Rabbinic Ruling relating to Yemenite Jewish women.

(WOMEN).

25th Menachem Av

Jerusalem

1902

Calligraphic Hebrew manuscript on paper, with signatures and stamps of Chief Rabbi Jacob Saul Eliashar, and members of the Sephardic Beth Din: Yoseph Nissim Burla, Shmuel Nissim and Chanoch Angil; and the Aschkenazic Beth Din: Chaim Ya’akov of Kovno and Shaul Elchanan ben Har”a.

A Psak-Din stating that Yemenite women may only be employed as maidservants upon the permission of their husbands. Furthermore, they may not marry before the age of twelve and Yemenite families are prohibited from selling their young daughters to older men. This ruling was enacted due to the extreme poverty prevalent among the Yemenite Jews of Jerusalem. Those women employed as domestic staff chose to permanently reside at the home of their employers, not wishing to return to a home-life wherein their husbands had almost nothing to provide in regard to food and basic needs. The rabbis were concerned that broken marriages would inevitably result unless they stepped in to regulate community norms.