One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
אִישׁוּת
Marriage 12
Sefer Nashim · The ten obligations and four privileges that arrive with a marriage whether or not anything was written, the three that no agreement between the couple can reach, and why the line falls between what has a price and what never did
10
Responsibilities a husband incurs the moment he weds any woman, three from the Torah and seven fixed by the court
4
Privileges he receives in exchange, every one of them Rabbinic and every one the price of a duty
3
Matters no stipulation can touch, being conjugal rights, the fundamental sum of the marriage contract and his inheritance of her property
30
Days he is given after taking a vow against her, after which he must divorce her and pay her contract
Part 1Ten and four, arriving unwritten
- Everything comes with the status. A man who weds any woman, virgin or not, adult or minor, born Jewish, converted or freed, incurs ten responsibilities toward her and receives four privileges, and all of it holds whether or not the matters were written and even where no marriage contract was drawn at all, with no need to state them explicitly. (12:1, 12:5)
- Three from the Torah, seven from the court. Her subsistence, her clothing and her conjugal rights are Scriptural, while the fundamental sum of the ketubah and its conditions cover medical treatment if she sickens, redemption if she is captured, burial if she dies, provision from his possessions, her right to remain in his home while she stays a widow, subsistence for her daughters until they are consecrated, and her sons inheriting her contract beyond their ordinary share. (12:2)
- Four privileges, all of them purchased. He holds the fruits of her labor, any ownerless object she discovers, the profits of her property during her lifetime and her property itself should she die first, ahead of every other claimant, and the Sages set each against a duty, her labor against her subsistence, her redemption against his benefit from her property and her burial against his inheritance. (12:3, 12:4)
- The trade opens in one direction only. A woman who says that she will forgo her subsistence and will not work is given that option and cannot be compelled to work, while a husband who proposes the identical exchange is refused, lest she prove unable to earn her subsistence, which is why her subsistence came to be counted among the conditions of the marriage contract. (12:4)
RememberThe house arrives furnished. Nothing in the husband's column is a gift, and the one party permitted to open the bargain is the one who would be ruined if it went wrong.
Part 2What may be traded, and the three that may not
- Agreement binds, with three exceptions. Where the husband stipulates away one of his obligations or the wife stipulates away one of his privileges and the other party accepts, the stipulation is binding, except with regard to conjugal rights, the fundamental requirement of the marriage contract and his inheritance of her property, where a stipulation is of no consequence at all. (12:6)
- The line runs between money and body. A stipulation against conjugal rights is of no substance because it is a condition against what is written in the Torah in a matter that does not concern money, whereas a stipulation that he owes her no subsistence and no clothing, both equally Scriptural, is binding, and so is one waiving his benefit from her property. (12:7, 12:9)
- A floor that renames the marriage. A stipulation reducing the fundamental sum is void, and so is the device of writing two hundred or one hundred zuz while having her acknowledge receipt of a portion she never received, since wherever a contract stands at less than two hundred for a virgin or one hundred for a non virgin the relations conducted with her are considered promiscuous. (12:8)
- A Rabbinic law made immovable. His right to inherit her property is Rabbinic in origin, and the Sages reinforced their enactment with the force of a Torah statute, so that with regard to inheritance every stipulation fails despite money being squarely involved, on the strength of the phrase concerning the statutes of judgment. (12:9)
RememberTwo Torah obligations can be signed away and one Rabbinic institution cannot. The weight of a law here is not read off its pedigree.
Part 3Bread, absence, and vows
- What subsistence actually means. Bread for two meals a day by the norm of her town and its staple grain, reckoned for one neither sick nor gluttonous, with legumes, vegetables, oil for food and for the lamp, fruit, a little wine where women drink it, three meals with meat or fish on the Sabbath, and a silver coin for her own needs, raised to match a wealthy husband and enforced by compelled divorce against one too poor for bread. (12:10, 12:11)
- Two limits on his convenience. A husband who prefers to eat and drink alone while providing for her separately may do so, provided he eats together with her on Friday night, and a husband who is a priest may not feed her entirely from terumah, since guarding it from impurity and eating it in purity is very difficult for her, so he gives her half from ordinary food. (12:12, 12:13)
- Children, and the door behind the refusal. He is compelled to maintain his sons and daughters until they are six, and beyond that age he is rebuked, embarrassed publicly and announced as a cruel man worse than an impure bird that does provide for its chicks, and where he actually has means his property is expropriated for charity and they are provided for until they reach majority. (12:14, 12:15)
- Absence, and who must produce a document. A departed husband is credited three months on the presumption that a man does not leave without provisioning his household, after which the court sells his property for her subsistence and she may sell it herself with no announcement and no oath until he returns and claims, and against the geonim the Rambam frees her from producing her ketubah while requiring it of a widow, whose claim is Rabbinic and whose money now belongs to heirs. (12:16, 12:18)
- A vow he only permitted. A vow barring her from all benefit, or from a single species of produce, gives him thirty days and then compels divorce with payment of her contract, even where the species is undesirable or one she has never tasted in her life, and where she took the vow and he let it stand he may divorce her and must still pay, since the option to nullify was his and he willingly allowed it. (12:23, 12:24)
RememberHe never made the vow. He simply declined to lift it, and he pays as though he had made it. Permission is a deed.