Antje Labahn - Ehud Ben Zvi, «Observations on Women in the Genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9», Vol. 84 (2003) 457-478

These observations address the construction of women and their roles in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9. References to women in these chapters construed them as fulfilling a variety of roles in society, and characterized and identified them in various ways. To be sure, the genealogies reflected and reinforced the main construction of family and family roles in a traditional ancient near eastern society. But, numerous references in these genealogies indicated to the early (and predominantly male) readers of the book that ideologically construed gender expectations may and have been transgressed in the past and with good results. By implication, these references suggested to the readers that gender (and ethnic) boundaries can and even should be transgressed on occasion, with divine blessing, and resulting in divine blessing.

birthings. The genealogies do not provide support for many negative characterizations of women in male discourses of the time and somewhat later periods. Women are not mentioned as whores, temptresses, impurity carriers, as leading men to the worship of other gods, nor are they constructed as essentially "passive"⁶⁴. Genealogies created an ideological world in which women cannot be dismissed, and in which they can become very active.

        To be sure, they also describe women in ways that maintain and reinforce the traditional female roles within the (patriarchal) family and associate them with divine blessing (i.e., progeny). Yet the same genealogies also provided its (male) readers with a substantial number of instances in which women took upon roles traditionally carried out by males. Moreover, these actions were viewed so favorable that they were associated with divine blessing. In sum, on the one hand, as expected, the genealogies reflected, carried and reinforced the main construction of family and family roles in a traditional ancient near eastern society, but on the other it taught its intended and primary readers again and again that gender (and ethnic) boundaries could, were, and by inference can and should be transgressed by the Yehudite community on occasion, with divine blessing, and resulting in divine blessing⁶⁵.

        It is possible that this openness is related somewhat with the "frontier" or "pioneer" conditions in Yehud⁶⁶. To be sure the social structure of Yehud rested on families as the smallest social unit⁶⁷. Given that social framework, the tendency towards group identification in ancient Israel (and most agrarian societies), and the general ideology