Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt is a wonderful example of the scholarship undertaken by a new generation of scholars of the Cairo Geniza. The accessibility of so many documents, some of which are epistolary, rabbinic responsa, and court records, enables the serious investigator to explore avenues that have not been previously or sufficiently examined. In this case, Eve Krakowski opted to delve into the world of the female adolescent in medieval Egypt from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries. Her goal was to analyze the roles of kinship and the law as reflected in documents concerning these girls as they faced the most significant transition of their lives.
The book begins with a solid introduction to these young women and their kin in what is often termed “Geniza society”; these explanations are essential for those less familiar with this milieu. Explanations as to the nature of the documents are also helpful, as the author clearly lays out the aim and structure of the book. One immediately perceives that by using these sources, Krakowski will attempt to qualify the significance of Halakhah versus kinship in these young women's lives. The centrality of networks of kinship and patronage among the merchant class in particular is well established; it is worthwhile and useful to determine how influential these ties were in women's lives.
Krakowski clearly wants to stake her own ground in the field and to differentiate her findings from those of the most eminent social historian of Geniza studies, S. D. Goitein. For example, she successfully counters his assumption that newlyweds most often resided with the groom's family once she discovered that, rather than opting for living with the bride's family, many couples moved in with single relatives rather than couples. These singles include divorced and widowed women whose married children sometimes joined them. In her introduction, however, Krakowski is critical of Goitein, claiming that his “treatment of any given topic was also messy, preliminary, and incomplete” (5). Such a comment seems a bit harsh considering that this pioneer in the field was attempting to analyze and order an overwhelming quantity of material. One would assume that many of his insights would be preliminary, just as his assessments could not possibly be complete. After all, this is the task that Krakowski and others now take upon themselves.
Be that as it may, the array of impressive sources and attempts to compare her findings to those of the Islamicate world are praiseworthy. This book should be especially interesting to students and scholars less familiar with the Geniza documents, since it provides a fine entrée into the field. One can learn about family structures, dependencies, and loyalties, and realize how dependent the women were on their kin. At the same time, the role of the Jewish b eit d in is examined; here one learns that although the means of enforcing decisions by the court was always restricted, mediation tended to be a relatively effective path for achieving results.
Not surprisingly, the documents studied reveal the importance of social capital along with the status of relatives representing a woman's needs. It seems that in this society, child marriage occurred less frequently than previously imagined. One wonders if a comparison with the lives of adolescent males might have further enlightened the reader. Were the boys too busy learning a trade or did they experience a similar intermediate phase prior to marriage? It is unfortunate that the documents available rarely allow the reader to hear the voices of these adolescents, unlike many of the letters available concerning women in later phases of their lives.
A sizable dowry can enable a woman to become independent economically and, as in many other societies, the negotations prior to marriage, including the assessment of the dowry, are of utmost importance. Sephardic Jews in Spain and in the Spanish-Portuguese diaspora created dowry, or dotar, societies devoted to caring for less fortunate brides. In all of these societies, the dowry provided for the orphan was intended to strengthen the economically vulnerable. It is interesting to learn that the brides in the Geniza documents seemed to have had little say in the negotiations or in the choice of groom. Krakowski notes that the potential husband more or less courted the male relatives of the desired bride. These alliances are reminiscent of those created between prospective business partners. What is noteworthy is that in addition to the well-known monogamy clause or takkanah in 1100, attributed to the nagid Mevorakh ben Saʿadiah, there were also “personalized behavioral stipulations” (246) that expanded on these attempts to foster a healthy marriage arrangement.
The well-known case of Solomon ben Elijah, reconstructed based on sixteen letters he wrote that pertain to his unsuccessful marriage to a maternal first cousin, helps support Krakowski's arguments. It seems that the abused woman, like the orphan, is perenially in a weak position; shaming was and is not always a successful tactic. Since marriage was not necessarily permanent, as proven by the fact that many couples did indeed divorce, the bond itself does not appear to have provided economic or social security for many a woman.
The author often notes that certain texts or topics have not yet been studied systematically. On the one hand, this is not surprising because of the existence of so many documents preserved by happenstance conditions without any internal organization; surely this is an obstacle to pursuit of a systematic study. On the other hand, by means of her study, Krakowski repeatedly points to areas that require further investigation, hoping that others will respond to the challenge.
Krakowksi has provided the scholarly world with well-researched insights into the status of the adolescent girl in medieval Egypt. She convincingly emphasizes the importance of kinship and its role in the lives of these girls for negotiating their marriage ties as well as in establishing their economic status and, sometimes, in negotiating their divorces as well. The support displayed by kin was essential to the survival of orphaned fatherless girls as well as girls whose fathers were willing and able to support them. This impressive book has enriched Geniza studies as well as medieval gender studies by observing and analyzing a short but important period in the lives of young women at a turning point in their lives.
