Letter to Her Husband

This Judeo-Arabic letter, preserved in the Cairo Geniza, records a message from a wife to her husband who had left on a lengthy trip, likely for business. Although she pines for her husband, she reports that her brother has suggested she request a divorce. Indeed, long business trips were a common cause of divorce, and the wife had some legal rights to initiate a divorce unilaterally. Unfortunately, the document does not preserve the full text of her request. Like most letters from women (and many from men) in the Geniza, this one was probably dictated to a male scribe. Al-Maṣāṣa, mentioned briefly in the text, was a neighborhood in Fustāt (Old Cairo).