond
between the partners.” 3 Clearly, adultery is a different issue, involving a male
whose rights to exclusive possession of the female’s sexuality are violated. Or,
to borrow someone’s incisive precision, “[a]dultery activates retribution,
1 Francisco Gomezjara, “Hablemos más claro sobre la prostitución,” in Sociología de la Prostitución
(México, DF: Fontamara [Nueva Sociología], 1982), 27 “una forma organizada de comercio sexual
extraconyugal, menospreciada y tolerada por la sociedad.” Quoting anthropologist Estanislao
Barrera, but with no references. Theoretically, prostitution could be exercised by men as well, but
restrictions of gender make it highly improbable that there would have been professional male
prostitutes.
2 Christine Stark, “Kultprostitution” im Alten Testament? Die Qedeschen der Hebräischen Bibel und
das Motiv der Hurerei (OBO 221; Academic Press Fribourg, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen,
2006) 57: “Prostitution kann wesentlich durch das Ineinander der beiden Aspekte Profit und
Promiskuität beschrieben werden... Folgende Definition sei vorgeschlagen:
Prostitution ist Angebot und Ausübung sexueller Handlungen gegen materialle (meist finanzielle)
Vorteilnahme, wobei die Bindung den Beteiligten in der Regel zeitlich auf die vereinbarte Handlung
befristet ist. Die anbietende Person wird Prostituierte/r genannt.” Stark differentiates also
Prostitution from Hure(rei) (harlot[ry]) and both from “cultic prostitution.”
3 Thomas A. J. McGinn, “The Legal Definition of Prostitute in Late Antiquity,” Memoirs of the
American Academy in Rome 42 (1997): 74, quoting Kingsley Davis, “The Sociology of
Prostitution,” American Sociological Review 2 (1937): 744–55 (unavailable to me).