Our Gemara on Amud Aleph and Beis, discusses a situation where a woman told her husband that she was a niddah, and then later retracted.  The issue is, can we believe her retraction or must she go through a process of counting and Mikvah as if she really was a niddah.  The basic halakha is that if she gives a credible explanation for why she falsely claimed to be a niddah, even though she wasn’t, she is believed.  Notably, an actual incident occurred with the great Amora, Shmuel and his wife.  Despite her offering a good reason for falsely stating that she was a niddah, and it being permitted to believe her retraction, Shmuel was stringent on himself and required that she go through the purification process as if she were a niddah.  These halachos are codified in Shulkhan Arukh YD:185:3, including Shmuel’s middas chassidus.)

What was Shmuel’s wife’s reason for falsely claiming she was a niddah?  Tosafos (“Veafilu”) says she was physically weak and unable to be sexual. The Shittah Mukebetzes incredulously wonders, “Shall we believe that Shmuel would have forced his wife to be intimate if she was not feeling up to it?”  The Shittah offers a different explanation having to do with them being around relatives, and her rebuffing Shmuel’s amorous hints by using one of their secret signs that she was a niddah.  In other words, since she was in front of people she had a limited vocabulary to express that she was not comfortable to respond well to any slight romantic gestures, so she falsely gave him the secret signal that she was niddah.

Regardless of the Shitta’s interpretation, we see from Tosafos that Shmuel’s wife was reluctant to decline sex in a straightforward manner out of some fear.  As Shitta rightfully wonders, we should not believe that Shmuel would have forced her into anything, but we also know that sometimes sexual coercion and guilt is subtle.  Apparently, whether this was his wife’s imagination and insecurity, or if it was unconscious resentment on shmuel’s part, his wife was afraid to decline sex even if she was not feeling well.

In truth, the Torah represents this common feminine archetype, to lie out of fear, even in the noblest of women, the matriarchs.  Notably, Sarah lies out of fear in response to Avraham’s accusation that she doubted the prophecy of Isaac’s birth (Bereishis 18:15) and Rivka engages in multiple occasions of subterfuge to work around Yitschok’s favoritism of Esau instead of confronting him. She orchestrates Yaakov’s theft of the blessing as well as offers a cover up excuse of Shidduchim to explain why Yaakov has to then run away from home to escape Esau’s resulting murderous rage! Incredibly and deftly, Rivka even finds a way to make Yitschok think the whole thing was his idea! (Bereishis 27:6 and 46, and beginning of chapter 28.)

I have seen couples who have suffered with years of sexual dysfunction due to trauma inflicted unwittingly.  Some women suffer from extreme pain during intercourse, which requires various forms of physical and psychotherapy once the nature of the problem is determined.  However, if a young newly married woman believes it is her duty to have sex and submits to many episodes of painful intercourse, she can be stuck with traumatically induced aversion to sexuality, even years after the physical pain is gone. Remember, through operant conditioning, a person can learn to hate anything, even the most fundamentally pleasurable experiences.  If you love chocolate ice cream, but every time you eat it, someone randomly stabs you with a pin when you least expect it, you will soon develop anxiety and aversion toward your favorite food. Sex is no different.

Getting back to Shmuel.  I am going to cautiously and respectfully offer an interpretation, with supporting evidence.  If Tosafos’ understanding of why Shmuel’s wife lied is correct, we can surmise that there is some degree of culpability on Shmuel’s part for not being sensitive or attuned enough to her feelings.  He should have picked up on her fears so she would feel more comfortable being honest.  Who am I to dare suggest any deficiency on Shmuel’s part?  True, but the Gemara and commentaries hint at this.  The very next daf (23) discusses how Shmuel was somewhat insensitive to the plight and dignity of women who were captives, and the Gemara implies that as a result and punishment, his own daughters were ransomed.  The Shalah (Torah Sheba’al Peh, Peh Kaddosh 3) is even more explicit than the Gemara in criticizing Shmuel and understanding that his daughters’ being taken hostage was a punishment for his insensitivity.  Therefore, is it such a stretch or out of line to connect the events in Shmuel’s life described only one daf prior as also having to do with a mild blind spot and character flaw?  I think not.

Regardless, the point of all this is not to find fault in Shmuel, but to use these stories as object lessons in the need to be sensitive, especially given that many women are naturally less assertive and therefore may suffer in silence. These incidents in Shmuel’s life speak of the importance of recognizing that sexual coercion for women can result innocently from their shyness and male lack of attunement.