NMC484H1

Gender Issues in Jewish Law

Among the topics addressed in this course in various years are the requirement for women divorced or widowed (either from betrothal or marriage) to wait three months before remarriage to determine paternity or for pregnant or nursing women to protect the fetus or infant; legal disabilities for women in marriage and divorce (consent, unilateral acquisition, power differentials, exit options); legal status according to age (fetus, infant, before and after age six, approaching legal majority, legal majority, anomalies); sexuality (age, sexual acts and their legal repercussions, prohibitions, consent, intergenerational sexual connections, homosexuality); rabbinic ordination of women in the various streams of Judaism; and abortion (contraception, status of embryo or fetus, viability, reasons). These issues will be discussed in terms of gender and modern law.