Ketubot 10a — the Talmud in English

It was stated:

we have learned to explain the husband's trustworthiness in claiming, “I found an open opening,” and thereby depriving his wife of her ketuba

Rav Naḥman said in the name of Shmuel in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar:

If the obligation of the ketuba were from the Torah, the husband would not be trusted to make a claim concerning virginity and deprive her of her ketuba unless he proved his claim by “known testimony,” and not by the claim, “I found an open opening.”

And all his trustworthiness to make such a claim and deprive her of her ketuba is because

the Sages

are the ones who

instituted for the daughters of Israel

that there should be

for a virgin

a ketuba of

two hundred

zuz,

and for a widow

a ketuba of

one maneh [

one hundred zuz ].

And they

also

trusted him, that

even

if

he merely

said, “I found an open opening,”

and brought no proof for his words—he would be

trusted

to deprive her of her ketuba.

And we inquire concerning it:

If so,

that the Sages trusted him to claim, “I found an open opening,” and deprive her of her ketuba—

what benefit did the Sages provide with their institution

that they instituted a ketuba for her?

After all, if he wishes to divorce her because she does not find favor in his eyes, he can do so with the mere claim, “I found an open opening,” without needing to bring proof for his words, and he will deprive her of her ketuba!?

Rava said:

We have no need to fear lest he come to divorce her immediately when he marries her, since we have a

presumption

that

“a person does not trouble himself with a feast and then ruin it.”

And if he hated her at the time when he brought her under the wedding canopy, he would not trouble himself to prepare the wedding feast and divorce her immediately after the marriage. Rather, he would divorce her while she was still betrothed, and would not bring her into the wedding canopy.

And likewise, we need not fear lest he hate her afterward and come to deprive her of her ketuba with the claim, “I found an open opening,” since he can make this claim only immediately after the marriage.

And now the beraita is brought, explaining the obligation of the ketuba:

The tanna

in the beraita

taught:

Since the obligation of the ketuba

“is a penalty of the Sages,”—

she may not collect

her ketuba [which is collected from the husband's land and not from his movable property]

except from

land,

of inferior quality [

the least valuable ] of the husband's land.

But if the ketuba were from the Torah, she would collect it from the best of his land.

And before the Gemara finishes bringing all the words of the beraita, it interrupts and wonders:

How can the tanna call the obligation of the ketuba

“a penalty”?—

But

what penalty

is it? For what do we have to penalize him?

Rather, say,

correct the wording of the beraita and say in it as follows:

Since

the obligation of the ketuba

is an institution of the Sages—

she may not collect

it

except from

land,

of inferior quality

belonging to him.

And the Gemara continues to bring the conclusion of the words of the beraita:

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says:

The obligation of

a woman's ketuba

is from the Torah

.

And we refute this:

But did Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel say this,

that a woman's ketuba is from the Torah?

But it was taught

the opposite:

a. One who rapes a virgin girl or seduces her must pay the girl's father a payment of fifty silver [shekels].

This payment is learned from two verses—

Concerning one who rapes a virgin girl it is stated [Deuteronomy 22:29], “He shall give the girl's father fifty silver.”

But it is not stated in which coins he shall pay the fifty silver, whether in ordinary coins or in shekels.

Whereas concerning a seducer it is stated [Exodus 22:16],

“He shall weigh out silver

—the seducer shall pay silver to the girl's father, in shekels, in an amount that is

like the bride-price of virgins,”

which is the sum of fifty silver, which the rapist must pay because he caused her to lose her virginity.

The verse juxtaposed these payments of the penalty of the seducer and the rapist, in order to learn one payment from the other. On the one hand, the juxtaposition teaches

that

the sum of the shekels that

this one,

the seducer, pays, as it is stated concerning him, “He shall weigh out silver”—

“like the bride-price of virgins,”

stated concerning the rapist, whom the verse penalized with fifty silver.

And

on the other hand, the juxtaposition teaches that

“the bride-price of virgins,”

the fifty silver stated concerning the rapist, shall be

like this one,

like the type of coin that the seducer pays. That is, the fifty silver shall be in coins of shekels, and not in ordinary coins.

b.

From here,

from the wording of the verse that called the payment of the penalty of fifty shekels [which are two hundred zuz] for the loss of virginity “the bride-price of virgins,”—

the Sages based the woman's ketuba

of two hundred zuz, which

is from the Torah.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: A woman's ketuba—

is not from the words of the Torah but from the words of the Scribes!

Thus Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel holds that a woman's ketuba is not from the Torah, and this is the opposite of what we learned above, that according to him a woman's ketuba is from the Torah.

And we answer:

Reverse it,

reverse the positions in the second beraita, and establish Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel in the place of the first tanna, and he is the one who holds [in accordance with his position repeated above] that a woman's ketuba is from the Torah.

And we refute this:

What did you see that you reversed,

what did you see that led you to reverse the beraita

last,

the positions of the disputants in the later beraita, in order to make them accord with the positions in the earlier beraita, which was brought above?

Reverse the first one!

Reverse the positions in the beraita above and make them accord with the later beraita!?

And we answer: Because

we have heard Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel

elsewhere

say that a woman's ketuba

is

from the Torah.

As we learned [below, 110b], concerning the manner of payment of a ketuba when there is a difference in the value of the currency between the place where the ketuba was written and the place where she is divorced.

