Daily Talk
A father names a dowry at his son's first engagement and his word binds with no contract at all, while a brother who names the same sum for his sister has promised nothing until he formalizes it. The Rambam's reason is a father's happiness. On the day before Kol Nidrei, which of the words spoken this year were whole enough to need no signature?
What a Father Says in His Joy
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About This Talk
Chapter 23 governs the provisions a husband makes in his wife's favor, ruling that a waiver written between betrothal and nisu'in binds by writing alone while one made afterwards needs an act of contract, that a waiver of say over her property lets her sell while he still eats its produce unless confirmed by contract before nisu'in, that a waiver of produce leaves him the fruit of the fruit's fruit until he renounces every by product, and that a waiver of inheritance binds only before nisu'in because a man may forgo an inheritance before it falls to him. It rules that a husband's expenses on nichsei m'log are closed once he has eaten a single dried fig respectfully, a dinar's worth carelessly or even a bundle of twigs, with appraisal and oath only where he took less, a different reckoning for a rebellious wife and a sharecropper's share after mi'un, and that local custom governs the amounts written for dowry and ketubah. It closes with commitments bound by speech alone at an engagement, limited for relatives to a father at a first marriage because of his joy, not acquired until the wedding so that a father may withdraw from a yavam, a bride left waiting when her own promise cannot be met, and the support two husbands owe a stepdaughter.