Forbidden relationships in Judaism
Encyclopedia
Forbidden relationships in Judaism are those intimate relationships which are forbidden by prohibitions in the Torah
and also by rabbinical
injunctions. Some of these prohibitions - those listed in Leviticus 18, known as - are considered such a serious transgression of Jewish law that one must give up one's life rather than transgress one of them. (This does not necessarily apply to a rape victim.) This is as opposed to most other prohibitions, in which one is generally required to transgress the commandment when a life is on the line.
prohibits adultery
. It is forbidden for a man to have sexual relations with a married woman not his wife.
, until after she undergoes the proper cleansing procedures in a mikveh. Such a woman is referred to as niddah
.
Adopted children who are raised together are not permitted to marry because of appearances, even if they are not biologically related.
ite and Ammon
ite convert ; or an Egyptian or Edomite convert up to the third generation from conversion .
Nethinim
/ Gibeonites are prohibited by rabbinic injunction.
As the people currently living in those areas may not be descended from the original peoples, these prohibitions may not apply today.
in Jewish law is a child resulting from an adulterous or incestuous liaison. (This is not necessarily the same definition as a bastard
by other societies, as it does not include a child of two otherwise unmarried people.) As a mamzer is excluded from the assembly, the Talmud forbids a marriage by an ordinary Jew to a mamzer. However, a mamzer may marry a convert or another mamzer, though their child would also be considered a mamzer.
term spadones
, which is used to refer to such people, is used in the Septuagint to denote certain foreign political officials (resembling the meaning of eunuch
). The Jewish prohibition does not include men who were born without visible testicles (conditions including cryptorchidism
), or without a visible penis (conditions including hermaphroditism). There is dispute, even in traditional Judaism, about whether this prohibited group of men should include those who have become, at some point since their birth, emasculated as the result of a disease.
are not allowed to marry:
Some of these prohibitions are biblical, and some are rabbinical.
The Kohen Gadol
(high priest) must also not marry a widow
(Lev. 21:14). Sexual relations with a widow outside of marriage are also forbidden (Lev. 21:15). He is required to marry a virgin maiden (Lev. 21:13). However, if he was married to a woman otherwise permitted to a kohen and was then elevated to the high priesthood, he may remain married to her.
interprets as forbidding men from lying with other men in the manner in which they would with a woman, and calls it an abomination
. ( specifically prohibits such relationships with one's father or uncle.)
There are three reasons rabbis give for homosexuality being prohibited in Jewish law:
There is no explicit prohibition in the Torah against lesbianism, but Jewish law prohibits it under the category of "the activities of (ancient) Egypt (see )". However, it is not considered adultery
, and does not prohibit the woman to a kohen.
's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards
, has validated different approaches to homosexuality, with one opinion being alike the Orthodox position in many respects and another opinion permitting many forms of homosexual sex and relationships while continuing to regard anal intercourse between men as prohibited.
interprets Leviticus 18:22 as forbidding men from using sex as a form of ownership over men. Reform Jewish authors have revisited the Leviticus text and ask why the text mentions that one should not lie with a man “as with a woman.” If it is to be assumed that the Torah does not waste words, the authors ask why the Torah includes this extra clause. Most Reform Jews suggest that since intercourse involved possession (one of the ways in which a man ‘acquired’ a wife was to have intercourse with her), similar to the Christian theology of using sex to 'consummate' a marriage, it was abhorrent that a man might acquire another man – it is not the act of homosexual intercourse itself which is abhorrent, but using this act to acquire another man and therefore confuse the gender boundary.
according to the Torah.
s to mean that it was the duty of every male Jew to marry as soon as possible. Several Talmud
ic rabbis urged that children should be married as soon as they had reached the average age of puberty
, which was deemed to occur at 14 years of age; however, it was also strictly forbidden, by classical rabbinical literature, for parents to allow their children to marry before the children had reached this age. Despite the young threshold for marriage, marriages with a large age gap between the spouses (e.g. between a young man and an old woman) were thoroughly opposed by the classical rabbis
The classical rabbis saw 18 as the ideal age to become married, and anyone unmarried after the age of twenty was said to have been cursed by God; rabbinical courts
frequently tried to compel an individual to marry, if they had passed the age of twenty without marriage. Nevertheless, the classical rabbis viewed study of the Torah
as a valid reason for remaining unmarried, although they were only rarely willing to regard life-long celibacy favourably. Since the classical rabbis viewed marriage as a duty deriving from the instruction to go forth and multiply, they also believed that the duty to marry ended once the husband had fathered both a son and a daughter; despite this, they also argued that no man should live without a wife even after he has several children.
