Is the woman in the Song of Songs really that free ? 1

The Song of Songs has often been treoJed as a platform for feminist liberationist causes. This study aims to re-examine some feminist ideological readings of the Song of Songs. Although feminist scholars insist thal the female "voice" is very conspicuous in the Song, the male voice is also constantly ''there'' and equaUy strong. Thus, the Song does not celebrate the suprel'lUJCy of either gemUr, but praises mutuality and equality. As analysis of a sample text, 1:2-4, is carried out, using a "newcomer" approach (oJ least to Old Testament studies), namely sociorhetorical criticism. This approach allows an integroJed scientific apPTOllCh to the reading and rereading of texts from various angles. Ideological questions come into focus, such as: What exactly does an ideology involve or imply? Whose ideological reading is the best reading of the text? Is there such a thing as a best reading of a text? Does the Song of Songs itself prescribe a particular ideological reading? FinaUy, applications and principles as derived from the exegetical findings are summarised to encourage a wider readership and use for the Song of Songs.


INTRODUCTION
A new trend in biblical studies is a move away from author-and text-centred readings which presumably exclude readerly interests from the interpretational process. 2 It is now I This article is based on an MA Thesis completed in the Department of Biblical and Religious Studies at the Rand Afrikaans University (supervisor Prof H Viviers).
2 Clines (1990:9-12) describes an author-centered approach as a way of speaking of what the given passage originally meant, using a historical-critical method.while the text-centered approach refers to what the passage currently means by studying the literary features of the work as a whole.Reader-centered approaches flourish on ideological readings such as those that are the focus of this study, with particular reference to feminist hermeneutical perspectives and the resulting praxis.
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the Rejectionist Readers, alleges that the Bible is hopelessly irredeemable from its androcentrism, so that the only option is to construct a world for women by women alone. 6  While androcentric bias within the Hebrew Bible remains a complex issue, some feminist scholars attempt to combine reformist and revisionist stances in their readings to rethink such difficulties.One such scholar is Phyllis Trible, who suggests a counterexegesis that unveils what she calls God's intention in texts.She writes (1987:1): Some studies document the case against wom6n in the Bible evaluating evidence for their inferiority, subordination and abuse.Others explore within scripture itself a counter-literature pertaining to women that stands over and against the dominant patriarchal biases.The creation texts in Genesis 1-3 and the Song of Songs provide such a view as does female imagery for God.
In this study, the Song of Songs is selected to explore whether or not the text specifically downplays a masculine orientation and thus upholds a feminine and feminist voice.Such an interpretation is in line with the ideological ethos that seeks to produce counterreadings, as Adam (1995:54) aptly suggests: Postmodem ideological critics will continue to point out the ways that the dominant social groups' approaches to the Bible produce and reproduce oppressive social relations, but they will also produce counterreadings that rest not upon better research and more objective analysis -thus leaving intact that apparatus with which our dominant culture produces its oppressive readings -6 Mary Daly is the most outspoken of the revolutionary scholars who write against the Judaeo-Christian tradition as being intrinsically biased in favour of males and therefore to be rejected (see Keane 1988:133).Osiek (1985:98) describes the futility of efforts by scholars like Daly, arguing that their major weakness is total rootlessness, cut off from the historical past and from much of the historical and social present.The present study does not examine Rejectionist theories any further since the principal interest of this article remains feminist ideological readings which still employ the Bible as a text and source for the praxis of theology.

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HTS 56(4)2000 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services The stance taken by ideological critics in general translates itself rather aggressively to shape their henneneutical perspectives by challenging "traditional interpretations that claim universality, completeness and supremacy over other interpretations to show that these interpretations are themselves enactments of domination or, in simpler tenns, power plays" (Aichele et aI1995:2).
