Rousseau’s Moral Legacy: Hospitality and Alterity in The Levite of Ephraim

Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that hospitality was an important aspect of moral behavior and ethical social practices; thus, the reception of the guest is a theme of central importance in many of his philosophical and fictional works. This analysis focuses the concept of hospitality in The Levite of Ephraim in order to expand our understanding of Rousseau as an individual and as a political philosopher. The initial depictions of welcoming the stranger with the subsequent ensuing perversion of hospitality in this work illustrate two separate but linked concerns: the moral development of the individual and the hope for a more evolved ethical society by bettering the behavior of individuals towards each other. The Levite of Ephraim is situated in the chronological and philosophical heart of Rousseau’s oeuvre and reflects his views balancing the needs of the individual and the demands of the larger society In the era before there was a king in Israel, a Levite falls in love with a young woman from Bethlehem. Because she is not a Levite, they cannot marry, so she becomes his concubine and they settle in Ephraim. Although lavished with attention and gifts, the concubine misses her parents and abandons the Levite only to return to her parents in Bethlehem. The Levite goes after his concubine and retrieves her, yet the father insists that they stay on two days longer than the Levite had intended, finally on the fifth day they set out for Ephraim. In canto two, while en route back to Ephraim, the couple are given shelter at nightfall by another Ephraimite in the Benjaminite town of Gibeah. There, a horde of young Benjaminite men crowd around the host’s house and demand that the Levite come out – so that they can rape him. The host refuses and offers instead his virgin daughter. The Levite steps forward and silently hands over his wife to the Benjaminites. They rape and abuse her until the next morning, when the Levite finds her body on the doorstep. (It is not clear whether she is dying or already dead.) He returns to Ephraim, cuts up her corpse, and sends the body parts to the twelve tribes of Israel. In canto three, the Israelites gather in Maspha where the Levite, in mourning garb, pours ashes over his head, tears his clothing, and tells the story in public about his wife’s death. The other tribes of Israel vow to avenge the crime. The Levite then falls dead, and the tribes bury him with the reconnected body of his wife. A bloody war against the Benjaminites ensues in which both sides suffer immense losses, but the Israelite alliance triumphs – all Benjaminite women and children and all but 600 men are killed. In canto four, having won the war, the Israelites realize that the Benjaminite tribe will disappear if they do not find wives for the remaining 600 Benjaminites. However the Israelites had vowed not to give their daughters to the Benjaminites. They decide to massacre all but the 400 virgins from the town of Jabesh-Gilead – a town that had refused to participate in the war against the Benjaminites. Then, in order to provide women for the remaining 200 Benjaminites, they allow them to kidnap 200 virgins from another town, Shiloh. When the inhabitants of Shiloh object to this abduction, a village leader, the Old Man of Lebona (who had suggested the kidnapping over another mass slaughter in the first place), pleads with his daughter Axa to accept marriage to her Benjaminite captor, rather than her fiancé Elmacin, for the future harmony of Israel. Axa agrees to marry …