Female friendships and their social significance

Red Tent

Anita Diamant's fiction, "The Red Tent (1997)," is her interpretation of the activities in the red tent, where the Canaanite wives of the first patriarchs dwelt and celebrated the facets of womanhood, such as menstruation and childbirth. There, they were shielded from their men's outside affairs and cares. These patriarchs were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the wives were Sara, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel and their maids Zilphah and Bilhah. It assumes that these women were priestesses of goddess-worshipping tribes of the Canaan region who practiced and perpetuated rituals, traditions and habits until obliterated by their only daughter, Dinah, because of her violation by an Amorite and the murder of the Amorites by two of her 12 brothers (Diamant)

The novel is told from the first person viewpoint of Dinah, the only daughter and last child of Jacob and Leah and the last in the maternal line that should have sustained her mothers' goddess worship (Day 2003). She narrates about the occurrences inside the tent where the women in her father's family connect and relate, although not always in harmony, and her perception of rape by Shechem, his pursuit of her in marriage, the negotiations, and her brothers' violent murder of the Amorites and the inequality of her world. The author, however, innovates that Dinah falls in love with Shechem and that her brothers are impelled by envy because of the costly terms of the betrothal. This forever alienates Dinah from her maternal line and the goddess worship gives way to patriarchy (Day).

In those times, woman was the source of being and this power was rooted in the land and celebrated by matriarchal traditions and rites, despite warnings from prophets and preachers. It is argued that Sara was the chief priestess of the goddess culture and that it was precisely through feminine power and through the relationships these powerful women in a common setting, the red tent, that Yahweh gradually established His patriarchal religion (Day 2003)

BODY

The novel derives from Genesis 34, which tells the story of Dinah, who one day goes out to be make friends with other girls in the land and to explore the outside world (American Bible Society 1982). Shechem, prince of the country and the son of Hamor or Hivite, takes fancy upon her, pursues and rapes her. At that time, Jacob's family maintains commercial ties with the Hivites or Amorites and these ties connect and open the family up to the ungodly ways of those not chosen by God. Dina's search for friendship in their world leads to and ends up in a shameful companionship instead (Day 2003). But Shechem becomes deeply attracted to her, so that he speaks with her in kindness and then asks his father to speak with Jacob about marrying Dinah (American Bible Society0.

Jacob learns about the misdeed but keeps quite and waits for his sons to arrive from the field where they tend to his cattle. When Hamor sees Jacob, Jacob's sons come home too and they are furious that their sister has been violated. But Hamor is a practiced negotiator. He not only tactfully asks for the hand of Dinah on behalf of his son but also offers his daughters to Jacob's sons to marry so that they may remain in the land of the Amorites and prosper there. Shechem express willingness to pay any amount of dowry just so Jacob and his sons will agree to the marriage. The sons of Jacob, deceiving the Amorites, say that they will agree only if all the male Amorites get circumcised and that, otherwise, they will simply take Dinah and leave. If the Amorites agree to their terms, Jacob's will not only give their daughters for marriage but also marry Amorite women. Hamor and Shechem take no time in accepting the terms because Shechem not only feels deeply for Dinah but is also known as the most honorable man in the region (American Bible Society).

Hamor and his son, Shechem, convince the other Amorite men that it will be to their benefit to allow Jacob's family to live in their land, which is large enough to accommodate them all and the family, peaceful and fruitful enough to stay. Then they present the condition of circumcision to the other men and the men agree and leave the gates of their city to Jacob's sons (American Bible Society 1982)

Jacob's sons, especially Simeon and Levi, betray the Amorite men by taking advantage of their sore condition after submitting to circumcision and killing them with a sword. They also take Dinah and the material possessions of the Amorites with them out of the city. They make captives out of the women, children and the weak Amorites. Their father becomes irate and worried and scolds his sons for the consequences of this decision on his reputation and security against the people of that land, especially the Canaanites and Perizzites, who outnumber his family. But his sons insist that they cannot allow the Amorites to treat their sister like a harlot (American Bible Society 1982).

