Sarah, the first matriarch of Genesis: A hermeneutic exploration of her legend and its impact on the vocation of wife

The stories surrounding the woman whom legend names as the wife of the Hebrew Patriarch Abraham and the mother of God's Chosen People are here re-examined and explored with the intent of gaining insight into how her stories, as interpreted and promulgated by a patriarchal society, have directly affected Western culture's attitude towards women, not only in the past but also up to the present day.; Several different post-modern techniques are used to assess how and in what manner and to what degree Sarah's myth has subtly---and sometimes not so subtly--influenced our view of what it is to be a wife. An analogical approach is employed to encapsulate in iconic form the concept of a perfect wife, thus precipitating the image of Sarah as model.; The legend of Sarah is explored through Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic sacred scriptures, Jewish Midrashim, Near-Eastern and Egyptian texts, and other ancient historical accounts. The exploration proceeds through history, extracting accounts of the continuation of the Sarah myth from the Kabbalah of the Middle Ages, and traces the legend's effect on the treatment of women from ancient times and into the emergence of feminist consciousness during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.; This dissertation does not claim that the sole reason for the subjugation of women throughout history is due only to the effect of the Sarah myth or other biblical tales; however, it is difficult not to recognize the subtle impact Sarah's oft-told tale has had on the development of Western laws affecting marriage, civil rights, and property rights, as well as society's on-going attitudes and behaviors towards women.