Daily Talk
A wife sells a field to her husband by a contract she signed willingly, and years later says she only did it to keep the peace. If the field was tzon barzel the court believes her, and if it was nichsei m'log the sale stands, and then the Rambam adds a case in his own voice where even tzon barzel cannot be reclaimed. Why would the law trust a woman about her own motives for one kind of property and not another?
What She Gave to Keep the Peace
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About This Talk
Chapter 22 opens with the husband's inheritance, ruling that it begins when the wife leaves her father's domain rather than at the chuppah, that the father inherits while his agents still accompany the couple even if the dowry has arrived, that a bogeret, orphan or widow who travels alone to her husband and dies on the way is not inherited by him, that a capable woman who marries a deaf mute gives him a right to her property while a capable man who marries a deaf mute woman does not inherit her, and, with the Rambam's approval of the geonim, that a sick woman cannot seek a divorce to keep him from inheriting. It then sets out which sales stand, voiding her sale of tzon barzel and his sale of her land, upholding joint sales of nichsei m'log and her sale of nichsei m'log to him without any claim of appeasement, while letting her retract a sale to him of tzon barzel or ketubah property as presumed to be made for peace, and adding the Rambam's own view that a waiver of liability for lost or stolen tzon barzel cannot be retracted. The chapter closes on produce and principal, voiding his sale of the benefit because it was granted for household spending, converting her funds into land, keeping inherited servants for the honor of her family, believing her that found funds were a present while requiring proof of any provision excluding him, and directing that only property which renews itself be purchased so that the principal is never lost.