A lot of comments can be raised at this point. Jacob and his family belong to the race chosen by God Himself and are not supposed to be connected with other races whose ways are ungodly. It is not sufficient or justifiable for Shechem to merely offer marriage to cover up for his crime against Dinah's honor. Shechem's reputation as an honorable man, more so as the most honorable, in the region does not shield him from the punishment due his crime. Instead, Jacob should not maintain close or a trusting relationship with people like the Amorites, in the first place (Day 2003).

It is also plain that Jacob does not make all the major decisions in his family. He waits for his sons to make the decision concerning Dinah and Shechem and also allows the former to deal with the Amorites with deceit or mental reservation. He should have settled the issue directly and discreetly with Hamor and a marriage can be arrived at as a solution, but this will expose Jacob's family to undesirable influences outside his family. This is, however, not a surprise, considering his previous deceitful deals with his twin brother Esau and his uncle, Laban (Day 2003).

The real issue to contend with is the crime of rape or dishonor. Yet Jacob and his sons have other considerations they do not honestly present. As author Anita Diamant suggests, Dinah's brothers, jealously and treacherously murder the Amorites rather than avenge their sister's dishonor. Jacob, on the other hand, can think only about what antagonism with the Amorites will cause him, his businesses, possessions, reputation and security. He not only abandons his responsibility to make righteous decisions for his family but also blames his sons' criminal behavior for the wrong reason. Neither can Jacob's son make circumcision a condition to formally establishing intimate connections with outsiders. Salvation is not something arranged among men but only by means of personal repentance and free offer of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Jacob and his sons can only pave the way for the Amorites to turn their ways, repent and accept that forgiveness from Jesus Christ. The Amorites cannot be enlisted into God's chosen race by human decisions (Day 2003).

Shechem, at first, may appear honorable because of his willingness to correct his misdeed with marriage. But marriage will not correct a moral offense: it will make the offense worse if there is no change of heart in the offender. What he offers Jacob's family is nothing more than the external ritual of a wedding or the formality of a marriage. He still remains an unbeliever and, therefore, not one among Jacob's chosen family that pleases God. An unbeliever is always a wrong choice of a mate (Day 2003).

Jacob's gross errors in deceiving his twin brother Esau and Laban, his business interests and connection with the Amorites and other tribes in the region, his indifference to the dishonor of Dinah and the eventual mass murders of the Amorites by his sons if he did not forge close links with the world. But God used these mistakes to rouse Jacob to a higher level where He eventually communicates with him (Gail Hudson as qtd in Day 2003).

Jacob experiences a lot of family troubles, as a matter of fact. He loves and wants to marry only Rachel but Laban cheats him into marrying Leah first. He works for him for 14 years to secure Rachel. As a consequence, the sisters compete for his love and dissension is sown between them. Dinah observes this competition between her mother and aunt and the two concubines at the red tent they share in common. Leah is not as pretty as Rachel but is blessed with six sons and a daughter. Rachel, who is more loved, has only two sons and dies while giving birth to the second (Day 2003).

Anita Diamant addresses that continuation between mothers and daughters through the mind and lips of Dinah at the beginning of the novel:" We have been lost to each other for so log. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother and daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote ... (Diamant)."

In and through her eyes, the reader encounters the sights and sounds in the tent and in the camp with 12 brothers of different temperaments, the confusion and rivalry among her four mothers, as well as their periodic distresses, and a mild yet distant patriarchy in Jacob. Dinah witnesses and collects these observations, perceptions and stories within her as the only and last daughter to carry the information along. The book is her report or narration of her four mothers' personality traits, menstruation cycles, childbirth, their slaves, artisans, household gods and feminine secrets that perpetuate the matriarchal lineage. The author writes through Dinah: "Like sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges. They traded secrets like bracelets and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember (Diamant 1997)."

Dina's recording these memories, impressions and experiences inside the red tent must now be stunted, stunned or colored by Shechem's dishonoring her. The disgrace now forms part of the total world viewpoint she holds as the last surviving member of the matriarchal link. Along with this shock, she must assimilate her father's lack of responsiveness and her brothers' rage and impulsiveness. She must wade through the splintering experience of rape according to the behavior of those around her. What happens to her determines the survival of feminine power as source of being.

Genesis interpreters, without admitting it, underplay the seriousness of the crime of rape and give more credit to Shechem's willingness or desire to make it up to Dinah by marrying her and agreeing to all her or her family's terms for the marriage (Scholz 2001).