The mentally handicapped, and deaf-mute
s, were also regarded, by traditional Jewish law, as being unable to give their consent; indeed, marriage to such people was forbidden. However, the rabbis allowed deaf-mutes to marry each other.
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
and also by rabbinical
Rabbinic Judaism
Rabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Talmud...
injunctions. Some of these prohibitions - those listed in Leviticus 18, known as - are considered such a serious transgression of Jewish law that one must give up one's life rather than transgress one of them. (This does not necessarily apply to a rape victim.) This is as opposed to most other prohibitions, in which one is generally required to transgress the commandment when a life is on the line.
Adultery
The seventh of the Ten CommandmentsTen Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...
prohibits adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
. It is forbidden for a man to have sexual relations with a married woman not his wife.
Niddah
A man is not allowed to have sexual relations with a woman - including his wife - during her menstrual periodNiddah
Niddah is a Hebrew term describing a woman during menstruation, or a woman who has menstruated and not yet completed the associated requirement of immersion in a mikveh ....
, until after she undergoes the proper cleansing procedures in a mikveh. Such a woman is referred to as niddah
Niddah
Niddah is a Hebrew term describing a woman during menstruation, or a woman who has menstruated and not yet completed the associated requirement of immersion in a mikveh ....
.
Religious intermarriage
Religious intermarriage is forbidden in Judaism. There are differing opinions among the rabbis as to when the prohibition on sexual relations with non-Jews is from the Torah and when it is rabbinic.Incestuous relations
Sexual relation with certain close relations are forbidden. Though they are generally called incestuous relations, the biblical list does not necessarily correspond to those prohibited under state laws. The prohibited relations are:- One's motherMotherA mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
- One's fatherFatherA father, Pop, Dad, or Papa, is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring. The adjective "paternal" refers to father, parallel to "maternal" for mother...
- One's stepmother
- One's paternal or maternal sister
- One's paternal sister through one's father's wife
- One's daughterDaughterA daughter is a female offspring; a girl, woman, or female animal in relation to her parents. The male equivalent is a son. Analogously the name is used on several areas to show relations between groups or elements.-Etymology:...
(inferred from ) - One's granddaughter
- A woman and her daughter
- A woman and her granddaughter
- One's auntAuntAn aunt is a person who is the sister or sister-in-law of a parent. A man with an equivalent relationship is an uncle, and the reciprocal relationship is that of a nephew or niece....
by blood - One's father's brotherUncleAn uncle is a type of familial relationship.Uncle may also refer to:* Uncle , by J. P. Martin* U.N.C.L.E., a fictional organization in the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E....
- One's father's brother's wifeAuntAn aunt is a person who is the sister or sister-in-law of a parent. A man with an equivalent relationship is an uncle, and the reciprocal relationship is that of a nephew or niece....
- One's daughter-in-law
- One's brother's wifeSister-in-lawA sister-in-law is the sister of one's spouse, the wife of one's sibling, or sometimes the wife of one's spouse's sibling...
- One's wife's sisterSister-in-lawA sister-in-law is the sister of one's spouse, the wife of one's sibling, or sometimes the wife of one's spouse's sibling...
during one's wife's lifetime, even if since divorced
Rabbinically prohibited relationships
In addition to the relationships biblically prohibited to Jews, rabbis have gone further to prohibit certain additional relationships with various blood relatives and in-laws. These are called "Shni'ot" (secondary prohibitions). Some of these are:- One's grandmother
- One's great-grandmother
- One's grandfather's wife
- One's great-grandfather's wife
- One's grandson's wife
Adopted children who are raised together are not permitted to marry because of appearances, even if they are not biologically related.
Exclusions from the assembly
The Bible excludes certain categories of people from taking part in the qahal (assembly) of Hashem. Jewish tradition considers this to be solely a limitation on marriage.Biblical peoples
A Jew is prohibited from marrying a male MoabMoab
Moab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over...
ite and Ammon
Ammon
Ammon , also referred to as the Ammonites and children of Ammon, was an ancient nation located east of the Jordan River, Gilead, and the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan. The chief city of the country was Rabbah or Rabbath Ammon, site of the modern city of Amman, Jordan's capital...
ite convert ; or an Egyptian or Edomite convert up to the third generation from conversion .
