Qatlanit: The “Killer-Wife”

This piece is based on Elaine Goodfriend, “The “Killer Wife” (Qatlanit) in Jewish Law: A Survey of Sources,” Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary E-Journal, 17.1 (2020).

Gen 15:2, Lev 20:20-21, Jer 22:30. Rashi, following the midrash, suggests that Er intentionally withheld his seed (as his brother did), so that Tamar would remain childless and thus more attractive.

The Torah (Deut 25:5–10) requires the deceased husband’s brother to marry his widow if they had no children.

An heir would substantially reduce Onan’s inheritance, as the firstborn son gets a double inheritance (Deut 21:17)

Mordechai A. Friedman, “Tamar, a Symbol of Life: The ‘Killer Wife’ Superstition in the Bible and Jewish Tradition,” AJS Review 15 (1990): 32. 

Jacob Milgrom (Leviticus 1-16 [New York: Doubleday, 1991]: 1079) concludes that the Bible rejects the idea of “demonic attack and the appeasement of threatening demons.” Belief in the potency of demons was widespread in the ancient Near East, thus although it is possible that belief in demons among Israelites was suppressed in the textual evidence which remains, it is difficult to suppress in practice. See also, Nicole L. Tilford, “Does the Bible Believe in the Evil Eye?” TheTorah (2022). For the popular belief in demons in Mesopotamia, see Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat’s Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1998): 205-210.

Tobit is part of the Catholic but not the Jewish or Protestant Bible, but the book is Jewish in origin. Carey A. Moore, “Book of Tobit,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6:591; Malka Z. Simkovich, “Sefer Tuviah, the Book of Tobit: An Ancient Jewish Novel for Shavuot,” TheTorah (2014).

Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (New York, New York: Judaica Press, 2004), 129. Asmodeus (Ashmidei) is mentioned twice in the Talmud (bPesachim 110a, bGittim 68a).

^{Tobit 6:14} Then Tobias said in answer to Raphael, “Azariah, my brother, I have heard that she already has been married to seven husbands and that they died in the bridal chamber. On the night when they went in to her, they would die. And I have heard some say that a demon kills them. ^6:15 It does not harm her, but it kills anyone who desires to approach her. So now, since I am the only son my father has, I am afraid that I may die and bring my father’s and mother’s lives down to their graves, grieving for me—and they have no other son to bury them.”

Modern scholarship notes the influence of various folk motifs on the tale. Thus Mordechai Friedman suggests that the “killer wife” superstition in Tobit represents a “foreign element” reintroduced into Jewish belief during the Second Temple period. Friedman, “Tamar, A Symbol of Life,” 24.

At this point the Gemara contrasts circumcision and marrying a widow regarding the issues that constitute the danger.  Regarding circumcision, it is known that there are “families with thin blood and families with thick blood.” This is assumed to be the first recorded description of hemophilia. Daniel Eisenberg, “Hemophilia and Circumcision,” Jewishmedicalethics.com (2016); Jeremy Brown, MD, “Chullin 4b - Circumcision, Shechita, and Hemophilia,” Talmudology.

According Jastrow’s Dictionary of the Talmud, a maʿayan is a “spring,” “fountain” or “source.” It is used in b. Nedarim 41b for the intestines as the “gushing source” for dysentery and in bNiddah 11b and 35b for the “source” of menstrual blood. Song of Songs 4:12 refers to the “sister” as a “sealed fountain” (maʿayan hatum), an allusion to her virginity.

Contact (even indirect) with a menstruating woman was thought by some to pose a grave danger; in the Talmud, see b. Pesachim 111a.  This idea is linked in Judaism especially with the Baraita de-Niddah, an early medieval work which emphasizes the risks of being in proximity to the menstruant (Nahmanides on Gen 31:35; see “Baraita de-Niddah,” by Evyatar Marienberg). The Hebrew Bible links women and the occult in Exodus 21:17, 2 Samuel 28, and Ezekiel 13:17-23. Many folkloristic traditions (not specifically Jewish) reflect male anxiety about the mechanics of intercourse. Examples include Japanese demons (called Sazae Oni or “testicle thief”) who bite off a man’s testicles during sex, the belief in vagina dentate (a vagina with teeth), and the link between heart attacks and adultery, called “dying in the saddle.”

For example, Rava, a sage mentioned in this sugya, believes that “life, children, and sustenance do not depend on merit but on fate (mazal)” (b. Moʿed Qattan 28a).

Avraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe (Waltham, MA: Brandeis UP, 2004), p.264.

Grossman, Pious and Rebellious, 264–265.

He refers to the case noted above, of a couple’s two sons dying after being circumcises, and how this exempts the parents from circumcising their next son for fear it might kill him.

Maimonides addresses the practices of divination and astrology in the Mishneh Torah and concludes:

^{משנה תורה—ספר מדע, הלכות עבודה זרה יא:טו} ודברים האלו כולן דברי שקר וכזב הן, והן שהטעו בהן עובדי עבודה זרה הקדמונים לגויי הארצות כדי שינהו אחריהן. ואין ראוי לישראל שהן חכמים מחוכמים להמשך בהבלים אלו ולא להעלות על הלב שיש בהן תעלה...

^{Mishneh Torah—Sefer Mada, Laws of Idolatry 11:16} All of these things are false and spurious, and it was with such that the ancient idolaters misled the peoples of many lands so that they were following them. And it is unbecoming to the people of Israel who are exceedingly wise to be attracted by these absurdities, nor to even imagine that they are of any consequence...

...אבל בעלי החכמה ותמימי הדעת ידעו בראיות ברורות שכל אלו הדברים שאסרה תורה אינן דברי חכמה אלא תוהו והבל שנמשכו בהן חסירי הדעת ונטשו כל דרכי האמת בגללן.

But wise and sound-minded people know that all these matters which the Torah disallowed are not matters of wisdom but formless nonsense followed by senseless people for the sake of which they abandoned every path of truth.

Maimonides then suggests the same legal trick as in the previous responsa.

He explains that Maimonides follows the opinion that the death is because of her astrological sign, since that is just about betrothal-marriage (qiddushin), hence one she is betrothed-married, it is not more unsafe for him to marry her fully (nissuin). However, the position that it is the sex that is killing the husband would prohibit them from consummating even after betrothal and would push for him to divorce, since every act is a risk.

ומדקאמר תו לא חזיא לאינסובי, ולא אמר תו לא מנסבא, ש"מ שאסורה לעשות בה לכתחלה אישות. אבל אם נעשה בה שום מעשה אישות, דהיינו קדושין, לרב אשי מותר לכונסה. וכל שכן שאם נשאת לא תצא, שהאיסור הוא לרב אשי בקדושין, שאז הוחל המזל.

Since [the Talmud] says (b. Ketubot 43b) “she is no longer fit to be married,” and not “one may no longer marry her,” we see from this that it is forbidden a priori to marry her, but if one were to do any step in the marriage process, i.e., betrothal, Rav Ashi would permit marrying her. How much more so if he already married her that he would not need to divorce her, for the prohibition according to Rav Ashi is on the betrothal, since that is where the astrology kicks in.

ומאן דאמר מעין גורם סבירא ליה שאם נתקדשה לא תינשא, דלדידיה האיסור הוא [בנישואין] כמו בקידושין. נמצא שבקדושין לא עבריה לאיסורה. הילכך לדידיה אם קדשה לא יכנוס.

But according to the one who holds the position that her uterus is the cause, he would argue that even if he betrothed her, he may not marry her, since according to him, the prohibition is for marriage as much as betrothal. It turns out that by betrothing her, he did not bypass the prohibition. Therefore, according to him, if he betrothed her he may not marry her.

This seems like a stretch given Maimonides dismissal of the rule almost entirely in his responsa. (Perhaps R. Avraham only had the Mishneh Torah and did not know the responsa.)

See discussion in Shalem Yahalom, “קבלה וחידוש בכתבי הרמב"ן ומבחקר עיון בסוגיות 'הקטלנית' ו'צומת הגידין'” [Received Tradition and Innovation in the writing of Nahmanides and Related Scholarship: The Cases of the Joint of the Sinews and the ‘Killer Wife’], Kabbalah, 17 (2008): 201–231.

In error, this responsum was published as part of the responsa of R. Joseph ibn Migash (§103). See Israel Meir Ta-Shma כנסת מחקרים: עיונים בספרות הרבנית בימי הביניים ב—ספרד [Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature 2: Spain] (Jerusalem: Bialik, 2004), 33, 90–91; Yahalom, “Tradition and Innovation,” 210 [n39].