To verify with some precision what the implications of feminists ideological readings are, this article briefly explores their criticism of traditional readings of the Song, then engages their ideological in"terests in the Song itself, before finally evaluating their exegetical findings on Song of Songs 1 :2-4 from a socio-rhetorical stance.The choice of this pericope merely serves to demonstrate exegetical findings that recur throughout the Song, findings that essentially validate the thesis that: while feminist scholars insist that the female "voice" is very conspicuous in the Song, the male voice is also constantly "there" and equally strong.It is also for this reason that the title of this article was fonnulated as a rhetorical question, implying that the woman is not as free as some readers would want her to be.It is commonly acknowledged that man and woman are "tete-a-tete"/in the Song.Their intimate dialogue throughout confinns this.It has also been noticed that the woman speaks more often than the man.This, however, does not elevate her to a status of total freedom.Her "freedom" is constrained by her relationship with the man of her choice.
7 "Ideology", as Clines (1995: 10) confirms, is a notoriously difficult concept to explicate.Clines himself lists seventeen descriptions of the concept according to what he calls denotations and connotations, although he chooses to operate with only two of these; a relatively coherent set of ideas amounting to a world-view, or outlook on life; a set of ideas special to a particular social class or group.Lochhead (1993:28) offers a very helpful and concise definition; "Ideology refers to the social economic, cultura1 and political dimensions of one's point of view".For the purposes of this article, the concept denotes readerly interests, namely prejudices, presuppositions and concerns that readers bring with them when they approach biblical material.
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CRITICISM OF TRADITIONAL READINGS OF THE SONG OF SONGS
The exegetical questions and debates concerning the Song of Songs are marked by the way in which scholars have presented various theories in an attempt to justify their views one way or another.Many of these scholars are guilty of selecting only elements that support their notions ignoring and excluding any elements that contradict or even demolish their interpretations (Bakon 1994:211).Traditionally, scholars' contentions have centred around three approaches, namely allegorical-typological, cultic-mythological and literary theories (Mazor 1997:1).At present, feminist scholars contend that these (patriarchal) traditional readings neglect the dominant portrait of the woman in the Song, who seems to be both the subject and initiator of all that ensues in the Song.
Feminist approaches suggest the need for a "reader response criticism", that is, a reading strategy described as follows: "This movement holds that the preoccupation with authorial or 'historical meaning' or even 'canonical context' is superfluous, and despite a more mature approach which places the emphasis on 'intersubjectivity' ... any interpretation still begins with the reader" (Elliot 1994: 138).
Placing the emphasis on the reader paves the way for feminist scholars to obtain a hunting ground for emancipatory causes by promoting an ideological reading that focuses primarily on the unusual cultural paradigm suggested by the role that the woman in the Song plays, especially in what is predominantly a patriarchal context.This is an area that needs to be examined more closely.

An allegorical-typological reading of the Song
An allegorical-typological approach, a conventional basis for the canonisation of the Song of Songs, recommends itself to both talmudic sages8 and Christian exegetes of a typological reading of the relationship between God and his people.The allegorical approach developed chiefly to counter a reading of the Song as a purely secular love song among the sacred texts, hence the downplaying of the literal sense of the Song in favour of a hidden meaning.In this regard, Richardson (1994: 135) makes a valid observation: "When the Song of Songs was seen as a depiction of the soul's longing for God, it was relatively straightforward for mystics like Bernard of Clairvaux to preach from it without the embarrassment because they did not have to engage with the plain terminology about the thighs and the breasts.'t9 While such an allegorical reading retains the sympathy among some scholars, the main criticism against susch an approach is that the "Song is in danger of becoming a code to be cracked, a means to an end, for vivid imagery of the Song tends to be subordinated to the general interpretation in the light of which the Song as an imaginative ensemble fades from view" (Munro 1995:12).10However, since the Song operates on aspects of midrash, a concept that encompasses "to ask, to explain, to draw out, to enlarge upon -spaces in the text [which] set the scholars to dreaming and to imagining answers to their own questions" (Rosen 1996:421), these aspects provide much grist for feminist treatment, adding substance to a feminist approach.However, a non-allegorisation of the Song, in its tum, can aid feminist causes in that "where God is not, [it] is as much a function of the reader as it is of the text" (Blumenthal 1995:89), to recall the primacy placed upon the world of the (feminist) reader.
