Lexicon

H5772 - onah

Strong's: H5772 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: o-NAH Part of speech: feminine noun OT occurrences: hapax legomenon, the sole occurrence is Exodus 21:10 (as onatah, "her marital rights") Derivation: from an unused root apparently meaning "to dwell together / cohabit"; a minority proposal links it to onah, "time / season" (the appointed marital time). The "cohabitation" gloss is standard; the "time" reading is a legitimate alternative in the literature. Spelling note: lemmatized both plene (עוֹנָה, with vav) and defective (עֹנָה); the Masoretic form in Exodus 21:10 is עֹנָתָהּ.

Semantic range

Onah denotes cohabitation, conjugal rights, the marital duty of intimacy owed by a husband to his wife. In Exodus 21:10 it is the third of three obligations, alongside she'er (food/flesh) and kesut (clothing), that a man must not diminish even for a secondary or slave-wife.

The wife's positive right

Exodus 21:10-11 reads: "If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights (onatah). If he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money."

The verse is remarkable: it frames intimacy as a right the woman holds and the man owes, and it enforces the right with the sanction of her freedom. Even the lowest-status wife is a rights-bearing party, not a possession. This is the seed of the later Jewish legal doctrine of onah (developed at Ketubot 47b-48a and following), under which a husband who withholds conjugal relations can be compelled to divorce and pay the ketubah.

Apologetic load

Marriage as reciprocal obligation, not male possession. Onah shows the wife holding an enforceable right, which cuts directly against the "biblical women were property with no rights" charge. See Biblical Marriage Consent Objection Defeater.
The Old Testament seed of mutual authority. The right of onah anticipates the New Testament's explicit mutuality, where the wife has authority over the husband's body as much as his over hers (1 Corinthians 7:3-4). The trajectory runs from obligation to full reciprocity.
Protection of the vulnerable wife. The provision specifically guards the secondary or slave-wife (the very woman the objection imagines as a rightless sex-object), guaranteeing her freedom if her rights are denied.

Notable verses

Exodus 21:10-11, the three marital obligations and the freedom-sanction (the sole biblical occurrence)
(Later development) the rabbinic onah doctrine, Ketubot 47b-48a (derivation) and 61b (the frequency schedule)