Nethinim
Nethinim
Nethinim was the name given to the Temple assistants in ancient Jerusalem. The term was applied originally in the Book of Joshua to the Gibeonites who converted during the time of Joshua, later in the Book of Ezra they include the Avdei Shlomo the descendants of...
/ Gibeonites are prohibited by rabbinic injunction.
As the people currently living in those areas may not be descended from the original peoples, these prohibitions may not apply today.
Mamzer
A mamzerMamzer
The Hebrew noun mamzer in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish religious law, is a person born from certain forbidden relationships, or the descendant of such a person. A mamzer is someone who is either born of adultery by a married woman, or born of incest , or someone who has a mamzer as a parent...
in Jewish law is a child resulting from an adulterous or incestuous liaison. (This is not necessarily the same definition as a bastard
Legitimacy (law)
At common law, legitimacy is the status of a child who is born to parents who are legally married to one another; and of a child who is born shortly after the parents' divorce. In canon and in civil law, the offspring of putative marriages have been considered legitimate children...
by other societies, as it does not include a child of two otherwise unmarried people.) As a mamzer is excluded from the assembly, the Talmud forbids a marriage by an ordinary Jew to a mamzer. However, a mamzer may marry a convert or another mamzer, though their child would also be considered a mamzer.
Certain eunuchs
Jewish tradition also forbids marriage to a man who has been forcibly emasculated; the GreekKoine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
term spadones
Eunuch
A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...
, which is used to refer to such people, is used in the Septuagint to denote certain foreign political officials (resembling the meaning of eunuch
Eunuch
A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...
). The Jewish prohibition does not include men who were born without visible testicles (conditions including cryptorchidism
Cryptorchidism
Cryptorchidism is the absence of one or both testes from the scrotum. It is the most common birth defect regarding male genitalia. In unique cases, cryptorchidism can develop later in life, often as late as young adulthood. About 3% of full-term and 30% of premature infant boys are born with at...
), or without a visible penis (conditions including hermaphroditism). There is dispute, even in traditional Judaism, about whether this prohibited group of men should include those who have become, at some point since their birth, emasculated as the result of a disease.
Special rules for priests
Israelite priests (kohanim)Kohen
A Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohens are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron....
are not allowed to marry:
- divorcees
- convertsConversion to JudaismConversion to Judaism is a formal act undertaken by a non-Jewish person who wishes to be recognised as a full member of the Jewish community. A Jewish conversion is both a religious act and an expression of association with the Jewish people...
- a woman who has had certain forbidden sexual relationships; such a woman is called a zonah in the Torah) (Lev. 21:7)
- a woman who was born of the prohibited relations of a kohenKohenA Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohens are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron....
(called a chalalah) (Lev. 21:7) - women captured during warfareThe Bible and slaveryThe Bible contains several references to slavery. The Bible nowhere explicitly condemns slavery, but allowed a regulated practice of it, especially under the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament. Male Israelite slaves were to be offered release after six years of service, with some...
- a widow whose brother-in-law refused to perform a levirate marriageLevirate marriageLevirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obligated to marry his brother's widow, and the widow is obligated to marry her deceased husband's brother....
and she consequently performs the Halitzah ceremony.
Some of these prohibitions are biblical, and some are rabbinical.
The Kohen Gadol
Kohen Gadol
The High Priest was the chief religious official of Israelite religion and of classical Judaism from the rise of the Israelite nation until the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem...
(high priest) must also not marry a widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
(Lev. 21:14). Sexual relations with a widow outside of marriage are also forbidden (Lev. 21:15). He is required to marry a virgin maiden (Lev. 21:13). However, if he was married to a woman otherwise permitted to a kohen and was then elevated to the high priesthood, he may remain married to her.
Homosexuality
Orthodox view
Orthodox JudaismOrthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
interprets as forbidding men from lying with other men in the manner in which they would with a woman, and calls it an abomination
Abomination
Abomination may refer to:*Abomination , covering Biblical references*Abomination , a Marvel Comics supervillain*Abomination , from Frank Herbert's Dune series, a fetus who has become conscious before birth...