(1994:135-142) suggests a refinement of methods akin to allegory, basing his hypothesis on the fact that naturalistic readings, while faithful to the text, have made applicational questions difficult to resolve.Stadelmann (1993) presents a unique position in that he reads the Song as a tactical stance by the composer to disguise Jewish nationalism from Persian authorities, since the Song is, to him, a post-exilic product addressing unity.However, in most cases where typology is reminiscent in a given biblical passage, the text itself internally prescribes to the reader a move from an analysis of allegory to its application.
Examples of such a stance include Hosea 1-3, Jeremiah 2-3, Isaiah 50:1, 54:4-8 and Ezekiel 16:23.In these instances, the text internally controls the symbolism, thus preempting the reader's subjectivity, and this suggests a tactical stance unlikely in the allegorical reading of the Song of Songs.In addition to that, the cited examples present their material in negative terms, as opposed to the positive relationship presented in the Song.
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A cultic-mythological reading of the Song
The cultic-mythological approach developed out of recent studies of comparative literature for the ancient Near East which postulate that the Song of Songs is actually a commemoration of a sacred marriage of a Canaanite god and goddess whose union restores favourable demographic conditions.II According to this line of thought, the Song in its current form represents a Hebrew adaptation of a text of pagan origin in its literary form, poetic techniques, motifs, themes and eroticism, (one such study is that by Watson The assumption today that all Hebrew love poetry was admitted without further ado from pagan cultures into Israelite religion and automatically into its canon can only be adopted with some reservations (Kinlaw 1991(Kinlaw :1205)).Commonality in the material contained in various texts produced by ancient Near East communities is admittedly evidence of the intercultural exchanges characteristic of that period;12 even so, there seems to be a deliberate absence of cultic language in the Song, perhaps to distinguish it from the love poetry of the ancient Near East.
However, in terms of a feminist agenda, reading the Song from a cultic-mythological perspective allows neglected issues to be examined.There is archeological evidence that certain cultic practices flourished among Israelite women.These women were better informed in low-cult activities than their male counterparts who were inevitably absorbed in high-cult Yahwist interests.Denver (1991 :65) comments: In ancient Israel, the Deuteronomists obviously opposed the cult of Asherah out of Yahwist zeal.In part this was because the religious establishment was exclusively in the hands of males.As feminist scholars in particular have II Pope's conunentary (1977) lends itself strongly to this reading.He focuses on imagery with a particular purpose to find clues that may link his findings with cui tic practices within the ancient world.Sasson (1979:184) presents a different reading, arguing that the constant allusions to Canaanite, Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythologies are in themselves but variant forms of allegory.
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yet it is, for by simply being there for us to read it opens a window for us to experience in some measure what the lovers themselves are experiencing.
The reading strategy outlined above is utilised to promote the conviction that "reading as a (feminist) woman is dedicated to redressing the balance in the traditional comprehension of literary discourse, the world created by the text, and to transporting those realities into a world that the feminist convictions espouse" (Brenner 1993b:21).
The exercise described by Brenner is directly applied to the reading of the Song of Songs which characteristically yields features of particular interest to feminist readers.In effect, natural readings could advance the feminine bias perceived to dominate the Song.In that regard, Brenner insists that the Song displays a female bias in view of the sum total of speech acts assigned to the woman; the constant references to appearance of the daughters of Jerusalem; the preference of the mother's house as opposed to the father's; and the deliberate absence of the fatherly figure in a typical patriarchal context.
