FAMILY LIFE IN GENIZAH SOCIETY

This chapter deals with family life in the Jewish society of the medieval Islamic world, which is mainly reconstructed on the basis of Genizah finds. It starts with a short survey about the ways in which family, kinship, and pedigree were conceived in this society, and then it goes on to speak about the functions expected and fulfilled by family members. The next paragraph examines the boundaries of the family, focusing on the special role occupied by domestic slaves. Thereafter, I will examine the institution of marriage: its roles, the legal processes required to establish and to end it, and its structure, including a short discussion about polygyny. The chapter ends with a description of the relations between family members as they surface in Genizah documents: spousal relations, relations between parents and children at various ages, and among siblings.