Women and Jewish Marriage Negotiations in Early Modern Italy

This book is a radical reassessment of the roles of women in Jewish marriage, divorce, and remarriage, examined through the setting of Italy from the end of the Renaissance to the Baroque, where negotiations involved competing Jewish customs, rabbinic opinions, Catholic practices, and Islamic influences. Case studies illustrate the ambiguity, drama, and danger to which women were exposed as well as opportunities to make their voices heard and to extricate themselves from situations by forcing a divorce, collecting or seizing assets, and going to Catholic notaries to bequeath their assets outside traditional inheritance, often to other women.