One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
אִישׁוּת
Marriage 16
Sefer Nashim · What a woman brings in and what she may collect from, why her oath is deliberately administered outside the courtroom, and the ruling that decides an entire estate on which half of her request she said first
100
Years after her husband's death, and a widow holding her ketubah still collects on an oath
25
Years of silence in her father's house, after which she collects nothing, unless an heir had been feeding her
1000
Zuz in the disputed document, where admitting part of the payment obliges an oath and lowering her own claim does not
2
Bills of divorce with two ketubot, on which she collects twice, while two ketubot with one bill produce a single payment
Part 1What she brings in, and what she may collect from
- Three words that are not interchangeable. Property a woman brings to her husband is nedunyah, not ketubah, and it is nichsei tzon barzel where he accepts responsibility so that loss and gain are his, and nichsei m'log where it remains hers in both directions, as is anything she inherited or was given. (16:1, 16:2)
- A debt with a due date, paid from the worst field. The ketubah may not be collected whenever she wishes but only on his death or her divorce, and where he holds good, poor and intermediate land she collects from the inferior, called ziboorit. (16:3)
- An oath on his death and none on his choice. A widow collects only after swearing while holding a sacred article that he left nothing in her hands, that she neither sold nor waived the ketubah, and even her garments are appraised and deducted, while a woman he chose to divorce collects without an oath and without appraisal, since he bought them for her and it is he who wants the divorce. (16:4)
- Leniencies, all of them running against her. She collects from landed property alone, not from its increase in value after his death and not from an improvement worked by a purchaser, although other creditors may collect from that increase, and where the couple married in one country and divorced in another she is paid in the coinage of lesser value unless a specific coin was named. (16:5, 16:6)
- Every field he owns, and the reason for the oath. All of a husband's property is under lien from the marriage even where the ketubah is a hundred zuz and he is worth thousands of gold pieces, his sales are valid and she nevertheless expropriates from the purchasers on an oath, a provision instituted so that he should not view the obligation of the ketubah lightly. (16:10)
RememberThe chapter restrains her collection in five separate ways and calls those restraints leniencies, then places a lien on every acre he will ever own.
Part 2The oath, and the room it is taken in
- Administered outside the court on purpose. The oath a widow takes on collecting is given outside the court, since the court would refrain from administering it lest she not be precise with herself in making it, and if the heirs prefer she may instead make a vow on any object they name, which may be done in court. (16:11)
- A claim that does not exist until it is sworn. A widow who dies before taking the oath leaves her heirs nothing at all, since she had no rights in the ketubah until she swore, and a woman who remarries first may still swear and collect whenever she wishes but may no longer use the vow, in case her new husband annuls it. (16:12)
- Where no oath is required. She takes what is hers without swearing where he designated a plot of land for her in the ketubah, even naming only one of its four borders, or where he specified movable property that still exists, or goods known to have been bought with its proceeds. (16:13)
- Admitting a payment and reducing a claim are not the same act. A woman who acknowledges receiving part of a thousand zuz must swear before collecting the rest, even with witnesses to the part she admitted and even accounting to the last half perutah, while a woman who says she received nothing but that the true figure was five hundred collects without any oath. (16:14, 16:17)
RememberThe oath is moved out of the courtroom not because she is suspected but because an honest woman who has not counted carefully enough should not be made to swear falsely in front of a court.
Part 3The document, the silence, and the order of the request
- The paper decides, and a century does not. A widow holding her ketubah collects on an oath even a hundred years after her husband's death, in his house or her father's, and a widow without the document receives nothing even if she comes on the day he died. (16:21)
- Silence read twice, in opposite directions. Where the custom is not to write a ketubah she may claim without limit while she remains in her husband's home and for twenty five years in her father's, after which her silence is taken as a waiver, unless one of the heirs had been bringing her subsistence, since she was ashamed to sue the man who was feeding her. (16:23, 16:24)
- A wedding proved by a crown, and by a child's memory. Where the two hundred is disputed and no document exists, witnesses who saw the local rites performed for virgin brides, the celebrations, the crown, the particular garment, establish her claim, and testimony is accepted from a man who says he remembers those rites performed for her when he was a child. (16:25)
- Believed because a better lie was available. A woman who tells her husband to his face that he divorced her is believed, since she would not speak so boldly if it were untrue, and a husband who answers that he divorced her, paid in full and lost the receipt is believed as to the additional amount only, because he could have denied the divorce entirely and owed nothing. (16:26, 16:27)
- The clause that comes first. A widow asking leave to remarry and then for her ketubah receives both, one asking for the ketubah and then for leave may remarry and receives nothing, and one who asks for the ketubah alone is not even permitted to remarry, since her primary intent is read from the order, though money she has already seized is not expropriated from her. (16:31)
RememberIdentical words, identical evidence, two clauses swapped, and one woman leaves with her estate while the other leaves without it.