Imagine it is the year 209 C.E. You are a disciple in a rabbinic circle located in a city in Palestine. Your rabbinic mentor invites you to a banquet that he is hosting in celebration of his son’s wedding. Do you bring your wife?
In essence, this is the question that I seek to answer in this essay. Were women present at such commensal encounters? And, if so, were they reclining? In the process of asking this question, we learn about early rabbinic (or tannaitic) concepts of corporality because, as is also the case in ancient discussions of dining posture in the larger Greek and Roman milieu, to talk about women at the table is to talk about the issues associated with female bodies: sex, power, procreation, etc. Throughout, I continually ask the question: with regard to women at the table, were the Tannaim inclined to decline reclining?