One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת נַעֲרָה בְתוּלָה
Virgin Maiden · Chapter 1
Sefer Nashim · The Fine and Who It Reaches • The Compelled Marriage • Where Money Yields
50
Sela'im of pure silver:
the fine, either case
2
Witnesses to the act,
without whom no fine
0
Ketubah for a wife
he may never divorce
3
Parties who may refuse
a marriage after seduction
Part 1The Fine, and How Far It Reaches
- Fifty sela'im, either case. A man who seduces a virgin maiden is fined 50 sela'im of pure silver, called a k'nas, and the same law applies to one who took her by force. Paying it is counted among the Torah's positive commandments, from the verse that the man must give the maiden's father fifty silver pieces. (1:1)
- The field and the city. A seducer acts with her consent, one who forced her takes her against it. In a field the presumption is force, and those laws apply unless witnesses testify she was willing; in a city the presumption is consent, since she did not cry out, unless witnesses testify she was overpowered, as where he drew a sword and said he would kill her if she cried out. The Ra'avad objected; the Migdal Oz reads the ruling as governing witnesses who saw from a distance. (1:2)
- Liability is narrow. No fine unless the relations were in the ordinary manner and were observed by witnesses. No prior warning is needed, since a warning is required only where lashes or execution are at stake. (1:8)
- The age window. From three years old until bagrut, physical maturity. Below three there is no liability of this kind at all; after bagrut there is none either, since the verse says "a virgin maiden," excluding a girl who has matured. The fine is owed whether or not her father is alive. (1:8-9)
RememberThe same fifty either way, which means the figure is measuring the offense and not the girl. Nothing about her family or standing moves it by a single coin.
Part 2The Compelled Marriage
- Three refusals, then two. After seduction the girl, her father, or the man may each refuse the marriage, and whoever refuses, he pays the fine and departs without being forced to marry. If all of them want it and he marries her, he pays no fine and writes her a ketubah as for any other maiden. (1:3)
- Where she was forced, he cannot refuse. She may refuse and her father may refuse, and then he pays the fine and leaves. But if the two of them want the marriage and he does not, he is compelled to marry her and pays the fine as well, even if she is lame, blind or afflicted with tzara'at, and he may never initiate a divorce as long as he lives. (1:3)
- No ketubah, and why. She is granted none, because the Sages instituted the ketubah so that a husband would not treat divorce as a frivolous matter, which is unnecessary here, since this man cannot divorce her at all. (1:4)
- She must be fit to be his wife. If she was forbidden to him, even by a positive commandment or a rabbinic restriction such as a sh'niyah, he must not marry her, and if adultery on her part is established afterward he divorces her. A High Priest is commanded to marry a virgin, so he may not marry her, and must divorce her if he did. (1:5-6)
RememberThree parties stand in that ruling and only the man has no exit. The compulsion falls entirely on the one who created the situation, and the marriage happens only if she wants it.
Part 3Where Money Yields to Something Heavier
- Karet or a plain prohibition, with a warning. Where she was forbidden to him under pain of karet, or by a simple negative commandment, and he was warned, he owes no fine and is lashed instead, since a person is never punished by both lashes and a monetary assessment. Unwarned, and so unlashable, he pays. (1:11)
- A positive or rabbinic prohibition. Where she was forbidden by a positive commandment, or was a sh'niyah or otherwise rabbinically forbidden to him, he pays the fine whether he was warned or not, because lashes were never available. (1:12)
- Capital liability cancels the money entirely. Where the act carried execution by the court, as with his own daughter or his daughter-in-law, there is no fine at all, warned or unwarned, derived from "if there will not be a fatal accident, he should be punished": where there is one, no monetary penalty is levied, intentional or not. (1:13-14)
- The exclusions, and one reversal. No fine for a bogeret, a girl who dissolved a childhood marriage by mi'un, an aylonit, a girl who is not mentally competent, one who cannot hear or speak, one of tarnished reputation about whom two witnesses testify she solicited them, or one married and divorced though still a virgin maiden; nor for a convert, a captive or a freed maidservant who was three or older when she came in. But a girl consecrated and then divorced is owed the fine, paid to her and not to her father, if she was forced; if seduced, nothing. (1:9-10)
RememberIf she dies before the case reaches court there is no fine, because the verse says the father of the maiden and not the father of the dead maiden.