Historical Question On Women During Time of Christ

[footballfanatic]

In the time of Christ, did single Jewish women (or married Jewish women) work outside the home to earn income?

For example, would a Jewish woman or wife have worked at a shop or with a merchant to clean, organize, or anything else as a way of earning income for herself or family? Would she have been allowed to?

 

[Sketcher]

Proverbs 31 indicates that as a positive trait of a woman (who is *also* taking good care of her home) though the time of Christ was hundreds of years later.

 

[footballfanatic]

Proverbs 31 indicates that as a positive trait of a woman (who is *also* taking good care of her home) though the time of Christ was hundreds of years later.

Right, I know that passage exists and this isn't a women's rights or gender roles question. I'm just wondering if women actually did work outside of the home, perhaps in merchant shops or something like that - if women had jobs then (time of Christ) historically or not.

 

[Paidiske]

In some ways, your question is a bit anachronistic. In that time, most people worked in their homes (Joseph's carpentry workshop and sales space would have been in the family home, for example). If someone worked for someone else, that typically also meant being housed where they worked. That is, the idea of going out of the home to work for the day before returning home is something that mostly happened later (post-industrial revolution).

A woman might have had a stall in the market place which was outside the home, though.

 

[Tolworth John]

If one wants an idea of what life was like for people in biblical times, look at any rural third world village and how the people live.
Children would fetch water, find fire wood, help here/attend to any animals.
Grain would be ground daily, ( daily grind! ) To make flour for bread, bread would be kneeded etc vegetables prepared and cooked. Wool/fleeces prepared, washed, carded then spun into woollen thread, cloth weaved, washed and streched. Any fat from what meat they are would be kept, refined to use as a lubricant, for cooking and making candles.
In addition time for children to attend the religious school.

In there copious spare time they would attend the market and sell what ever surplus crops they had.

This is just the woman's activity.

 

[footballfanatic]

I get what is possible and the general idea of what life would have been like. But I'm writing something and wanted true historical data as a basis for one of the characters. I'm trying to figure if a non-married woman would have worked outside of her home for a merchant or something like that.

 

[Paidiske]

She might have worked for a wealthy person, but then typically would have lived in that person's household. Remember that this is a society where about one third of the population were slaves.

 

[The Liturgist]

In some ways, your question is a bit anachronistic. In that time, most people worked in their homes (Joseph's carpentry workshop and sales space would have been in the family home, for example). If someone worked for someone else, that typically also meant being housed where they worked. That is, the idea of going out of the home to work for the day before returning home is something that mostly happened later (post-industrial revolution).

A woman might have had a stall in the market place which was outside the home, though.

Interestingly, however, there was more centralization of industrial facilities in the Roman Empire than Medieval Europe as I am sure you are aware. The Romans even had trademarks and advertisements. Fortis was a popular brand of pottery, and there is in Pompeii a fresco advertising the classic Roman condiment “From the house of the Garum Merchant...” and then it gives his name, which I forget. I have a book on the history of trademarks as part of my collection on graphics design, which unfortunately I cannot find at the moment...