Maturity, Marriage, Motherhood, Mortality - Women''s Life-Cycle Rituals in Ancient Israel

Maturity, Marriage, Motherhood, Mortality is a study of women's life-cycle rituals in ancient Israel, beginning with rituals that marked a girl child's birth and then considering a young woman's coming of age and her betrothal and wedding, as well as rituals undertaken by women during pregnancy and during the days and early years after giving birth, before concluding with a discussion of rituals enacted upon a woman's death.

List of contents

• Prologue: Of Universals and Not


• Introduction: The Nature of Women's Life-Cycle Rituals


• Part I. A Girl's Birth and Coming into Maturity


• 1: The Birth of a Female Child


• 2: Women's (and Men's) Coming of Age


• Part II. Marriage


• 3: Israelite Betrothal Rituals


• 4: A Young Woman's Wedding


• Part III. Motherhood


• 5: Pregnancy and Childbirth


• 6: Naming a Child


• 7: Nursing and Weaning a Child


• Interlude


• 8: Menopause


• Part IV. Mortality


• 9: Ritually Marking a Woman's Death


• Epilogue: Of Fragments and (W)holes

About the author

Susan Ackerman is Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion, Emerita, at Dartmouth College.

Product details

• Authors: Susan Ackerman, Susan (Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Re Ackerman, Ackerman Susan
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 29.10.2025
• EAN: 9780197809655
• ISBN: 978-0-19-780965-5
• No. of pages: 408
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies; RELIGION / Christianity / History, RELIGION / Biblical Biography / General, History of Religion, Religious aspects of sexuality, gender and relationships, RELIGION / Christian Living / Family & Relationships, Religious aspects of sexuality, gender & relationships, Old Testaments, RELIGION / Biblical Studies / New Testament / Apocrypha