Matrimonio y herencia en el Antiguo Testamento

Abstract

The Old Testament tells the story of several groups of nomadic pastoralists —connected among themselves by kin ties, and all of them having a monotheistic religion— who arrive in a territory where they settle. This territory, however, is both disputed by, and shared among, other peoples, and this situation breeds acculturation and syncretism. Nevertheless, despite the ensuing changes in livelihood, the pastoralists' beliefs and sociocultural structure were barely altered or transformed by the foreign influences. In the present paper I intend to show how the family type and the marriage strategies, both underwritten and sanctioned by the monotheistic religion, were the key factors of the resilience of those beliefs and the socio-cultural structure.