For all obligations that are from the Torah, if one writes a promissory note for his fellow in one place and comes to repay the debt in another place, and there are differences in value between the currencies in the two places, he must give him according to the rate of the place where he undertook the obligation.

But concerning the obligation of a ketuba, we find a dispute among the tannaim in this matter—

For example, if one marries a woman in a place called Cappadocia, whose coins are larger than the coins in the Land of Israel, and they are worth more than the coins in the Land of Israel, and he divorces her in the Land of Israel—

According to the first tanna, he may give her the sum of money that he undertook to give her in coins of the Land of Israel. Since, in his view, the obligation of the ketuba is rabbinic, they were lenient with him so that he could repay her with coins of the Land of Israel, which are worth less.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says:

He gives her

the payment of her ketuba

from Cappadocian coins,

which are worth more, and he cannot give her the sum of these coins in coins of the Land of Israel, because he holds that the obligation of the ketuba is from the Torah.

And if you wish, say,

it is possible to resolve the contradiction in the words of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel by correcting the later beraita as follows:

The whole of it,

the entire later beraita,

was taught according to the position of

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel

.

And there is something חסר

in the words of the beraita,

and this is what it teaches

in it:

From here, the Sages based the virgin woman's ketuba

of two hundred zuz, which

is from the Torah.

But

a widow's ketuba

or that of a woman who has already had intercourse and marries another husband,

is not from the words of the Torah but from the words of the Scribes—

For Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: A widow's ketuba—

is not from the words of the Torah but from the words of the Scribes.

And now the Gemara brings two cases in which the husband claimed, “I found an open opening,” and what was instructed concerning it:

a. An incident involving

a certain

man who married a virgin

who came before Rav Naḥman,

and

said to him: “I found an open opening.”

Rav Naḥman said to them,

to the agents of the court appointed to administer lashes to those liable for lashes:

“Give him palm branches,”

lash him with palm branches!

For how could he have come to recognize and know what an “open opening” is?

Apparently, the prostitutes of this city, called

Mavrakhta,

have been striking it for him, lying before him, until he became expert in an open opening.

And therefore he should be lashed for brazenly making a claim in court that is based on his experience through fornication.

And we refute this:

But it was Rav Naḥman who said

above in the name of Shmuel in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar [at the beginning of the folio] that he is

trustworthy

to claim, “I found an open opening.” And it follows that his claim is accepted, and he is not lashed!?

And we answer: Indeed, he is

trustworthy

in his words that he found an open opening,

but

nevertheless

we give him palm branches,

we lash him with palm branches for having made this claim on the basis of his experience in fornication.

Whereas

Rav Aḥai resolves

the contradiction in the words of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel as follows:

Here it is referring to a bachelor,

and he is lashed, because a bachelor is not expert in this, and he is lashed for brazenly coming before the court and making a claim based on the experience he acquired through his fornication.

Here it is referring to a married man,

who is expert in this by virtue of marital relations, and he is trustworthy and is not lashed.

b.

A certain man who came before Rabban Gamliel said

to him: “I found an open opening.”

He said to him: “Perhaps you deviated”

to the side during intercourse, and therefore you did not feel the pressure in that place when you opened the opening?

I shall give you a parable. To what is this comparable?

To a person who was walking in the blackness of night and darkness,

and reached the closed entrance of his house, and at the entrance there was something obstructing direct entry through it, but if one tilts the obstructing object to the side, one can afterward enter through the opening without obstruction.

And therefore, if unknowingly the person

tilted

the obstructing object to the side—

he

found

the opening

open,

and could enter through it without obstruction.

But if he

did not tilt

the object that obstructs entry—he

found it locked,

and until he tilts the obstructing object to the side, he cannot enter.

And so too you: It is possible that unknowingly you tilted at the beginning of intercourse to the side, and thereby opened the opening, and afterward you were able to enter through it without obstruction and pressure. Therefore, it seems to you that the opening was already open at the beginning of intercourse.

Some say:

It is not common for a person to have intercourse with a deviation without intending to deviate. Rather,

this is what he said to him:

“Perhaps you deliberately deviated,

at the beginning of intercourse,

and

then

you uprooted the grass and the crossbar?” [

It is a parable: You uprooted the door at once together with its bolt.]

That is, perhaps you intended at the beginning of intercourse to have intercourse with a deviation to the side and with force, in which case the opening was opened through the forceful sideways deviation, and later in the intercourse you again did not feel pressure; therefore it seemed to you that her opening had been open before intercourse.

I shall give you a parable. To what is this comparable?

To a person who is walking in the blackness of night and darkness,

and reached his house, and there was something obstructing his entry at the opening—

If he

deliberately

tilted

to the side

with force the object obstructing him from entering, he

found

the opening

open.

But if he

did not deliberately tilt it—he

found

the opening

locked.

And now the Gemara brings several cases in which a man came and claimed that he had not found blood during the first intercourse:

a.

A certain man who came before Rabban Gamliel son of Rabbi

said to him: “My teacher, I had intercourse and did not find blood.”

She said to him: “My teacher, I was a virgin

when he had intercourse with me.”

He said to them: “Bring me that cloth,”

the garment upon which she had intercourse!

They brought him the cloth, soaked it in water, washed it, and found several drops of blood on it.

He said to him: “Go; you have merited your purchase.”

Huna Mar, son of Rava of Parzika, said to Rav Ashi: “We, too, should do this!”

Let us wash the tablecloth from the dirt upon it, to ascertain whether there is blood in it.