To summarize, the criticisms outlined above of traditional readings of the Song of Songs by feminist scholars in some ways promote a female agenda in such interpretations of the Song.Nevertheless, whether the Song is treated in an allegorical-typological, cui tic-mythological or natural manner, important possibilities for feminist readings are neglected."Gaps" in the text tend to be filled by male-biased scholarly solutions.The possible female authorship, the strong female voice throughout, the liberated "female world" ct:eated by the text (as opposed to typical women's roles such as child-rearing, domestic duties, etc) and non-sexism in the Song have not always received deserved attention.The liberated "female world" resulting from a natural reading can, however, be over-emphasized as though men in the world of the poem are totally irrelevant.Such an emphasis has to be reassessed.perhaps at the exclusion of other equally valid critical reading incentives.The question to ask at this point is whether the ideological texture of a text ought to be treated as the sole basis for determining the meaning of a given text.This study adopts a reading strategy that seeks to demonstrate that the ideological texture cannot be treated in isolation, but belongs to a wider scope of textures, namely inner, inter, social and cultural and sacred textures, all of which come into play in the exegetical analysis demonstrated below (Robbins 1996b).

Reading strategy
The choice of Robbins' socio-rhetorical approach is of cardinal importance for this explication of the Song as well as for an evaluation• of some feminist reading strategies.
Robbins' approach represents perhaps the most successful attempt to amalgamate various scientific reading strategies under a single rubric.It focuses on literary, sOcio-cultural and ideological issues in texts as nuances intended to "develop strategies of analysis and interpretations that exhibit the multiple network of meanings and meaning effects that the words in our texts represent, engage, evoke and ignite" (1996a:9).By so doing, the approach brings specialised knowledge into the dialogue and creates a context for generating new insights, new ideas for research and new specialist areas that lead to a new account of textual analysis.
Most (feminist) scholars agree that a close reading of the text ought to be done to allow sufficient attention to be given to the stylistic and rhetorical devices in the Song itself (see Exum 1973:47).The most noticeable feature of the Song is that the narrator's voice is barely detectable.Instead, the textual figures, who are neither introduced nor narrated, control the discourse by presenting their own case(s) (Brenner 1993c:266-7).
For feminist scholars, the starting point to a "true meaning" of the Song should be the recognition that the Song is feminine at heart, the tale of a woman, telling her story, her plight, her yearnings, her strengths and frailty, her oppression and flight to freedom (McMonagle 1995:3).But is that all that we can read in the Song?
Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services It forms a close-knit unit, clearly demarcated from the superscription 1: 1 and the ensuing self-description of the woman in 1 :5-6.But why choose this pericope?It is wellknown that the ancient rhetoricians emphasized the opening words (and the close) of a speaker/ writer as extremely important in the art of persuasion.Not only are first impressions often lasting ones but the listener/reader gets a glimpse into the "heart" (values, convictions, etc) of the orator.It therefore seems worthwhile to pay close attention to the opening words of the woman, so as to grasp something of the "ideology" of the Song right from the start.
Song 1 :2-4 opens with a female speaker who seems to be the initiator of all that ensues.Brenner (l993b:75) even singles out this pericope among others as being so essentially feminine that a man could hardly imitate its tone and texture successfully.
The woman in the Song plays a role that, presumably, provides a paradigm for contemporary women to recover a heritage of feminine prominence and independence.
She utters the longing of her heart, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" (NIV), a wish, one notes, expressed through a commanding voice (Falk 1990:167).But what is it that she commands?
To answer that question, we need to explore the connotation(s) and meaning of the phrase "kisses of his mouth".Robbins' method invites those who apply the method to engage the various textures of reading and rereading the text from various angles, as pointed out earlier.A good way to start, although it is not the only way, is to focus on what is inside the text and then to move to what is outside the text (Robbins 1996b:5).
