Audrey Shore

Feminist Readings in 1 Kings

Professor Diane Sharon

Gendered Conversation in 1 Kings 3:16-28

    Power and gender are unquestionably related. Dangerous societal bedfellows, this pair becomes more volatile when accompanied by the endless possibilities of language. That “language uses us as much as we use language” expresses one concern of linguistic scholars analyzing conversation from a feminist perspective: while our conversations are frequently gendered without conscious effort, ulterior motives in speech do exist to assert differences in roles, including that of “one type of inequity that has been claimed to exist in our society: that between the roles of men and women.” (Lakoff, 3-4)

    One of the most famous narratives in the Bible – of King Solomon suggesting to slice a child in half, ultimately to determine its true mother – displays gendered language and speech prominently. Were it to be summarized broadly or only skimmed over, 1 Kings 3:16-28 would risk appearing as the tale of a liberal king, willing to receive even his poorest subjects in court, dispensing advice utilizing a brilliant albeit potentially disastrous method. Closer reading reveals our narrator and our sole male speaker – King Solomon – working in concert to subvert the plight of the main characters before they’re even allowed to make their cases.

    First we meet the story’s key players in an introduction marked by the narrator’s judgement. Our narrator does not refer to “two mothers” who will come before a king seeking help, thus choosing to describe the characters in relation to the issue at hand. Our narrator also opts not for an easy choice – simply addressing them as “two females” – another alternative making a judgement-free statement. Instead our narrator bows to patriarchal society by immediately pigeonholing these characters with an occupational label and they are introduced as “two prostitutes." Such categorization forces the reader to envision “tolerated, but dishonored member[s] of society” as harlots are caught in the middle of being “both desired and despised, sought after and shunned.” With “highly selective and purposeful use of language” our narrator allows for “a picture [to be] called up in the reader’s mind and a range of meanings, attitudes, and associations on which the narrator may draw in constructing or relating the story” (Bird, 119-120) to come into play. Prostitutes are women “whose sexuality is uncontrolled by either father or husband” and thus “represents a threat to the very fabric of society” by overturning social norms. (Camp, 106) By painting these women in such a light – at best as sex workers, at worst as societal deviants – later projecting maternal feelings or rights onto them will be an uphill battle.

    The first woman confirms the narrator’s assessment of their lifestyle as she says and then repeats that the female pair resides together but independently, sans familial males, and remains without male guardianship even at the time of their respective deliveries (3:18). She tells the king of the horror of awakening to find a dead child at her breast, and then of her shock upon discovering that her living child had been stolen and replaced with her housemate’s dead baby (3:21). The two women argue regarding the identity of the deceitful mother, each swearing the other as the culprit (3:22) and promising her child to be the living boy.

    Solomon’s entrance into the story is casual, as he reiterates the desperate and disparate pleas of the two women, referring to them as “one” and “the other” (JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot compares this story (contained in the haftarah for Mikketz, beginning at page 71) with two Deuteronomic civil cases, 21:18-21 and 22:13-19. In both stories characters are described further than "one" or "the other.") as opposed to “one mother” or “one woman.” Legal protocol in other Biblical narratives, while not providing personal names, does offer as specific descriptions of the supplicants or claimants as either their relative place in the family or their gender, in which case either “mother” or “woman” would be more appropriate than “one” and “the other.” One explanation for these simplistic labels is that Solomon recognizes the low stature of these women and is showing that, regardless of the specific identity of the people in his kingdom, he is willing to assist them in solving problems, as a dedicated leader. Another option, however, is that these unspecific labels are a deliberate means to show the way in which Solomon is “positioning [his] addressees, those to whom [he is] speaking” as subordinate; by making them as non-unique as possible he is able to “express social distance” between his high position and their low rank, thus both empowering himself and lowering them in the conversation. (Eckert, 161) Solomon then requests that a sword (Judy Cornelia Pearson, Richard L. West, and Lynn H. Turner note in Gender and Communication (Dubuque, Iowa: Brown and Benchmark Publishers, 1995), following the concept of sociologist Hugh Duncan, that "hierarchy is expressed through the symbolization of superiority." (My italics; see page 109.) "Sword" is repeated, and one way of viewing this interaction is that the sword is a phallic symbol; presented to the king, the sword – and the fulfilled demand of the sword being readily supplied to the king – represents the power of King Solomon over the unnamed women. Constant reassertion to power never called into question is a recurring and strange aspect of this pericope.) be brought to him (3:24), soon revealing its purpose will be to divide the child between the two women.

    Our first speaker, who implores the king to spare the life of the child, is never addressed as an individual. This nameless female, described earlier by her occupation (one of “two prostitutes”) and also by her gender (“the woman”), is finally defined by the king in terms of her relationship to the child, as “its mother.” The king offers her this status only after “she is overcome with compassion for her son” (3:26) and even then she is only validated through her relationship to her son. Her initial statements do not warrant the narrator dubbing her “mother” but instead the king must give her rights to a child in order to be labeled as such. King Solomon doesn’t grant her this status until she openly, outwardly expresses unrestrained emotion, thereby proving her maternal claims to him. (In Phyllis Trible’s God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978) Dr. Trible points out that, although not etmylogically sound, an interesting "semantic correspondence" can be seen between the Hebrew words for "compassion" and "womb" as if to say that "‘womb’ is the vehicle and ‘compassion’ the tenor." See page 33, and page 56 note 4.) Portrayal of the two women as mothers as opposed to harlots offers a stark dichotomy; prostitutes, known for “their reputation for lying and self-interest” (Bird, 133) and not for selfless motherly natures, would have been bad candidates for standard issue interrogation and Solomon depends on this, just as he simultaneously relies on the idea of said motherly instincts activating themselves in order to adequately solve the problem at hand. Solomon banks on “maternal thinking [arising] out of child-caring practices” (Ruddick, 76) and assumes that one woman will sacrifice her own happiness – antithetical to the nature of a harlot – and even the concept of what is just, to benefit the child. Solomon’s wisdom, then, arises not in choosing upon which mother to bestow the child, but instead in finding a tactic that would call into play the different roles of the women, both of which he and the narrator expose using carefully crafted gendered language.

    Our pericope is linked through “vocabulary, theme, and structure” to the ordeal of the adultery between David and Bat Sheva, resulting in the birth of Solomon. The aforementioned couple’s first child died with a curse placed on David’s line; here Solomon is showing that “the foolish father is redeemed in the wise son” (Camp, 107) as although his father’s actions resulted in the untimely death of a son, Solomon judges in such a way to save the life of a child. Held down by their stature and gender, the two women in 1 Kings 3:16-28 offer an opportunity for King Solomon to display his power and wisdom. He is approached by two mothers in a painful quandary; he responds instead, however, to two harlots who, had one of them not outwardly expressed a motherly concern, would have both been rendered childless.

Works Cited

Bird, Phyllis A. “The Harlot As Heroine: Narrative Art and Social Presupposition in Three Old Testament Texts.” Semia 46.01 (2001): 119-139.

Camp, Claudia V. “1 and 2 Kings.” Women’s Bible Commentary. Editors Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.

Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002.

JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003.

Lakoff, Robin. Language and the Woman's Place. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1975.

Ruddick, Sara. “Maternal Thinking.” Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics. Editor Judith Lorber. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company, 1998.