Back to the breast: an aspect of feminine sexuality in the imagined world of the sages -- 2. Desire and dominion -- 3. "They let the children live": the midwives at a political crossroads -- 4. Judith, wife of R. Hiyya: a story of women's pain -- 5. The voice of doubt: the wife of R. Simeon ben Halafta and the uncanny -- 6. Open to conquest: prostitution, temptations and responses -- 7. Myth in the attic: the call of the deep -- 8. The creation of woman: men are from Babylon; women are from the land of Israel