With regard to the inner texture, which investigates the "relationship among word-phrase 1296HTS 56(4) 2000 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services S S NdogG cI: H VMns and narrational pattern~Jhat produce the argumentative and aesthetic patterns in the text" (Robbins 1996a:46), the first stanza does not contain a predominance of particular words or phrases, nor does the rest of the unit.However, specialised repetition and other rhetorical devices articulate the repetitive-progressive pattern and other complementary sub-textures, to shed some light on the meaning of the text.The narrational pattern (Robbins 1996a:53) obviously resides in the supposedly female speaker who, in her soliloquy, alerts the reader, without delay, to the intimacy she longs for with her lover." The Hebrew concept '+-'~'."let him kiss me" may be onomatopoeic (the use of sound imitation to intensify the imagery), thus lending substance to the bare words by making them sound like the actions they describe (Watson 1984:230).Already we can establish that the discourse pre-empts qualitative arguments, since the reasoning is not necessarily persuasive in function (Robbins 1996b:16).'I1!e kisses that are being sought, \,." n't'~ "with the kisses of his mouth", reflect strong desire, appropriate in view of the tenor of the rest of the Song (Murphy 1990: 127).The concept itself is not instrumental, but partitive, as can be established from the use of the preposition lQ.To capture the resonant passion in that request, the opening phrase should preferably be read, 0 that he would kiss me with kisses of his mouth. 16The actual intent of this request is furnished by the stated reason for his being so desirable -for his love is better than wine.The concept in the plural form, -:1"'7', "your loves", repeated in 1 :4, appears to indicate lovemaking as the actual object of pursuit here, since it renders the idea of caresses.In fact, the participle ~, "for",• has an emphatic function that boosts the intended effect.The adjective £r.I'IeI, "better", repeated in 1:3 with a different subject, further qualifies the desired love in the sense that the kisses are, by far, bener than the pleasure one gets from wine.Incidentally, the association of love and wine is common in the Song (2:4; 4: 10; 5: 1; 7: 10 and 8:2).It " In this study, the designation of the male character as 'lover', or the female as the 'beloved', does not in any way imply the gender stereotypes usually associated with these concepts in their traditional application.
By the same token, some feminist scholars prefer the reverse order which speaks of the woman as the lover and the man as the beloved to go with their ideological articulation of the woman in the Song as the initiator of the relationship, thereby playing a paradigmatic role for contemporary women to emulate.
16 The translation adopted here merely attempts to invest the English equivalent with the passion contained in the Hebrew expression.By so doing, one digresses a little from the Hebrew subject pronoun which means that the line literally reads, Let him lciss me with tM lcisses of his mouth.See also Fox (1985), McMonagle (1995) and Munro (1995), who favour the proposed reading.Note as well that the verb forms and pronominal suffixes shift from third to second person, a grammatical shift characteristic of biblical style (Falk 1990:166).
The second strophe (1:4) reiterates the desire through the consequential imperative 'P~9, "draw me", indicative of the woman's intense emotion and the urgency of the plea she makes: i1~n~, "let us hurry" (NIV).The sudden appearance of TIq."king" sounds out of place.The royal epithet explicitly accorded here is common in the Song (1: 12), a feature that a number of commentators regard as hyperbole or royal fiction.The text "crowns" the admiration the male commonly excites and the coronation alluded to in 1:3 through the description of ointments that befit a royal figure.The female speaker evokes the sensory-aesthetic texture once again.demonstrating that "scents communicate more than the simple words express" (Pilch 1996:248).Whether the ointments she describes are factual or fictitious is immaterial.She knows the scents she describes and rightly associates them with the man she loves.The anticipation also alludes to "sight" in the reminiscence of the respect due to the king.It becomes apparent in subsequent pericopes that the lover is portrayed as other figures who fluctuate specifically in line with the mood depicted.A sense of privacy is sought.since the term "';1:11:], "his chambers" (note the plural form), describes the innermost seclusion of the man's house.
The urgency in 1 :4a may require 1 :4b to be read vocatively, "Bring me into your chambers" (NEB), although most translations prefer the declarative form to actualise the important element of privacy: "The King has brought me to his chambers" (Murphy 1990: 124).A similar impatience is echoed in 8: 1-4.
The shift to the first person plural in 1 :4c-d is probably emblematic of the implied admiration of this man by womenfolk, although the term lc'~'Q (the upright?) is problematic.Stadel mann (1993:24) connects it to 11:J,J~, "they love you".It also occurs at the end of 1 :3, where it is governed by the undefined subject "maidens" to reiterate how satisfactory his "lovemaking" is, thus concluding the pericope as it commenced.
