The story of Ruth: same gender marriage (women)

Al tifg’I vi leazvekh leshuv me’acharai’ikh.  Ki el asher telkhi elekh.  Uvasher talini, alin.  Amekh ami.  V’eloha’ikh elohay.   Ba’asher tamuti amut.  Ko ya’aseh YHWH li, v’ko yosif ki hamavet yafrid bene uvenekh.

“Do not urge me to leave, to turn from following you.  Where you go, I will go.  Where you stay, I will stay.  Your people are my people.  Your god is my god.  Where you die, I will die.  God will do this for me, this and more, for [only] death will separate us.”

This is beautiful and romantic.  It has been used, wrongfully, in marriage ceremonies for ages.   Why wrongfully?  Because historically, marriage ceremonies have been held between a man and a woman.  So how is this used wrongfully?  Because the speaker of these words is female, and we know from the verbs that the audience for them is also female.  Ruth says this to Naomi, the mother of her now-deceased husband.   This is the first recorded contract between women.

The book of Ruth is female-centric to a degree that is exceptional in the canon.  The story starts out in a very recognizable, traditional manner:  we are given the time:  the time of the judges.  We are told the place:  Moab.  We are told that  the story is about a family:  Elimelech , a man from Bethlehem, and Naomi his wife.  They have two sons Mahlon and Chilion, and two daughters-in-law Orpah and Ruth.

Then the narrative changes: Elimelech dies.  Naomi has completed her contract to provide his family with heirs.   Then both sons die.  Orpah and Ruth have not completed their contracts, and since she is also without the man to whom she was contracted, Naomi cannot provide them with other sons so they can complete their contracts.  Naomi decides to return to Judah because she has heard that G-d provides for the people there. 

Naomi tells her brides (כלתיה) to return to their mothers’ house (בת אמה) rather than to their fathers’ house.  By itself, it is exceptional that she instructs them to return to the house of their mother, rather than to their fathers’ house (for contrast, see Tamar/Judah).

Orpah agrees and leaves.  Ruth refuses, saying “Al tifg’I vi leazvekh leshuv me’acharai’ikh.  Ki el asher telkhi elekh.  Uvasher talini, alin.  Amekh ami.  V’eloha’ikh elohay.   Ba’asher tamuti amut.  Ko ya’aseh YHWH li, v’ko yosif ki hamavet yafrid bene uvenekh.  Do not urge me to leave, to turn from following you.  Where you go, I will go.  Where you stay, I will stay.  Your people are my people.  Your god is my god.  Where you die, I will die.  God will do this for me, this and more, for [only] death will separate us.’” 

Ruth constructs a viable contract-for-life with another woman:  Naomi.

Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem, Elimelech’s hometown.  Naomi hears about Boaz, a man of the family of her dead husband.  She tells Ruth to go out into the field near him, he may be favorably disposed towards Ruth because of her connection to his kinsman.

Ruth goes into the field, where she meets Boaz, the kinsman of her dead husband’s father.  Boaz tells Ruth he has heard of her and commands his male servants to look after her and make sure they leave something for her to recover to eat. (in contrast with the Levite of Judges 19, who throws his concubine out into the mob, and dismembers her after the mob has satisfied itself in abusing her).

Naomi tells Ruth that she should go to the threshing room and put herself under Boaz’s protection (so to speak).  Ruth goes, finds Boaz, and settles in with him.  He wakes, finds her and tells her that while he is indeed kin to her dead husband’s father, there is someone who is closer kin than he.  He tells her that if the nearer kinsman does not assume his obligation to complete Ruth’s contract, he himself will do it.  In the morning, he gives her food and sends her back to Naomi.

Boaz finds the nearer kinsman, and in front of a minyan (10 men of the city) tells him that Naomi is selling the land of her dead husband, and as close kin, the kinsman has the option to buy it.  The kinsman agrees to buy the land from Naomi.  Boaz tells him that Ruth is included in the sale of the land, and that in acquiring her, the kinsman would be producing heirs for Ruth’s dead husband, rather than for himself.  The kinsman refuses the deal, saying it could harm his own inheritance.  He gives the option to Boaz, who accepts, and acquires Ruth and the land.

The contract Boaz enters into is not, strictly speaking, a Levirate marriage:  he is not a brother who is assuming the contract of his deceased brother.  However, it is a form of Levirate marriage in that by accepting the contract, Boaz is knowingly providing offspring for his dead relative’s line rather than for his own.

The story of Ruth is revolutionary:  Naomi, whose husband and sons have died, instructs the women with whom her husband made contracts for progeny that they should return to their mothers’ houses.  One of those women refuses and constructs a viable contract-for-life with her.  She arranges for that woman to be acquired by a kinsman of her dead husband’s so that woman can complete the contract, initially constructed by the males of the family, to provide heirs for the male’s family.   She does this to safeguard the future of a woman who was “foreign.”  Thus, while the contract constructed between men for the preservation of the male line is kept, the contract-for-life, created by the women, to stay together until death, is also preserved.