The Red Tent by Anita Diamant: Matriarchy and Dinah's Story

Introduction: The Red Tent and Its World

Anita Diamant's novel The Red Tent (1997) is her interpretation of the activities that took place in the red tent, where the Canaanite wives of the first patriarchs dwelt and celebrated the facets of womanhood — including menstruation and childbirth. There, they were shielded from their men's outside affairs and cares. These patriarchs were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the wives were Sara, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, and their maids Zilpah and Bilhah. The novel assumes that these women were priestesses of goddess-worshipping tribes of the Canaan region who practiced and perpetuated rituals, traditions, and customs until they were lost through Dinah — their only daughter — following her violation by an Amorite and the subsequent murder of the Amorites by two of her twelve brothers (Diamant).

The novel is told from the first-person viewpoint of Dinah, the only daughter and last child of Jacob and Leah, and the last in the maternal line that should have sustained her mothers' goddess worship (Day 2003). She narrates the occurrences inside the tent where the women in her father's family connect and relate — though not always in harmony — as well as her experience of rape by Shechem, his pursuit of her in marriage, the negotiations that followed, her brothers' violent murder of the Amorites, and the inequality of her world. Diamant innovates by depicting Dinah as falling in love with Shechem and suggesting that her brothers are driven by envy over the costly terms of the betrothal. This rupture permanently alienates Dinah from her maternal line, and goddess worship gives way to patriarchy (Day).

In those times, woman was regarded as the source of being, and this power was rooted in the land and celebrated through matriarchal traditions and rites, despite warnings from prophets and preachers. It is argued that Sara was the chief priestess of the goddess culture, and that it was precisely through feminine power — and through the relationships forged by these powerful women in their shared space, the red tent — that Yahweh gradually established His patriarchal religion (Day 2003).

Genesis 34 and the Story of Dinah

The novel draws from Genesis 34, which tells the story of Dinah, who goes out one day to make friends with other young women in the land and to explore the outside world (American Bible Society 1982). Shechem, prince of the country and son of Hamor the Hivite, takes a fancy to her, pursues her, and rapes her. At the time, Jacob's family maintains commercial ties with the Hivites, or Amorites, and these ties connect the family to the ways of those not chosen by God. Dinah's search for friendship in their world ends in a shameful encounter instead (Day 2003). Nevertheless, Shechem becomes deeply attracted to her, speaking to her with kindness and then asking his father to approach Jacob about marrying Dinah (American Bible Society 1982).

Jacob learns of the misdeed but remains quiet and waits for his sons to return from the field where they tend his cattle. When Hamor comes to see Jacob, Jacob's sons arrive home as well, furious that their sister has been violated. Hamor, however, is a practiced negotiator. He tactfully asks for Dinah's hand on behalf of his son and also offers his daughters in marriage to Jacob's sons, proposing that they remain in the land of the Amorites and prosper there. Shechem expresses willingness to pay any amount of dowry, provided that Jacob and his sons agree to the marriage. Jacob's sons, acting deceitfully, say they will agree only if all male Amorites are circumcised; otherwise, they will simply take Dinah and leave. Should the Amorites comply, Jacob's sons promise not only to give their daughters in marriage but also to take Amorite women as wives. Hamor and Shechem accept these terms without hesitation, since Shechem not only feels deeply for Dinah but is also considered the most honorable man in the region (American Bible Society 1982).

Hamor and Shechem then convince the other Amorite men that it will be to their benefit to allow Jacob's family to settle in their land, which is large and prosperous enough to accommodate them all. They present the condition of circumcision, the men agree, and they leave the gates of their city at Jacob's sons' disposal (American Bible Society 1982).

Jacob's Family, Deception, and the Amorites

Jacob's sons — especially Simeon and Levi — betray the Amorite men by exploiting their weakened condition after circumcision, killing them with swords. They take Dinah and the material possessions of the Amorites and leave the city, making captives of the women, children, and the weakened survivors. Their father, furious and alarmed, scolds his sons for the consequences their actions may have on his reputation and safety, particularly among the Canaanites and Perizzites, who outnumber his family. His sons insist they could not allow the Amorites to treat their sister like a harlot (American Bible Society 1982).

Several observations arise at this point. Jacob and his family belong to the race chosen by God and are not meant to forge close ties with peoples whose ways are ungodly. Shechem's offer of marriage is neither sufficient nor justifiable as a remedy for his crime against Dinah's honor. His reputation as the most honorable man in the region does not shield him from the punishment his crime deserves. Jacob, for his part, should not have cultivated a close or trusting relationship with people like the Amorites from the outset (Day 2003).

