Ketubot 10: Proving virginity after the fact; The power of dates

A number of interesting points raised in today's daf incude:

• men won't claim a petach petuach, an open opening, lightly after preparing/paying for the three day wedding feast
• on payment of the Ketuba:
• rabbis debate whether women should be given 200 dinars as it is valued in different places or in the place where it was promised
• women are given the least valuable property unless it is contracted otherwise (which is standard in modern ketubot)
• 100 dinars offered to a widow may be Torah law or may be rabbinic law - depends upon whom we ask
• a man who claims petach petuach is only credible if he was previously married
• if he is single, he doesn't know what intercourse feels like and he is hurting his wife's name
• he may have used some force and not noticed the hymen
• if he is single and claims to know what a petach petuach feels like, then he has been with prostitutes and he is subject to lashes
• when a woman claims that she is a virgin, the rabbis can subject her to demeaning tests
• if she sits on a barrel of wine, a woman who has had intercourse will breathe out alcoholic vapour
• if she claims she is from a family like that of the Dorketi, she may not bleed nor menstruate, resulting in difficulties with conception
• if she (or the chatan) were malnourished or otherwise ill, they might not bleed or be able to have intercourse

I have a logical question related to these virginity tests: if a man has intercourse with his kalah and he claims a petach petuach, that means that he completed the act of intercourse.  Thus any test after that point in time will concur -- she is no longer a virgin.  She might never bleed again; her hymen might not ever stretch or break again.  How could any test affirm her previous virginity after that first act of intercourse?

We begin a new, short Mishna.  It teaches that a virgin kalah is promised 200 dinars while a widow is promised 100 dinars.  However, a virgin who is also a widow, a divorcee or a chalutza (one who was released from yibum, levirate marriage), is promised 200 dinars.  This is because her virginity is still worth that higher price.

The Gemara analyzes in detail the etymology and the possible meanings of a number of words in the Mishna, Of interest to me is a conversation about dates as a powerful food.  We are told not to make halachic rulings after eating dates or drinking (one quarter log of) alcohol.  The rabbis believe that dates are considered to be filling and also a laxative.  We learn that dates are good to eat in the morning and evening, but not in the afternoon.  When eaten at noon, however, dates have the power to curb negative thoughts, intestinal discomfort, and hemorrhoids.  They warm, satiate, loosen the bowels, and strengthen, but they do not pamper.  And close to the end of today's daf, we learn one of Abaye's "mother's" pieces of advice: dates eaten before bread are like an axe to a palm leaf.  Dates eaten after eating bread are like a bolt on a door.