Marriage might be a highly contested topic, but certainly no more than it was in antiquity. This book offers the study of Jewish marriage in antiquity, from ca 500 BCE to 614 CE. Placing Jewish marriage in its cultural milieu, it investigates whether there was anything essentially "Jewish" about the institution as it was discussed and practiced. "[An] illuminating and comprehensive book. . . . The difficult questions of Jewish marriage today, such as a concern over Jews marrying non-Jews and the changing definitions of who constitutes a married couple, may not actually have many new elements. Judaism of the past and present has always been in conversation with its host society about such fluid matters."---Tawny L. Holm, Bryn Mawr Classical Review