These interpreters do not view Shechem as a rapist but as Dinah's lover and potential husband, who deserves pity rather than condemnation.

Other readers and researchers make the same interpretation that marginalizes rape and Dinah. This dates back to the time when the Israelite tribes were still searching for a place to settle in Palestine. Jacob's family faced a territorial difficulty involving dispossession of their place of settlement (Scholz 2001). It is in this scenario that Shechem expresses great love towards Dinah and is in sharp contrast to the suspicious motivations of her brothers who attempt to purify the dishonor or avenge it through a hidden agenda.

Other interpretations are anthropological in approach and reflect on ancient Israel's struggle between integration and exclusion. According to these interpretations, Israel was a group-oriented society that disagreed whether to interact with non-Israelites or cross tribal boundaries (Scholz 2001). But Jacob links up with outsiders by establishing commercial ties with them, and Dinah wants to socialize with women friends in the outside world. They are opposed by Jacob's militant sons who want to retain their racial purity by pointing to the disastrous consequences of interacting with outsiders. These early Israelites live and work to serve the interests of the larger group, the outsiders, but Jacob's sons emphasize the importance of preserving the distinction between who the Israelites are and who the outsiders are (Bechtel as qtd in Scholz 2001). They insist that marriage can be honorable and acceptable only within their pure race and shameful when one party is not bonded with their God. These anthropology-interpreters believe that Shechem, in fact, the honorable character in the story in that he is willing to correct his mistake and at the price dictated by Dinah's brothers and that her brothers are the villains for misrepresenting their true motives to Shechem (Betchel as qtd in Scholz) to destroy the larger community of the Amorites to which they are subject. When Shechem accepts their terms, Dinah's brothers resort to murder, revealing their inferiority rather than superiority or purity. The rape of Dinah becomes an acceptable intercourse because Shechem is willing to correct it, while the "rape" of the Amorites by Jacob's sons becomes the real crime (Betchel as qtd in Scholz).

Still another scholar-interpreter reconstructs the earliest version of Genesis 34 wherein Shechem ravishes Dinah but later falls for her and asks to marry her (Zakovitch as qtd in Scholz). The assumption is that the rape was added to provide Jacob's sons a motive to kill and plunder the Amorites after taking Dinah.

CONCLUSION

Anita Diamant's novel details the traditions, rituals, habits, behaviors, secrets and activities of Israelite women inside the red tent, recorded in the mind and interpreted by Dinah as the last in the matriarchal line to continue the goddess culture. With her rape and eventual marriage and incorporation into the Amorites, the matriarchal lineage and its traditions are replaced by a patriarchal lineage.

It can be safely deduced that there are very strong and independent female figures behind Jewish patriarchy. Most prominent among them is Sara the queen and wife of Abraham, the very first patriarch. The rest are Rebecca, Isaac's wife, and Rachel and Leah, two of Jacob's wives. Jewish rabbis themselves acknowledge the greater prominence and important positions taken by these four matriarchs than those of the first three patriarchs, their husbands Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia). The tribe of Levi was said to have been matrilineal and that Sarah the queen performed different roles as concubine for a pharaoh and a Philistine king, and as sister and secret wife to Abraham. Rachel and Leah, on the other hand, are the founding matriarchs of the tribes of Joseph and Judah, their respective sons, Joseph and Judah's separate tribes developed distinct histories and became the dominant tribes in the north and the south, respectively (Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia).

Dinah's father, Jacob, was her mother Rebecca's favorite. He dwelt in the tent where she dwelt and the tent is a feminine symbol of mating and nurturing power. The bridegroom also enters that tent to mate with the bride. We know that Isaac and Rebecca's twins Esau and Jacob grow up differently. Esau becomes a rough hunter whom Isaac favors, but Jacob grows up as a plain man in the tent and before the eyes of his mother who favors him more. We also know about the deceit employed by Rebecca and Jacob to steal Esau's rights to Isaac's blessings and her search for a wife for Jacob. It can be said that the foundation of the 12 tribes of Israel was "under Rebecca's skirts (Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia)." This illustrates much woman power in the Bible. Rachel's stealing of Laban's Teraphim and her hiding it under her menstrual skirts likewise demonstrate the significance of matriarchy.