Whatever the solution to that structural contradiction, this dissenting tradition of what Rav had said is identified as definitive, in marked contrast to the drift of the entire discourse up until this point, which had been strongly oriented toward the responsibility of the husband to satisfy his wife regularly. Without, of course, suggesting that Rav Ada's tradition is fabricated, it is nevertheless remarkable that this tradition became accepted as authoritative in spite of the fact that it contradicts the Mishna and contradicts another tradition of Rav's own view.
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The Palestinian Talmud, on the other hand, knows of no such "qualification" of the Mishna's position, and the law there is established that the husband may not leave home without permission for more than thirty days.
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The Babylonian Talmud's report of Rava's declaration"our Rabbis have relied upon Rav Ada, the son of Ahva and indeed practice according to his view"constitutes evidence for a change in social practice that is associated by the tradition with Rava, that is, with the leading Babylonian rabbinic authority of the fourth century, though to be sure, such attribution is not necessarily to be taken literally. It would seem, however, that the attempt to institute this change in marriage practice met with substantial opposition in spite of Rava's hegemonic prestige. The talmudic text, at the same time that it is ostensibly recording the support for this innovation, reveals sharp dissension from it. These oppositional voices encoded within the text, I suggest, are intimations of the social conflict outside the text.
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Contestation in the Texts
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Conflict within Babylonia: Covert Contestation
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The Talmud proceeds to cite a story, which, while overtly claiming to be a precedent for the practice of the "Rabbis" who stay away from their
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(footnote continued from the previous page)
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 | | lot, a woman feels desire and erotic passion more often than once a week. Therefore, her husband is obligated in this respect.
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| | (Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, cited in Rachel Biale 1984, 134)
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| | What is fascinating about this text is that despite manifesting no open recognition of the fact that male sexual needs may have changed owing to the promiscuity of the generation, it provides, in line with classical rabbinic practice, not for greater sexual abstemiousness but for more frequent sexual satisfaction for everyone, in the disguise of the obligation of men toward women.
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| | 23. It further contradicts the statement above in the names of both Rav and Rabbi Yohanan to the effect that
even with permission a man should not stay away from home
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(footnote continued on the next page)
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