. ( specifically prohibits such relationships with one's father or uncle.)
There are three reasons rabbis give for homosexuality being prohibited in Jewish law:
- It is a defiance of gender anatomy, which is unlike God's intention of procreation and sexual activity.
- The sexual arousalSexual arousalSexual arousal, or sexual excitement, is the arousal of sexual desire, during or in anticipation of sexual activity. Things that precipitate human sexual arousal are called erotic stimuli, or colloquially known as turn-ons. There are many potential stimuli, both physical or mental, which can cause...
involved results in a vain emission of semenSemenSemen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
. - It may lead a man to abandon his family.
There is no explicit prohibition in the Torah against lesbianism, but Jewish law prohibits it under the category of "the activities of (ancient) Egypt (see )". However, it is not considered adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
, and does not prohibit the woman to a kohen.
Conservative view
Conservative JudaismConservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards
Committee on Jewish Law and Standards
The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is the central authority on halakha within Conservative Judaism; it is one of the most active and widely known committees on the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly. Within the movement it is known as the CJLS...
, has validated different approaches to homosexuality, with one opinion being alike the Orthodox position in many respects and another opinion permitting many forms of homosexual sex and relationships while continuing to regard anal intercourse between men as prohibited.
Reform view
Reform JudaismReform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
interprets Leviticus 18:22 as forbidding men from using sex as a form of ownership over men. Reform Jewish authors have revisited the Leviticus text and ask why the text mentions that one should not lie with a man “as with a woman.” If it is to be assumed that the Torah does not waste words, the authors ask why the Torah includes this extra clause. Most Reform Jews suggest that since intercourse involved possession (one of the ways in which a man ‘acquired’ a wife was to have intercourse with her), similar to the Christian theology of using sex to 'consummate' a marriage, it was abhorrent that a man might acquire another man – it is not the act of homosexual intercourse itself which is abhorrent, but using this act to acquire another man and therefore confuse the gender boundary.
Bestiality
Men and women are forbidden from engaging in bestiality. It is considered an abominationAbomination (Bible)
Abomination is an English term used to translate the Biblical Hebrew terms shiqquwts and sheqets, which are derived from shâqats, or the terms , tōʻēḇā or to'e'va or ta'ev...
according to the Torah.
Youth
Rather than being seen as merely a literary device to quickly describe the populating of the earth, the biblical instruction to go forth and multiply was interpreted by the classical rabbiRabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
s to mean that it was the duty of every male Jew to marry as soon as possible. Several Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
ic rabbis urged that children should be married as soon as they had reached the average age of puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
, which was deemed to occur at 14 years of age; however, it was also strictly forbidden, by classical rabbinical literature, for parents to allow their children to marry before the children had reached this age. Despite the young threshold for marriage, marriages with a large age gap between the spouses (e.g. between a young man and an old woman) were thoroughly opposed by the classical rabbis
The classical rabbis saw 18 as the ideal age to become married, and anyone unmarried after the age of twenty was said to have been cursed by God; rabbinical courts
Beth din
A beth din, bet din, beit din or beis din is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Biblical Land of Israel...
frequently tried to compel an individual to marry, if they had passed the age of twenty without marriage. Nevertheless, the classical rabbis viewed study of the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
as a valid reason for remaining unmarried, although they were only rarely willing to regard life-long celibacy favourably. Since the classical rabbis viewed marriage as a duty deriving from the instruction to go forth and multiply, they also believed that the duty to marry ended once the husband had fathered both a son and a daughter; despite this, they also argued that no man should live without a wife even after he has several children.
Ability to give consent
Children, however, were not regarded as old enough to make an informed decision, and so could not consent to marriage themselves, although marriage to a female child was still permissible if her father consented, whether she agreed to it or not; if the father was dead, such consent could be given by her mother, or her brothers, but in this latter case the girl could annul the marriage when she reached the "standard" age of puberty (12), if she wished.The mentally handicapped, and deaf-mute
Deaf-mute
For "deafness", see hearing impairment. For "Deaf" as a cultural term, see Deaf culture. For "inability to speak", see muteness.Deaf-mute is a term which was used historically to identify a person who was both deaf and could not speak...
s, were also regarded, by traditional Jewish law, as being unable to give their consent; indeed, marriage to such people was forbidden. However, the rabbis allowed deaf-mutes to marry each other.