harlot

Media: Found Objects Wall Sculpture
Dimensions: 12" long
Date of Work: 05/04

The story of Tamar is from the Hebrew Bible.

As story goes, Tamar was a beautiful woman. She was also a bold woman.
She broke a lot of the rules for Israelite women. She often didn't wear her
veil, and she spoke out loud in front of men. But Tamar did forego the religion
of her people and embraced the religion of her husband. And as an Israelite wife,
she was required to have a son in order to maintain her place in society. This was
the plight of women in biblical times. A woman was defined by her ability to produce
children, and a childless woman was seen as someone cursed by God. However, her
husband died before she could.

Her responsibility, then, was to produce a child from one of her husband's brothers.
They were not willing, so she was faced with being put to death by her tribe. So, in
an act of self-sacrifice, she disguised herself as a harlot, and waiting along the
roadside for one of her ex-husband's brothers to come along. She disguised herself
and seduced him, and thereby produced two sons (twins) and saved her own life.

The story of Tamar allows us to glimpse the deadly peril that confronted women of
the biblical era who did not submit to the mastery of a male. Above all, Tamar is a
woman whose will was so strong, and whose passion burned so bright, that she wrote
herself into history by breaking the moral code of her time.