Love, Sex and Marriage in the Jewish Magic of Late Antiquity and the Early Islamic Period

This article attempts to characterize Jewish magic activity pursued for the sake of "love" during Late Antiquity and the early Islamic period. It relies largely on the magic sources themselves - incantation bowls, amulets and magic recipes, dating from the 5th to the 13th centuries. My focus is on three main aspects that Jewish love magic offered assistance with: gaining love; creating, preserving and restoring marriage; and achieving sexual intercourse. I address the presence of aggression and violence in "love" magic and argue that Jewish love magic was highly focused on marital relationships. However, this interest was only one trend in the coercive practices employed by both sexes, where the term "love" covers a broad spectrum of wishes and desires, ranging from affection to sexual hedonism. Non-magic Jewish sources and non-Jewish magic sources are considered as a basis for both intra- and intercultural comparison.