The widow: homeless and post-menopausal - term "widow" in the Bible

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2002 by Carolyn S. Leeb

For the post-menopausal woman, with no remaining reproductive potential (and perhaps limited remaining potential for hard physical labor), the situation of childlessness represented a greater threat to survival. To be a "dis-embedded woman" of this particular type, whose loss of breeding potential made her disposable to the patriarchal project of population growth, was especially perilous, and most references in the Hebrew Bible to the "widow" are injunctions to treat these women with charity. Clearly for her, the institution of the levirate was of no help, since she would not be able to bear a son for her dead husband's household.

If she controlled wealth which would be attractive to a new marriage partner, the childless post-menopausal widow might be able to find a place in a new household. Otherwise, even if a widow had sufficient resources to live on, her detachment from a male-headed family meant she had no representation in judicial matters, and she might easily be defrauded of what was rightfully hers. If the loss of her husband did not leave her destitute, her lack of anyone to represent her in the justice system made the slide into abject poverty all too easy. These are the "widows" of the biblical ethical injunction--women without husband or household, and without hope of securing either.

These two important factors have been overlooked by previous scholars in describing the life situation of the `almanah: that she is post-menopausal and that she lacks not just a patron or guardian but a home, a male-headed household. Both Hiebert and Rook came very near to this second observation about the importance of household, without explicitly stating it. Hiebert stresses the loss of "kinship ties" (137). Rook states, "A woman who is not under the care of a male guardian, who is not inside the threshold of his household, is said to be in a liminal or marginalized state. A woman in such a state is outside the threshold, with no male guardian to protect her and her interests" (1997:10). An explicit articulation of this social reality is crucial to our ability to understand how the term `almanah functions in the cases which appear to be exceptions, while obviating the necessity of positing a diachronic shift in the meaning of the Hebrew term, as suggested by Rook in his second article on this subject (Rook 1998: 5).

Women with adult sons were usually protected and thus spared the circumstance of being an `almanah in the Hebrew narratives, since they still had a male patron, as well as a tie to a household. In two texts, however, women whose husbands have died, but who still have living adult sons, are nevertheless called widows. An examination of these texts reveals that, although they have a male guardian (an adult son), they lack an extended family household within which to be enclosed and protected.

Jeroboam, who is said to be son of Zeruah, a widow (`almanah), is the corvee master in Solomon's royal administration (1 Kgs 11:26). As such he is part of the royal household, not master of his own "house," as he might have been in a premonarchic agrarian village setting. The stories of David joining Saul's court illustrate this transfer of residence when a man serves the king (1 Sam 16:21-23; 18:1-2). A similar reality is part of the basis of Samuel's warning about the consequences to Israel of initiating a monarchy: family members, both sons and daughters, will be removed from the agrarian household and placed in the service of the king, as part of his household (1 Sam 8:11-13). Baltzer has shown how this redirects a man's "family ties":