Yahalom, “Tradition and Innovation,” 216. Geography may have been the determinant as northern Spanish rabbis were more influenced by mystical ideas, as opposed to those in the south, such as Maimonides, who had a more rationalist bent.

It appears in Rashba’s Responsa attributed to Ramban §121.

Shalem Yahalom, “Tradition and Innovation,” 213.

Reading אדם באדם as one phrase—“Of a person by/through/in a person”—is not the simple way of parsing the verse, but rabbinic tradition understands it this way to derive several halakhot. See, e.g., b. Sanhedrin 57b, Genesis Rabbah 34:14.

Credence in the power of mystical forces was bolstered by the emergence of the Zohar. It gradually became more influential in the centuries following, reaching its peak of authority in the 16^th and 17^th centuries; see Gershom Scholem, “Zohar,” EncJud 16:1208-1213.

The Zohar: The Pritzker Edition, trans. Daniel C. Matt (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 5:52–54.

Grossman, Pious and Rebellious, 266; Weiss, “Free Choice,” 447, notes that Joseph Albo cites a ruling by Crescas that permits the widows of those killed in mass martyrdom to remarry.  Crescas’ intended systematization of halakhah was never written and his responsa have not survived. Warren Harvey, “Hasdai Crescas,” EncJud 5:1081.

In the 16^th century, Joseph Caro (d.1575) published the Shulhan Arukh, a code of Jewish law that ultimately became accepted as the code of Jewish law par excellence. On the topic of the qatlanit, he follows Maimonides exactly: 

^{שלחן ערוך—אבן העזר ט:א} אִשָּׁה שֶׁנִּשֵּׂאת לִשְׁנֵי אֲנָשִׁים, וּמֵתוּ, לֹא תִּנָּשֵׂא לִשְׁלִישִׁי, שֶׁכְּבָר הֻחְזְקָה לִהְיוֹת אֲנָשֶׁיהָ מֵתִים. וְאִם נִשֵּׂאת לֹא תֵּצֵא, וַאֲפִלּוּ נִתְקַדְּשָׁה יִכְנֹס....

A woman who was married to two men and they died may not become married to a third, for she is already assumed to be a woman whose husbands die. But if she married a third husband, she need not get divorced, and even if she was only engaged, he may marry her...

Because Karo based his work on a narrow group of sources, often neglecting large swaths of halakhic literature, especially that of Ashkenazic Jewry, Rabbi Moses Isserles (d.1572) supplemented the Shulchan Arukh with glosses that function as an “overlay,” and became part and parcel of the work. On this topic, Isserles turned to the lenient rulings of 15^th century Spain:

הַגָּה: יֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים דְּדַוְקָא אִם מֵתוּ מִיתַת עַצְמָם, אֲבָל אִם נֶהֱרַג אֶחָד מֵהֶן אוֹ מֵת בְּדֶבֶר, אוֹ נָפַל וָמֵת וְכַדּוֹמֶה, אֵינוֹ כְּלוּם. וְלָכֵן רַבִּים מְקִלִּים בִּדְבָרִים אֵלּוּ, וְאֵין מוֹחִין בִּידֵיהֶם...

A gloss: There are those who say that [the prohibition] applies specifically if they died natural deaths but if one of them was murdered or died in a plague or fell and died, etc., that doesn’t count, and so most people are lenient in this matter, and they should not be prohibited from doing so…

This lenient position reflects the tumult and tragedy of the preceding centuries, as well as Isserles’ rationalist bent. Isserles was known as the “Maimonides of Polish Jewry” (Shlomo Tal, “Moses Ben Israel Isserles” (EncJud 9:1081-1085).

Similarly, Joseph Albo (d.1444) allows a qatlanit to remarry if her husband died during mass persecutions because a “death that is due to the general lot” (as opposed the death that is “due to the lot of the individual”) is not included when considering the status of the widow; see Shira Weiss, “Free Choice in the Responsum of Joseph Albo: The Case of the Katlanit,” Jewish Quarterly Review 105 (2015), pp. 448-449. Further, Albo writes that the death of a martyred individual does not make a qatlanit, “since his death is considered the free decision of the martyr and not the result of the mazal or maʿayan of his wife” (Weiss, “Free Choice,” 451).

The responsum can be found here.  

The responsum can be found here.  

The responsum can be found here. His discussion focuses on the definition of zaken (“elderly”), working with the assumption that if one of her husbands died when he was “old,” this would not count against her.