Ben Hur,, the novel, part 13

We are up to Book II chapter 5 of Ben Hur and you stayed with me!

I’m skipping chapter 5 because you would be better off spending your time reading your Bible and reading real history, not Wallace’s faked hash, and going to chapter 6 we meet a new character, Tirzah, the daughter of the house. 

And her clothing is all wrong. Jewish women did not expose their bodies, even at home. Her arms should be covered at least from shoulder to elbow.  And you should be going “say what?”

I just said a couple of posts ago that when a man dies and leaves a widow, sons and daughters, the mother and sons can join to marry off an underage daughter. They can’t do this for a grown daughter, but she must be supported from the income of the man’s property. The son gets a job or goes begging to have an income.

Except.

Judah’s father could have written a deed of gift to Judah either before his death or while on his deathbed. The deed was valid in either case, except that on his deathbed the father had to reserve some of the property to himself. Then if he recovered he had an income.

A prudent man should write three deeds of gift: one for his widow; one for his daughter(s); and one for his son, with the reservation of property in this last. All three should say “after my death” or “from now and after my death”. In this second case, they all have an income and it’s not tied up into a will, which only takes effect after death. But stuff happens.

If Ithamar wrote a deed of gift, Judah isn’t running a business for the benefit of his mother and sister; he’s running it so he has his own income. He may be managing the property covered by the other two deeds, or a relative is managing it.

But the real issue in this chapter is, both Tirzah and Judah should be married. In a world without scientific medication, where doctors functioned on anecdotal evidence, few infants reached the age of 5 and another tranche didn’t reach the age of 15. If Judah’s father was alive when Tirzah was 13, he would at least have started the search for a husband and written a deed to cover her dowry. Judah would have been 15 to 18 at the time, and Mishnah Pirkey Avot 5:21 says marriage happens at 18. Judah is 21. He should have a wife and at least one child, or one on the way.

Tirzah would be living with her husband, even if she’s 16 and just married.

The mother would be living in a dower house on the property covered by her deed of gift.

So again, Wallace is committing the fallacy of Presentism. He’s writing the classic Victorian melodrama where the widow and her children stay together. And it wasn’t so. Not in those times; not in Judea; not in Rome, so Messala should also not be a bachelor at this point. Oh, sure, he probably left his wife home with the paterfamilias, especially if there were children already. But his wife, like Agrippina, might follow the drum and bring the children along.