In Marriage and Metaphor, Gail Labovitz explores gender relations in marriage within rabbinic culture. Labovitz shows how rabbis use the concepts of property and ownership to discuss the roles of a husband and wife, thereby modeling marriage after a business transaction-one in which the wife is seen as an acquisition owned by and subject to the husband. This ownership metaphor is clearly present in all strata of rabbinic literature and the book explores how it continues to guide rabbinic thinking, serve as a tool for legal reasoning, and produce new linguistic applications. With a close and careful reading of rabbinic texts, Labovitz applies metaphor theory and feminist linguistics to demonstrate the ways in which rabbis regularly use information from the realm of property and commercial transactions to structure their understanding of marriage and gender relations. Labovitz examines the qualities deemed "masculine" and "feminine," seeking out the methods used by members of rabbinic culture to promote, contest, legislate, and exemplify the ideas and ideals associated with proper, normative gender roles. What comes of this is a striking work of feminist scholarship that should be read by those interested in gender studies and Jewish culture and history.

"Labovitz advances the project to a new level, revealing, through her readings, false dichotomies in our thought processes themselves." - Rethinking Jewish Weddings

"Labovitz’s close textual analyses emerge from the intersection of linguistic theory and Jewish studies....Labovitz advances the project to a new level, revealing, through her readings, false dichotomies in our thought processes themselves." - Sh'ma, A Journal Of Jewish Responsibility

"In Marriage and Metaphor, Gail Labovitz provides an illuminating analysis of the metaphors that structure and shape rabbinic conceptions of marriage. She draws on the cognitive metaphor theory of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, who understand metaphor as the primary means through which humans reason and imagine. Metaphors profoundly structure ourlives, shaping and constraining our knowledge and imaginations. Accordingly, Labovitz argues that metaphors do not simply convey rabbinic ideas about gender, but that they serve as the central means through which a culture's gender system is made. She probes the implications of the dominant rabbinic metaphor of marriage as an act of acquisition and demonstrates the stark disparities of power and agency these metaphors encode. ...Labovitz makes visible the deep significance of ownership paradigms in rabbinic thought, illuminating how profoundly the cognitive framework of marriage as acquisition structures rabbinic gender relations. Labovitz makes a convincing argument that these power differentials cannot be defanged by professing that rabbinic marriage is 'not really' an act of acquisition or that the rituals of marriage are 'merely symbolic.' The metaphors of marriage have a powerful and pervasive reach. Amidst her recognition that paradigms of acquisition characterized her own wedding ceremony and those of many contemporary Jews, Labovitz closes with a moving acknowledgment of her own unsettled questions—and invites further reflection on the metaphors by which we marry." - Conservative Judaism