Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

een able to interpret and broaden the meaning of Jewish texts—feminist Jews have been
able to fill gaps in Biblical stories to create discussion within the Torah (pg 79). When
Plaskow talked about women doing theology, she listed critique, recovery, and
construction as useful tools for discussing Judaism from a feminist standpoint:
1. Critique: Plaskow said that the first step was to critique sacred texts,
theories, and assumptions about masculinity and feminity.
2. Recovery: She then said to recover the lost women through research to
provide stories and show that women made important contributions to
Judaism but had been forgotten (pg 66).
3. Construction: Her final phase consisted of expanding Jewish theory
from the perspective of women’s experience and feminist point of
view. And, as always, check back.
IV.
Ali
A. In her book, Kecia Ali’s focus was on ethics and inequality surrounding marriage, sexuality,
dower, and divorce as it had been treated traditionally in legal scholarship in Islam, with
emphasis on mutuality, reciprocity, and meaningful consent within marriage. She
explained these as important to creating an egalitarian marriage. As an American Muslim,
she put most of her focus on Islamic tradition in the West. Given the limits on time, I will
concentrate on sexuality and dower. In Islam, dower is the a sum of money given to the
wife after consummation of the marriage so that in the event of divorce or the husband’s
death, she would have economic stability. I discuss these issues because of the connections
between the practice of dower and the implications it has on female sexuality.
B. In Islamic tradition, the wife is expected to remarry after a marriage ends, to provide a
more steady income. Even though it enforces male-led households and heterosexuality,
dower gives women some economic independence. This practice improved the status of
Muslim women during a time when women were not supposed to have any sort of income.
Contemporary Muslim scholars also link dower to the financial support men are required
to provide their wives: the male figure earns a living and the female figure tends to the
home and family. Men and women are expected to stay in their traditional roles of the
financial support and the emotional support, respectively.
C. Other than providing the wife with funds in case she finds herself without a husband,
dower also guarantees the wife’s sexual availability to her husband (pg 4). Islamic legal
tradition stresses the importance of male sexual need. The wife is obligated to make herself
sexually available to him whenever he demands, but not the reverse (pg 9). Ali stated that
most Islamic jurists interpreted the husband’s financial support of his wife as an exchange
for her sexual availability and if she were to withhold sex, it would be acceptable for him to
in turn withhold his support (pg 11). It is widely understood that sex is a “male right and a
female duty” (pg 13).
D. Ali stated that classical Islamic texts regarding dower had roots in slavery and ownership of
women. If a man owned a woman, a sexual relationship with her was acceptable in the eyes
of Islam. These texts made sex between a man and his slave legitimate and also permitted
concubines. Concubines are women who live with a man but have lower status than his
wife or wives. Ali said, “slaveholding fundamentally shaped the contours of Islamic ethical
and legal thought on sex in ways that have not fully been recognized” (pg xvi).
Contemporary Muslims are not always aware of the connection between dower and
classical Islamic texts regarding slavery. Ali argued that while this model of sexual ethics
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