This week I've begun plowing my way through various articles that deal with women, as discussed by both Talmudic and Roman sources of Late Antiquity. Most scholars agree that this era includes the 3rd - 4th centuries, but some define Late Antiquity as continuing until the Byzantium era [early 5th century], while others end it as late as the Muslim conquest in the 7th century.
A very thought-provoking article discussed the mother-daughter relationship of Late Antiquity, or rather the lack of one. Far more sources reference the mother-son relationship, and those that do mention mothers and daughters do so with regard to mothers preparing their daughters for marriage. The article's author speculates that the poor mother-daughter relationship was real, not an artifact of men writing most history, and related to local marriage customs.
In these times, girls married before they were 16, while men married later, typically in their 20's. Thus a bridegroom could easily be twice the age of his bride. In addition, a bride moved to live with her husband's family. So we have a scenario where a daughter spent only her childhood with her mother, while a son not only stayed home longer before he married, but also remained there afterward. And with an average life expectancy of about 35 years, a woman who survived childbirth would end up a widow in her son's house. Naturally she would have a close relationship with him than with a daughter who lived far away.
By the way, a life expectancy of 35 doesn't mean a bell-shaped curve where most people died within a few years of their 35th birthday. According to cemetery studies in Roman Palestine, approximately 40% of the population died in childhood, the majority of those before they were 5. More girls died young than boys, probably reflecting that in times of scarcity, sons were better fed than daughters. Women often died during their childbearing years, with few living past 50. Unless there was a war, men died throughout adulthood, with some surviving into their 60's and 70's.
So we can see why mothers would be less attached to daughters than sons: girls were more likely to die young and if they did survive to their wedding day, their mothers would seldom see them again. I hope my readers won't complain when I make my next novel's heroine, Rav Hisda's daughter, closer to her father, grandfather, nurse or maidservant than to her mother.
Assuming you've read RASHI'S DAUGHTERS: BOOK II – MIRIAM, you know that I tried to express the angst that two yeshiva students suffer when they become attracted to each other. Well, my own hevruta [study partner] shared that there's a well-done video on YouTube that deals with the very same subject.
And it's the real deal, with authentic Talmud study, Rashi and Tosafot references included, and apparently filmed in an actual yeshiva.
Now that I have a new study partner, I've begun learning Talmud again after many months' hiatus. But my studies are different than when I was researching for RASHI'S DAUGHTERS. Then I wanted to find interesting passages that my characters would study in particular scenes, and if Rashi had a pithy comment, so much the better. Now, since the characters in RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER are Talmudic figures, my study goal is to learn what the Talmud says about them as well as about the way they and their compatriots lived, both in Babylonia and Roman Palestine.
To that end, I've been searching out "biographies" of the sages, and then jotting down the Talmud reference to each of my primary characters: Rav Hisda, his wife, his sons and his daughters; Rami bar Hama, his mother and his brother; Rava, his children, his father, and his colleague Abbaye. I've done the same with mentions of the above people in the various books I've read about life in Jewish Babylonia. My goal is to eventually check each original Talmud reference myself to see if what it discusses is something that could eventually be a scene.
Over the last three weeks, my study partner Henry and I have gone over nearly every mention of Rav Hisda and his family in the Talmud's first tractate, Berachot. I learned that Rav Hisda exclaims, "Ha Elohim" [The God] when he's surprised or annoyed, that Babylonians 'washed' their hands with dirt, pebbles and woodchips if they didn't have water [or before they washed with water], and that they stuffed their pillows with feathers; also that Rav Hisda is so fastidious that he won't pray until he's 4 amot away from where a disgusting odor dissipates [as opposed to his colleagues who will pray just as soon as they can no longer smell it].
Our last session was studying the dream sugia in Ber 55-56, where Rava and his best friend Abbaye consult a dream interpreter. They each describe identical dreams, but Abbaye pays the interpreter and Rava doesn't, so Abbaye gets good interpretations and Rava gets bad ones. Since these interpretations are supposed to be accurate nonetheless, it's important for my story to know that, among other disasters: Rava will divorce 2 wives, that his sons and daughters will be taken captive, that his wife will die and her children will be raised by a step-mother, that his sons and daughters will die, and that his wife will die [can't tell if this refers to the same wife as before or a different one]. The difficulty about these predictions is that nowhere else in the Talmud do we hear that Rava's children dying or being taken captive, and from another sugia we know that Rava and his wife, Rav Hisda's daughter, lived well into old age. But somehow I will endeavor to use as many of these predictions as possible as plot complications in my novel.
Next week, we start studying Tractate Shabbat.
I've often said that the difference between the historian and the historical novelist is that the former must always be right and the latter cannot be wrong. In other words, as long as nobody can prove that what I write is incorrect, I'm free to put it in my novels. But a post on The Guardian's Book Blog shows that accuracy, or lack of it, in historical fiction, isn't quite so simple and that there's an important difference between lying and making mistakes.
Sometimes an author has compelling reasons for "lying" abut the past, such as not wanting to confuse the reader by using correct period language, or choosing to "rewrite" history because the author suspects that the official history is inaccurate [can we really believe what early Church father wrote about the Jews?]. Another reason is to avoid alienating the reader by too much description of what we would now consider the horrible social or sanitary conditions of the past.
One blog commenter, also a historical novelist, made a similar inaccurate change to what I did in BOOK ONE - JOHEVED. He or she writes, "At what age would characters have become sexually active/married/had children etc? In a period in which life expectancy was 45 or less, probably well before the age of 16. Yet I don't want to be perceived as writing a book about pedophiles, so I'm fudging it."
The blog shares some fascinating pieces of misinformation, such as, "My particular favourite historical error appears at the end of Braveheart, where it is suggested that the future Edward III (born in 1312) was the product of a union between the Scottish rebel William Wallace (executed in London in 1305) and Princess Isabella of France, who was nine at the time of Wallace's death. It would be funny - if I had not met so many people who believed it."
The blogger's conclusions: "Some lies go too far and alienate the reader. Some are too obvious. But some lying is necessary, and to get away with it, one [i.e. the historical novelist] has to be both subtle and convincing."
A little while ago a rabbi friend send me an email asking if I'd read a book by David Goodblatt about rabbis in Sasanian Babylonia. Embarrassed, I had to admit that while the author's name looked familiar, I had no idea if I'd read that particular book. Apparently it was time to start a bibliography for RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER, something that became clear as I started going through my sources and found a few that I'd photocopied twice and some photocopies from books that I already owned. It took me the good part of last week to put together a preliminary bibliography, and to my astonishment, it's already 10 pages long. [those who are curious can email me for a copy]. And yes, I did have Goodblatt's Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia, as well as two journal articles by him.
Saying that I had 3 sources by Goodblatt doesn't mean that I've read all of them. I've been more active obtaining information than actually digesting it, which comes about because each book or article I read has its own bibliography with new data to check out. So I went through my sources, one by one, checking them off as I entered each in the bibliography [how else will I know later that I've recorded a particular article/book?]. It was only then that I realized that I've probably only read about half of them. In fact I still haven't read most of the photocopies in these 3 files: Talmud Women, History Women, and Talmud Marriage.
OK. I need to stop blogging and start reading. Plus now I'm studying Talmud again each week, which means I have to prepare that week's material in advance. But wait - I just checked out the Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3: Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods from LMU Library. Almost 1500 pages of articles about exactly my period of interest, and it looks like I'll be photocopying quite a few of them. And then there's the bibliographies of those articles to go through.