Maturity, Marriage, Motherhood, Mortality

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. Throughout, the book highlights features distinctive to women’s life-cycle rituals and especially differences between women’s life-cycle rituals and men’s, and it presents a six-part theoretical model to explain these distinctive features and differences.