The Red Tent

The strength and influence of bonds between women pervade The Red Tent. Networks of women are formed away from the public eye and world of men. These bonds are powerful, nurturing and sustaining. However, they can also be fraught with competition. In the opening chapters, bonds between women are introduced as stories passed on from woman to woman. These stories of women’s experiences hold little value for men and are thus unrecorded by history. They are, instead, oral narratives that convey specific wisdom for younger women. Feasts, like that between Jacob and Esau’s families and that in Mamre, provide opportunities for preserving cultural histories. Bilhah’s legend of Uttu and Enhenduanna serves an additional, practical function, by helping Dinah learn spinning—an important part of domestic labor. The sense of being protected by goddesses helps the female characters feel safe in their separate world, one symbolized by the red tent—the color of blood, sacrifice, and passion.

Blood does not always indicate strong or loving relationships. Leah and Rachel’s jealousy demonstrates the competition that can result when women vie for status and influence within a household. Dinah describes them as achieving an uneasy peace: “They did not work together or consult with each other. They did not sit next to each other in the red tent, or address each other directly. And they were never in their husband’s presence at the same time” (91). However, Leah and Rachel support each other when needed. Leah nurses Rachel’s son Joseph when Rachel cannot, and Rachel pushes Jacob to accept Hamor’s bride-price for Leah’s daughter Dinah. Rachel also assists Dinah in her Opening ceremony, and teaches her midwifery. Though Jacob’s four wives have different claims on him, they work together to fulfill household tasks like raising their children.

By contrast, other female characters demonstrate the distress that comes with a lack of support system. Ruti, an enslaved woman abused by Laban, is only helped by the sisters when she begs. The sisters’ daughters-in-law do not always subscribe to their rituals, and though Rebecca’s shrine at Mamre is staffed by women, it is not a nurturing place. Rebecca rejects Tabea’s wish to become a priestess because she did not follow the rituals of the red tent, and Dinah believes her grandmother takes pleasure in her power over others. Werenro finds her service to Rebecca confining and takes an opportunity to escape.

Dinah’s experience as a midwife is the best example of the nurturing bonds between women. In this risky profession, women depend on other women for the survival of themselves and their infants. After she leaves her birth family, Dinah finds solace in other women. Though she is never accepted as an equal by would-be mother-in-law Re-nefer, she forms a close bond with fellow midwife Meryt. Meryt regards Dinah as a daughter, and though Dinah does not have a daughter of her own, she nurtures Meryt’s daughters and granddaughters. More than blood, the women’s shared values and need for survival bring them together.