It is also evident that Jacob does not make all the major decisions in his family. He defers to his sons on the matter of Dinah and Shechem, and permits them to deal with the Amorites through deceit. He could have addressed the matter directly and discreetly with Hamor, arriving at a marriage as a resolution — though this would have exposed his family to undesirable outside influences. This passivity is not entirely surprising, given Jacob's earlier deceitful dealings with his twin brother Esau and his uncle Laban (Day 2003).

The central issue is the crime of rape and dishonor. Yet Jacob and his sons each harbor considerations they do not honestly present. As Diamant suggests, Dinah's brothers murder the Amorites out of jealousy and treachery rather than genuine desire to avenge their sister's dishonor. Jacob, meanwhile, is preoccupied with what conflict with the Amorites will mean for his businesses, possessions, reputation, and security. He abandons his responsibility to make righteous decisions for his family and blames his sons' criminal behavior for the wrong reasons. Equally problematic is the sons' use of circumcision as a political condition for forming intimate ties with outsiders — salvation cannot be arranged among men but comes only through personal repentance. Jacob and his sons could pave the way for the Amorites to turn from their ways, but the Amorites cannot be enlisted into God's chosen people by human decree (Day 2003).

Shechem may initially appear honorable because of his willingness to correct his misdeed through marriage. But marriage cannot correct a moral offense — it may, in fact, compound it if there is no genuine change of heart in the offender. What he offers Jacob's family is little more than the external formality of a wedding. He remains an unbeliever and is therefore not a fitting mate for a member of Jacob's family (Day 2003).

Jacob's grave errors — deceiving Esau and Laban, maintaining business ties with the Amorites, remaining indifferent to Dinah's dishonor, and failing to check his sons' violence — all stem from his close entanglement with the surrounding world. Yet God used these very mistakes to bring Jacob to a higher level of spiritual encounter and communication (Gail Hudson, as quoted in Day 2003).

Jacob also faces profound family difficulties throughout. He loves only Rachel but is tricked by Laban into marrying Leah first, working fourteen years to finally secure Rachel. As a result, the sisters compete bitterly for his affections, and dissension takes root between them. Dinah observes this competition between her mother, her aunt, and the two concubines in their shared red tent. Leah, though less beautiful than Rachel, is blessed with six sons and a daughter. Rachel, the more beloved wife, has only two sons and dies giving birth to the second (Day 2003).

Diamant addresses the severing of the bond between mothers and daughters through Dinah's voice at the opening of the novel: "We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother and daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote…" (Diamant 1997).

Through Dinah's eyes, the reader encounters the sights and sounds of the tent and the camp — twelve brothers of varying temperaments, rivalry and confusion among four mothers, their periodic distresses, and a mild yet distant patriarchy embodied by Jacob. Dinah collects these observations and stories within herself as the only daughter, the sole carrier of this feminine knowledge. The book is her narration of her four mothers' personalities, menstruation cycles, childbirths, household gods, and feminine secrets that perpetuate the matriarchal lineage. The author writes through Dinah: "Like sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges. They traded secrets like bracelets and these were handed down to me, the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember" (Diamant 1997).

Dinah's recording of these memories and experiences inside the red tent is inevitably colored by Shechem's violation of her. The disgrace becomes part of the total worldview she holds as the last surviving member of the matriarchal chain. Alongside this shock, she must absorb her father's indifference and her brothers' rage and impulsiveness. She must navigate the shattering experience of rape through the responses of those around her. What happens to her determines the survival of feminine power as a source of being.

Conclusion: From Matriarchy to Patriarchy

Anita Diamant's novel details the traditions, rituals, habits, behaviors, secrets, and activities of Israelite women inside the red tent, recorded in the mind and interpreted by Dinah as the last in the matriarchal line to continue the goddess culture. With her violation, her eventual relocation, and her incorporation into the Amorite world, the matriarchal lineage and its traditions are supplanted by a patriarchal order.

The novel ultimately demonstrates that very strong and independent female figures stood behind the emergence of Jewish patriarchy, and that the transition from one order to the other was neither clean nor inevitable. The four matriarchs — Sara, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah — exercised significant power, and their stories, as Diamant imagines them, deserve to be read alongside, rather than simply beneath, the stories of the patriarchs who are more commonly remembered.