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1.10 Older Studies of Hebrew Marriage.
This covers is very general terms the fairly small range of studies on ancient Hebrew marriage and family. Further details are discussed in later thematic/exegetical chapters in later chapters. Works with a false social evolutionism are pointed out. Some works have a devotional or semi-devotional intent (although those which are clearly church guidance texts rather than serious study have already been weeded out). Since this was written in the 1970s, feminist analyses have emerged. Phyllis Trible's Texts of Terror; Athalya Brenner's The Israelite Woman and the Feminist Companion series she edited. Lastly, Richard M Davidson's  Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament (2007) is scholarly but semi-devotional, coming from a standpoint of the Bible's divine inspiration. I don't hold with this view, being neither Jew or Christian: I view the OT as an historical cultural text.
The chapter ends with the hope that social anthropology will become a useful analytical perspective for biblical study. Since then, the validity of anthrological fieldwork itself has been challenged, as colonial, Eurocentric, and too engrossed in academic posturing (so John van Maanan's Tales of the Field (1988 and 2011). This means that the so-called objective observer does not necessary see what is before them or understand underlying features, especially when the language is strange to them. If reality for them is 'through a glass darkly', it is no different for a biblical scholar. The final writers had a theological-political agenda, and reporting this is important. Analysis will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their position, critically. By devotional, I mean the modern writer accepts this view unchallenged, as inspired scripture. The official biblical stance is likely to be patriarchal and authoritarian.
Modern anthropology asks questions of society which are relevant for us to ask of the Bible. The experienced anthropologist Mary Douglas (1921-2007) asked some sharp questions, first of all on 'holiness' (Purity and Danger, 1966). Her later studies of the Torah will remain of interest. Since this was a major aim of the thesis, I will return to it in a concluding post.