One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
אִישׁוּת
Marriage 7
Sefer Nashim · Conditional kiddushin, where one changed word turns a father's silence from refusal into consent, where only three vows and one published list of blemishes will void a betrothal, and where a condition made before witnesses can be cancelled in private by an act that never mentions it
200
Zuz, the standard sum a man conditions the kiddushin upon
30
Days, inside which the promise must be kept or the kiddushin fail
3
Vows that void the betrothal: no meat, no wine, no colored ornaments
100
Men who may each owe her a divorce after one doubled formula
Part 1Other people's consent, and what a man actually owns
- The same silence, read two opposite ways. Where the condition is that his father consent, a father who refuses, stays silent, or dies before hearing of it leaves her unconsecrated; where the condition is that his father not object, a father who says nothing or dies leaves her consecrated. Only the wording changed. (7:1)
- The court coaches the father who frees her. If the son died and the father only heard afterward, we instruct the father to declare that he does not consent, so that the kiddushin never took effect and the widow will not be bound to the rites of yibbum. (7:1)
- His own denial is not accepted. Where the condition is that he possesses two hundred zuz or land fit to sow a kor, witnesses to his wealth make the kiddushin binding, and where there are no witnesses the status is doubtful rather than void, since he may own the money and be denying it in order to make trouble for her; the same holds where he named a particular place. (7:2, 7:3)
- Possessing and showing are different verbs. Where he undertook to show her the money or the land, he must show what belongs to him, so that money belonging to another, a borrowed sum, a rented field or one taken on shares all leave her unconsecrated, because showing implies showing the thing he said was his. (7:4)
- Whether he is married depends on whether it rained. Land fit to sow a kor that contains clefts ten handbreadths deep or rocks ten handbreadths high is measured by what can be sown, so clefts standing full of water count as rocks and are excluded from the measure, while clefts that are dry are included. (7:5)
RememberChange one word from consents to does not object, and the father's silence flips from refusal to agreement. Nothing about the father changed.
Part 2Vows, blemishes, and what a later repair can undo
- Three vows, and no more than three. Where the condition is that she is bound by no vows, only a vow against eating meat, against drinking wine, or against wearing colored ornaments voids the kiddushin, and any other vow leaves her consecrated even where the man states that he objects to that one as well; only the wider formula, that she is bound by no vow whatsoever, is voided by a vow as small as one against carobs. (7:6)
- The list of blemishes is public, not personal. Every blemish that disqualifies a priest for Temple service disqualifies a woman, and to these are added foul body odor, excessive sweating, foul breath, a deep voice, breasts of abnormal size or spacing, a scar from a dog bite, and a birthmark on the forehead however small; a blemish outside the list leaves her consecrated even where he protests. (7:7)
- Silence about blemishes leaves the matter in doubt. Where a man consecrated without stipulating anything and it emerges that she carries a disqualifying blemish or one of the three vows, the status of the kiddushin is doubtful. (7:8)
- A sage can repair a vow and a physician cannot repair a blemish. Where he stipulated that she is bound by no vows and a sage afterward released them, she is consecrated; where he stipulated that she has no blemishes and a physician afterward healed them, she is not consecrated. (7:8, 7:9)
- The rule runs the other way for the man. Where a man contracted the marriage stipulating that he himself is bound by no vows and carries no blemishes, and he then has the vows released and the blemishes healed, the marriage stands, since there is no shame for a man in a blemish that is gone and a woman will not object on that account. (7:9)
RememberA condition is honored to the letter, which also means it is confined to the letter. A private distaste discovered later is not a blemish.
Part 3Time, agents, and the condition that cancels itself
- Thirty days, and the man who comes between. Where he undertook to give two hundred zuz within thirty days and did not, she is not consecrated; where the kiddushin were to take effect after thirty days and a second man consecrated her inside them, she belongs to the second man permanently, and where the first used the doubled formula of from now and after thirty days, both men have possibly valid kiddushin and both must divorce her, even were there a hundred of them. (7:10, 7:11, 7:12)
- An impossible condition simply falls away. Where the condition is that she remain permitted to a named man, the condition cannot be fulfilled, so she is consecrated and forbidden to him as she is to everyone; and kiddushin reaching for a status he does not yet have, after he converts or after her husband dies, are void, while kiddushin after her yavam performs chalitzah are valid, since even now they would carry doubtful force. (7:13, 7:14, 7:15)
- Counted money and named clothing. Where he consecrated with one hundred dinarim without specifying them, the kiddushin take effect from the first dinar provided he gives the whole sum, and where he specified these hundred and counted them into her hand, either party may retract until the last one; a light dinar or a brass one voids the kiddushin, while clothing genuinely worth the sum he named consecrates her from the moment she takes it, with no appraisal needed. (7:17, 7:18)
- An agent adds nothing of his own. Kiddushin are void where the agent attached a condition he was not given, or omitted, altered or replaced the one he was given, and void where he was told to consecrate her in a named place and went elsewhere; but where the principal merely mentioned where she could be found, consecrating her elsewhere is valid. (7:20, 7:21)
- Words cannot be recalled and conditions can vanish unspoken. A retraction the instant after kiddushin is of no consequence and she is consecrated; a condition cancelled days later before the bride alone and no witnesses is wholly cancelled, so that a man who attached a condition and then brought her to the chuppah or lived with her without mentioning it obliges her to receive a divorce though the condition went unfulfilled, on the presumption that no upright Jewish man makes his relations wanton when he could make them a mitzvah. (7:22, 7:23)
RememberThe condition insisted on in front of witnesses can be undone in an empty room without a word. The act performed once, without explanation, binds.