One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
אִישׁוּת
Marriage 14
Sefer Nashim · How the law sets a timetable for presence and then lets the wife enforce it against her husband's own career, what happens when either spouse withholds, and the one violation the Rambam records while noting that no lashes can be given for it
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Months, the seaman's interval, reduced to a single week the moment a vow puts intimacy out of reach
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Wives the Sages set as the practical limit however ample a man's resources, so that each comes round once a month
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Barleycorns of silver added to her contract for every week a husband supports her and withholds himself
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Times her contract, and beyond, that a husband is compelled to pay to redeem her from a first captivity
Part 1The timetable, and who is allowed to hold him to it
- Frequency set by constitution and trade. Pampered men who do no weakening labor owe their wives every night, craftsmen twice a week in their own city and once a week elsewhere, donkey drivers once a week, camel drivers once in thirty days, seamen once in six months, and students of Torah once a week, since Torah weakens their strength. (14:1)
- She may veto the travel and the promotion. A wife may prevent business trips beyond close places, and may prevent a change out of a trade granting more frequent rights into one granting fewer, so that a donkey driver may not become a camel driver nor a camel driver a seaman, with Torah study the single exception at two or three years without permission. (14:2)
- Several wives, and separate households. A man may marry many wives, even a hundred, provided he can supply each with subsistence, clothing and conjugal rights as befits her, and he may not compel them into one courtyard, since each is entitled to her own household. (14:3)
- The arithmetic behind a famous limit. A worker with two wives owes each once a week and with four once a fortnight, a seaman with four owes each once in two years, and on that calculation alone the Sages instructed a man not to marry more than four however wealthy, so each comes round monthly. (14:4)
- Vows that end the marriage outright. A man who vows that his wife must repeat their private jests to others, or take steps during relations to prevent conception, or perform meaningless acts, must divorce her and pay her contract, since a woman may not be compelled to speak brazenly or to act so. (14:5)
RememberThe timetable is not a measure of how much absence a marriage can hold. It is a measure of how long a woman can wait while she still expects him back.
Part 2Two rebels, and only one of them is announced
- The vow, and the wording that decides it. A vow forbidding him the satisfaction of relations with her binds and gives him one week before he must dissolve it or divorce and pay, even for a seaman, since he caused her distress and she despairs, while a declaration that relations with him are forbidden to her is of no consequence, and an oath to that effect is a false oath. (14:6)
- Illness gets six months, and then her choice. Deliberately depriving her violates the negative commandment against withholding sustenance, garments and conjugal rights, and where he is sick or weakened he is given six months to recover, after which she decides whether to stay or be divorced with her contract. (14:7)
- Repulsion is released the same day. A wife who says she is repulsed by him and cannot voluntarily engage in relations has her husband compelled to divorce her at once, since she is not a captive to be forced to lie with one she loathes, and she leaves with none of her contract, keeping her remaining property and returning even the shoe and head covering he gave her. (14:8)
- Withholding to cause distress runs the long procedure. A messenger warns her, announcements are made in the synagogues and study halls daily for four consecutive weeks, a second messenger follows, then forfeiture of the contract and twelve months unsupported and undivorced, and all of this applies even where she is in the niddah state or too ill for relations. (14:9, 14:10, 14:11)
- The husband who rebels, and the wrong with no deed. A man who supports her and refuses intimacy because she has become loathsome adds thirty six barleycorns of silver to her contract weekly, may remain married as long as she wishes, and transgresses a negative commandment throughout, and is not given lashes only because the violation does not involve a deed. (14:15)
RememberShe is announced in every synagogue for four weeks. He is not announced anywhere. And the law still calls what he is doing a violation, and simply admits that there is no act in it to punish.
Part 3What money is never allowed to settle
- A permitted act the Rambam calls unethical. A husband must fund his wife's medical treatment until she recovers, and where the illness is prolonged and costly he may hand her the value of her contract to fund her own care or be divorced with it, a prerogative the Rambam grants and immediately says it is not ethical to use. (14:17)
- Redemption cannot be bought off. He is not obligated beyond her worth, and yet he may not divorce her, pay the contract and leave her to redeem herself when the ransom exceeds it, but is compelled to redeem her at ten times her contract or the whole of his assets, though on a second captivity he may divorce her, pay, and leave her to redeem herself. (14:19)
- Even a priest whose wife is now forbidden. A priest must still redeem his captive wife, return her to her father's home, provide for her until she reaches her locale, and only then divorce her and pay her contract, and where he is abroad the court sells his assets and redeems her in his place. (14:18, 14:20)
- Where the obligation has nothing to fasten to. A husband already bound by a vow to divorce his wife and pay her contract is not required to redeem her if she is then taken, and a woman already forbidden to him by a Torah prohibition before the captivity is given her contract and redeems herself, the Rambam distinguishing her from the priest's wife on the ground that she was not forbidden beforehand and the captivity itself is what forbade her. (14:21, 14:22)
- Burial at her standing and not his. He must bury her with eulogies and lamentations by local custom, at least two flutes and one keening woman even for a poor man, and according to her social standing where it exceeded his own, because a woman ascends to her husband's standing and does not descend to it even after death. (14:23, 14:24)
RememberAlmost every ruling here closes a door a wealthy man would like left open. He may not price the ransom, may not price the funeral, and the one calculation the law does permit it tells him not to make.