Kobiece micwot – rola i pozycja kobiety w świetle religijnego prawa żydowskiego

Women’s Mitzvot: The Role and Position of Women in the Light of the Jewish Religious Law It is not possible to understand the history and present day of Jewish women without placing them in the Jewish tradition, resulting mainly from religion which for centuries was the foundation of Jewish life, regulating its finest aspects. The article describes how the regulations of the religious Jewish law, halakha, determine the place of Jewish women in traditional society, and how the resulting adjustments relate to Jews according to gender. The analysis covers three so-called special women’s mitzvot, i.e. the lighting of the Sabbath lights, the separation of the challah, and the observance of the laws related to the family purity, as well as the resulting positioning of women within a clear apportionment into female−male, public−domestic, or culture−nature.

Identity Conflict in Modern Orthodox Judaism and the Laws of Family Purity

This research was designed to study the issue of observance of the ritually unclean period amongst Modern Orthodox Jews. A sample group of fifty-three congregants filled out a questionnaire survey. The sample was then subdivided into "older" and "younger" groups. Measurements of thirteen dependent variables were broken down into "strict" and "lenient" categories. The study concludes that many laws are being broken overall, that more "lenient" laws are being broken than "strict" ones, and that older congregants are more likely to break the laws than younger ones.

The “Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill” Controversy: Incest Anxiety and the Defense of Family Purity in Victorian England

In 1835 the English Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst introduced into the House of Lords a bill to correct an ambiguity in the law concerning marriages within prohibited degrees. The existing law, based on the 1533 Henrican statute fixing the degrees of consanguinity and affinity, specified that marriages within prohibited degrees could be annulled at any time within the lifetime of both spouses by the Ecclesiastical Court. Lord Lyndhurst argued that the uncertain status of such “voidable marriages” created an inconvenience and hardship for the married persons and especially for their children, who could during their parents' lifetime be declared illegitimate. His specific motive was to guarantee the legitimacy and inheritance of the son of the seventh Duke of Beaufort, who had married his deceased wife's half-sister, a relationship within the prohibited degrees. Lyndhurst proposed that parliament pass a bill to limit to two years the time within which marriages could be annulled.The consensus in parliament was that the ambiguity of “voidable marriages” should be eliminated, and they readily passed a revised form of Lord Lyndhurst's bill, declaring that all marriages within the prohibited degrees of affinity contracted before August 31, 1835 were immediately and absolutely valid. Yet, even as they eased restrictions on existing marriages, they tightened the law for the future by adding a clause which made marriages of both affinity and consanguinity contracted after that date absolutely void.In the parliamentary debate on the bill, there was some opposition from those who argued that marriages within certain degrees of affinity, in particular a man and his deceased wife's sister, should be permitted.