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Through the initiative of Leah, Zilpah became a secondary wife to Jacob and bore him two sons, Gad and Asher. Though Gad (“fortune”) and Asher (“happy”) were borne to Jacob by Zilpah, they were considered to be children of Leah, who gave them names symbolic of her perspective on their births and their ability to gain favor for her with Jacob. Thus, Zilpah’s role would be comparable to what contemporary society refers to as surrogate motherhood. In this family system, a woman’s biology is part of her destiny, or even tragedy, in the case of a barren woman. A woman establishes her worth as a wife through her ability to increase her husband’s lineage; her prestige is determined by her reproductive capabilities. Additional progeny also augment the family workforce and thus its economic potential. The equal status of Rachel and Leah as primary wives of Jacob resulted in a shift in the generation of Jacob’s offspring from a vertical genealogy to a horizontal one; instead of choosing only one primary heir in the descending generation, multiple heirship occurred as all the offspring of Jacob, presented as ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel, were reckoned as his heirs. The secondary status of Zilpah as a wife to Jacob did not result in secondary status for her sons within the patrilineage of Jacob. The status of the mother in this case was separate from the status of her children. Asher and Gad were considered direct heirs to the patrilineage of Terah, their great-great-grandfather, and are listed among the twelve sons/tribes of Jacob/Israel. However, Asher and Gad represent the most peripheral of the tribal territories, probably the first two to cease to be included in the nation of Israel. Their marginal status may be foreshadowed by their having been the children of the secondary wife associated with the unpreferred primary wife, Leah.