Marriage and sexuality in Pearl Abraham's the Romance Reader and Hush by Judy Brown

Abstract

This article examines two authors' perspectives on marriage and sexuality in Hasidic Judaism through the leading female characters in their semi-autobiographical novels: The Romance Reader by Pearl Abraham and Hush by Judy Brown. Each novel features an adolescent woman on her path to marriage and their experience of matrimony and sexuality within their respective Hasidic communities. The aim of the article is to analyse and compare their views in order to gain a better understanding of the female experience of sexuality and marriage within contemporary Hasidic Judaism. Furthermore, this article discusses the treatment of sexual abuse within a particular Hasidic group. It employs a methodology of close reading combined with a discussion of Talmudic, theological, sociological and ethnographic commentaries on the subject.