A text does not originate or exist in a vacuum.Even though a lot of "meaning" surfaces when one gets "inside a text" by focusing on inner texture (Robbins 1996b:7), a text also draws "meaning" from the "world" outside.It interacts with intertexts such as objects, oral/scribal texts, customs, values and so on (1996b:40).An intertextural analysis comprises an analysis that appropriates and refigures source, form and redaction criticism in biblical texts (Robbins 1996b:47).For a fuller appreciation of the kisses the woman commands, intertexture is therefore a helpful tool.Fox (1985:97) reminds Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services Is the woman in the Song of Songs really that free?
played the roles of all parties mentioned, including the male roles.Such a hypothesis would satisfactorily explain quite a few aspects of the SoS -the female voices' boldness, the frequent mentioning of the mother's home, the female predominance, the freedom of speech implausible in mixed company.
It would also explain the daring sexual humour attributed to a male voice, through the knowing filter of a woman's perception and dramatisation -like a play within a play, a parody within a parody.
We see in the first place that the woman speaks with a commanding voice to request the man's kisses and to accord him respect by using the royal fiction.In the second place, we are made aware that the kind of kisses she commands at this point would be reserved for an intimate couple.In the third place, we realise that the woman in the Song in her soliloquy projects a dyadic personality and by so doing exalts the man, at least to a position of equality, as the one who satisfies her deepest needs.Thus the Song functions to provide an alternative relationship ideal between the sexes, bearing in mind that the "real world" cultural context was patriarchal.
While the man does not speak at all in the analysed pericope (although he does so subsequently), his voice is assumed via the attention he commands.Given that detail, this study cannot agree with the extremist feminist position that attempts to see the feminine voice as almost exclusive.As Polaski (1997:81) aptly says: "While the female figure is the subject of the Song, this status does not mean that the Song must be heard as liberating for women.Indeed, just the opposite may be true".In this study, the authors support Falk's observation.She (1990:118) dismisses a count of the sum total of speeches as decisive in the matter of power: 1302 The speech of men in the Song, even if limited to fewer modes (and somewhat fewer lines) than that of women, also seems true -that is, not filtered through women's imaginations, but rather authentically self expressive.Indeed I would argue that men's speech in the Song is as authentic as women's, despite or actually, because of -the overwhelming linguistic similarity between the two.The rich, sensual, emotionally expressive, and often playful language of the Song's female and male voices (whether they are speaking directly or HTS 56(4) 2000 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services These words of Falk also neatly confirm the thesis stated at the beginning.The man's voice and presence is just as much part of the Song as the woman's, even though the woman speaks more often and more daringly than expected in a patriarchal culture.
Although the scale tips in favour of the woman in terms of the quantity of speeches in the dialogue between her and the man, this does not imply her full emancipation.She needs the man and he needs her.The Song stresses mutual dependence, not an immature anchorage in each other, but a life-giving "symbiosis" for each to bring out the best in the other.
The Song of Songs clearly has a message directly applicable to our modem context of androcentric realities, in that it attempts to find a balance.The Song is not about power or position.While it rejects patriarchal domination through the strong role that the woman in the Song plays, it equally downplays matrilineal domination.The answer to the rhetorical question of the title of this article, "Is the woman ... really that free?" is clearly a "no!" if freedom is meant to reflect a hunger for power.It is also interesting to note that "male input" is welcome nowadays in some feminist circles, where as this was previously not the case.It is significant to discover in the Song that it is the man who gives meaning and identity to the woman by not subjecting her to the then accepted inferior position of women.These are the kinds of men modem (patriarchal) societies need.Perhaps Payne (1996) got it right by reading the Song of Songs as the Song of woman, the Song of man and the Song of God in harmony.This article suggests that the ideology of the writer of the Song is intended to lead the reader to a similar conclusion.

Works consulted
Adam, A K M 1995.What is Postmodem Biblical Criticism?Minneapolis: Fortress.

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Ndoga & H Vivien indirectly,,to others or to themselves) seems to evidence a non-sexist, nonhierarchical culture -unique in the Bible.