Forbidden to Both

About This Talk

Gerushin 10 is the chapter of afterward, and it opens by fixing three terms used throughout the treatise. A void get leaves the woman fully married by Scriptural law, so she must leave a second husband and a child born to him is illegitimate, though if her husband is a priest she is not forbidden to him as a divorcee, with one exception: the man who says "you are divorced from me, but you are not permitted to marry anyone else," the wisp of a get that disqualifies her from the priesthood by rabbinic decree. An unacceptable get is defective only by rabbinic decree, so she should not remarry but need not leave if she has, her children are legitimate, and a second valid get is written while she remains with her second husband, who is praised for divorcing her voluntarily only if she has borne him no children, since otherwise he would sully his sons' reputation. A doubtful divorce means she must leave, and her children's status is in doubt. Where the get was unacceptable or doubtful and the first husband wants her back, she is permitted to him with no renewal of the marriage, no seven blessings and no new marriage contract, because she was never bindingly divorced. Then the hardest rulings: a woman given a void get who married again, or who married again on testimony that her husband had died and then saw him return, must receive a get from both men and is forbidden to both forever, even though she acted in ignorance, lest it be said that a married woman was released without a get or that a man took back his divorcee after another man had her. What she is owed afterward is itemized, and every item is negative: neither man takes an ownerless object she finds or the profits of her work, neither annuls her vows, neither owes her the money of her marriage contract, her sustenance, or any stipulation of the contract, neither answers for property of hers worn out or lost, including nichsei tzon barzel, and nothing either man already received is expropriated. If, however, she had only been consecrated and the marriage was never consummated, she is permitted to her first husband and the second need not give a get at all, since no marriage bond can be established with a woman forbidden by a severe prohibition, and people will assume the consecration was conditional. The same reasoning runs through the brother who performed yibbum on a mistaken report of death and through the man who married his wife's sister: a wife who turns out to be alive leaves the sister needing no get, while an arusah who turns out to be alive leaves the sister needing one for appearances, and the arusah herself then forbidden to him. The rest of the chapter is about trust and benefit. A scribe's mix up of the get and the receipt for the marriage contract is read in the woman's favor once she has remarried, and her first husband's production of the get is not believed. A man divorcing for unsavory reports, for indiscriminate vows, for being an aylonit or for bleeding during relations is told to resolve never to remarry her, so that the get can never later look conditional, though if he transgresses before she is consecrated to another he need not divorce her. The agent who brought the get and validated the signatures, the single witness who testified the husband died, the sage who ruled her forbidden by a vow, and a man reputed to have had relations with a maidservant later freed or a gentile woman later converted, may none of them marry her, yet if they transgress they are not forced to separate, and the bar lifts entirely if his own wife died or divorced him at her initiative. All these women may marry such a man's son or another relative, because a person will not commit a sin so that someone else will benefit, and a woman may marry one of the two witnesses to her divorce or to her mi'un, or a judge before whom she performed chalitzah, since the suspicion arises only where a lone witness freed her. Relations with one's own divorcee before witnesses are presumed an act of consecration rather than licentiousness, even where money passed, so she is consecrated and needs a second get; seclusion before two simultaneous witnesses raises the same doubt where the couple had been married, though not where she had only been consecrated. The Rambam then rejects outright the geonim who extended that presumption to any woman and to a maidservant who bore a son, calling it far from the paths of Torah judgment. A rumor cannot divorce a married woman even if the whole city repeats it, but a rumor of kiddushin reported in court is undone by a rumor of divorce, since she was forbidden on a rumor and is permitted on a rumor. The chapter closes on the husband's own conduct: he may not marry intending to divorce nor keep a wife he intends to divorce, he should not divorce a first wife except for sexual misconduct and should not hurry to divorce her, while a second wife he hates he may send away; it is a mitzvah to divorce a wife whose conduct is not modest, and no proper man should then marry her; and while he may divorce a wife who has become a deaf mute, he may not divorce one who has lost control of her mental faculties until she recovers, so that she will not be left unattended and violated, and must instead provide her a place and food and drink from her own resources and may marry another, owing her no sustenance, garments, conjugal rights, medical treatment or ransom from captivity, and if he transgresses and divorces her the get is binding and he may put her out of his house.