Mohar in Ancient Israel

Abstract

The work is an analysis of the procedure preceding a marriage in ancient Israel including the woman‘s cost of acquisition – mohar – as its obligatory part. The introduction deals with the semantic analysis of the term and its further possible explanations. It is followed by the detailed study of the mohar setting in the early legal stage of Israeli history. The particular examples (Isaac, Jacob, Sichem) illustrate the father‘s autonomy in making legal decisions about the price and its form. The analysis continues in dealing with the specifics of the mohar settings in the codification period in which the price was basically paid in cash (David and Otniel being the exceptions). The conclusion is dedicated to a brief survey of the mohar‘s evolution throughout the history, related to the gradual legal emancipation of Israeli women.